On September 24, 2026, Rockstar Games opened pre-orders for The Goodtime State – Vice City Collection, a $399.99 box of Grand Theft Auto VI merchandise. It does not include the game. Within 24 hours, a 3D artist had already modelled and printed its centrepiece figure. Within 48 hours, the STL files were public.

The item in question is Macca the Gator, the pink, joint-toking, “flamingo blood martini”-sipping mascot of an in-game television show. Rockstar’s version is a vinyl figure on a “Vice City” branded base with a twist-open compartment for stashing small items. Fans looked at the price, looked at the figure, and reached for their slicers — and the whole episode has become the clearest illustration yet of how consumer 3D printing now competes directly with collectible manufacturing.

A $400 Box With No Game in It

The collection’s price is the reason the story exploded. GTA VI launches on November 19, 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S at $79.99 (Standard) and $99.99 (Ultimate), and the physical edition is a code in a box rather than a disc. So the $399.99 Collector’s Box sits alongside the game rather than containing it — roughly four times the price of the Ultimate Edition for merchandise alone.

Comparisons to the Red Dead Redemption 2 collector’s edition, which cost $100 and included a physical map and in-game bonuses, were immediate. The bundle reportedly sold out anyway, though Rockstar’s store still lists it as available for pre-order.

What’s Actually in the Box

According to the official Rockstar Store listing, the collection contains eleven items: the Macca the Gator figure, a pair of matte-black Oakley Frogskins, a Leonida Keys crossbody bag, a New Era 9FORTY snapback, a Macca magnetic mirror, a Chunkee the Manatee shot glass, a Vice City swizzle spoon, a razor blade keychain, an enamel pin set in a metal tin, a sticker pack in a stash bag, and a double-sided souvenir poster with a map of Leonida.

Of that list, only one item has a shape that can be reproduced on a desktop machine at home — and that is exactly the item people wanted most. The sunglasses, the bag and the apparel are all licensed brand products; the figure is geometry, and geometry is printable.

Printed in a Day, Files Public Within 48 Hours

The first fan print appeared the day after the announcement. X user and 3D artist @JSantiag0rj built a close copy of Macca in a single day, working from little more than pre-release imagery. The artist refined the model in ZBrush, modelled the logo base separately, and cut the tail into its own part because the full figure would not fit on the print bed at the size he wanted.

An Australian user posted their own print shortly afterwards, noting they had saved around $700 AUD and only needed to add paint.

On September 25, a downloadable Macca model went live on Cults3D. The listing includes separate STL files for the figure and its base, recommends printing the roughly 16 cm model in resin, and sits under Cults3D’s open-pricing system — buyers pay the creator whatever they choose instead of $400.

Reactions were split. Some fans praised the workaround; others argued that printing the figure destroys the only thing a collectible has going for it. “Why would you print it if it already lost its main and only purpose, which is rarity?” one user asked on X. Another reply summed up the counter-argument neatly: “This is the coolest thing! I only wanted this [figure], but I wasn’t about to drop $400 to get it.”

What the fan version does not reproduce is the twist-open stash compartment in the official base — a reminder that a printed copy is a shape, not a product.

Why a 16 cm Figure Is Harder Than It Looks

The Macca print is a good example of the constraints that show up on any figurine job, official or otherwise:

• Orientation and overhangs. A standing character has a wide base and thin extremities. Printing vertically keeps the detail on the face but puts the tail, arms and the joint across large overhangs, which need supports.
• Part splitting. As @JSantiag0rj found, a scaled-up figure rarely fits a single build volume. Splitting the tail and base into separate parts is standard practice — and every joint has to be designed to hide its own seam.
• Resin vs. FDM. The Cults3D listing recommends resin for a 16 cm character model, and that is the usual call for smooth organic surfaces at smaller sizes. FDM remains the better choice for larger figures, structural parts, and anything that has to survive being handled or shipped.
• Post-processing. Layer lines, support scars and primer sanding are what separate a print from a finished figure. The Australian maker’s “only needs paint” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Fan Art vs. Counterfeit: Where the Line Sits

The legal position is narrower than the hype suggests. Printing a copy for personal display sits in a grey area that rights holders rarely pursue. Selling it is a different matter. Macca is Rockstar and Take-Two intellectual property, and a commercially marketed replica of a licensed collectible is exactly the scenario that attracts cease-and-desist letters. Cults3D’s pay-what-you-want download was contributed by a third-party designer, not Rockstar.

For anyone running a print business, the practical rule is blunt: print licensed designs only with permission, and for everything else work from customer-supplied or original designs. The technology for making a figure is now cheap. The permission to sell it is not.

What This Episode Says About Custom Figurine Printing

Strip away the GTA branding and the story is a straightforward one about cost and lead time. A fan with consumer equipment and public files went from announcement to finished, painted figure in days, for the cost of a spool and an afternoon. That is the same equation that now drives demand for custom figurines, pet replicas, tabletop miniatures, anime characters and personalised gifts — categories where the value is in the specific object, not in a licensed brand.

Where a print farm still wins is not speed on a single piece. It is consistency across hundreds of them: identical dimensions, identical surface finish, packed to survive international shipping, delivered on a schedule. That is the part a one-off home print does not solve.

How TT3DPrint Can Help

TT3DPrint runs a 220-printer Bambu Lab FDM cluster and produces custom figurines, collectibles, educational models, prototypes and parts in small and mid-size batches. Send us an STL or an idea and we will quote it, print a sample, and handle the post-processing, finishing and worldwide shipping — DHL, FedEx and UPS.

If you have an original character, a licensed product line, or a design that needs to go from file to a shelf-ready batch, our team can take it from there. Contact us for a quote or browse the products page to see what we make.

Conclusion

Rockstar priced a figure at $400 and bundled it with a bag, a hat and a shot glass. A 3D artist priced it at an afternoon’s work. The gap between those two numbers is the clearest case yet for what desktop manufacturing has done to collectibles — and for why the interesting question is no longer whether a figure can be printed, but who has the right to sell it.

Sources: IGN, Insider Gaming, Dexerto, TalkEsport, Maxim, Kotaku, GamesRadar+ and the Rockstar Store listing.