There was no demo released for the Xbox 360, PS3 or PC versions of the video game Grand Theft Auto IV. An insider at Rockstar Games claimed when asked about releasing a demo he responded, "I'm sure there won't be. If there was we would have talked about it. With a game like this the guys at Rockstar North will want to spend every minute making the game look great. Most people know the concept of GTA anyway. I don't know that the demo is worth the time and effort."http://www.videogamer.com/news/no_gta_4_demo.html One of the concerns was that in order to create a playable demo, the release would have to include a large portion of Liberty City, and Rockstar Games did not want to do this.

Not releasing a demo may have helped the initial sales of the game. Grand Theft Auto 4 broke all video game opening week records, selling over 6 million copies in its first week. The record not only smashed video game records, but also movie and music sale records.http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/05/08/gta.sales/index.html Gamespot awarded GTA IV a rating of "10" and an Editor's Choice pick.http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/grandtheftauto4/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary%3Bread-review

Grand Theft Auto IV is the ninth title in the long-running Grand Theft Auto series. Its redesigned Liberty City is based on four of the boroughs of New York City and parts of New Jersey. While the total map area is smaller than that of San Andreas, the newly designed Liberty City is far more detailed and the largest individual city in the Grand Theft Auto series. The game follows Niko Bellic, an Eastern European immigrant who immigrates to Liberty City to live "the American Dream" at the urging of his cousin Roman.

While a single player can run through the basic storyline of the game, GTA IV's main attractions are the huge number of side story lines that can be followed and the multi-player functionality. The player does not have to blindly follow instructions from in-game characters, and there could be positive or negative consequences to those actions.