Someone on Reddit pointed out GTA V's 5-year anniversary is just under a week away (Online is technically at 3 weeks). Anything you guys are hoping Rockstar do to commemorate it? The game is still a chart-topper, so it'd be surprising for Rockstar to not at least acknowledge it with something in the game.
What I'd like them to do (short answer): Fix it.
What I’d like them to do (long answer): Only Rockstar Games & Rockstar North (which I’m going to collectively call Rockstar) know what the state of GTA Online is in...or that’s what they believe. It’s far different from what I believe, which is that Rockstar puts out content without taking into account how it’ll affect everyone else’s playing experience. I don’t even think they’ve stated whether or not they’re working on rebalancing anything or fixing any of the present bugs and glitches - some of which can break GTA Online if left in malicious hands. So if Rockstar is so committed to pushing new content on us on a weekly basis only recently showing some love for some of its older content, (four previously-SP-only vehicles are now available for purchase on GTA Online with reasonable price tags, and there are four more cars that will be getting some new liveries as well. I can only believe that they too will become available for purchase Online.) then why is it so popular with people on Youtube and Twitch?
On April 9, 2018, Mirror.co.uk had an answer to that question, and I think this has already been pointed out earlier here:
“Grand Theft Auto 5 has now made more money than any other film, game or album in the history of entertainment”
And that’s just the headline; I read the brief article, and found that GTA V has sold 90 million worldwide, making $6 billion overall. You would think that if Rockstar clearly had the time on their hands, which they clearly should at some point - they (along with Take-Two Interactive, if their CEO Strauss Zelnick was willing to co-operate with them) would shell out a piece of that $6 billion for overhauled servers, better matchmaking, a brand-new economy, bug fixes, and even graphical overhauls if Rockstar believes they’re necessary.
I also mentioned earlier that the four “new” vehicles released had reasonable price tags; that’s because I believe they would really cost what they're being sold on Southern San Andreas Super Autos for as in real life. This is partly thanks to their stylized looks, and Rockstar deciding not to extort our wallets for once...which, I guess proves that they do have hearts after all. The Pounder Custom and Mule Custom were also decently priced, I felt. But now comes the part where I ask: “When did this change happen? Why did Rockstar, all of a sudden, decide not to put seven-digit price tags on some vehicles?” My answer is...no, I don’t think Rockstar are turning over a new leaf. My theory as to why, is they just wanted to bring some of the SP vehicles to Online, and those price tags are holdovers from September 2013 - never implemented in single player, and when Heists came out, they abandoned that idea altogether. So why does the Jester Classic - an homage to one of the most famous JDM cars of all time - cost just under $800,000? Why does the Michelli GT cost $1,225,000, when its looks suggest that it wouldn’t even sell for $80,000? I can sum this information up in one word. I’d say it myself, but...
...From USGamer.net, comes a piece from Zack Zweisen titled:
“GTA Online Has an Inflation Problem”
I don’t just believe this story; we can confirm this for ourselves with some imagery. Look at this first:
Okay, that doesn’t seem too bad. But then you go on the page of the article, open this image, and see what’s at the end of the URL of this image: “...First-5-updates-.png” In other words, that average cost of a road vehicle only covers every vehicle released in vanilla GTA V, and the first five updates for GTA Online.
Today, $233,000 per car on average is not a bad target to hit. I find this to be a very good target. But I felt the prices of vehicles started to inflate in 2015, when the Heists update launched. Let’s see...we got an old truck with a machine gun on it (the Technical) that’s worth almost a million dollars, when now that I think about it, should cost a fraction of its current price tag. There’s also a street bike with KERS (the Lectro) worth $750,000, which I also feel should cost a fraction of that. Other than those two, I can’t think of any vehicle that should be less expensive than it is now...except maybe the Kuruma, but not its Armored bretheren. Then the Further Advances in Finance and Felony update was released, and I began seeing what little fuel GTA Online had been running on. The metaphorical tank wasn’t out of gas, but the updates serve as small refuels that did come when Rockstar needed them. FAFF gave us the X80 Proto, a $2.7 million prototype hypercar that looked every bit that it was worth, and it especially shows in its track performance and straight-line speed. Then the Cunning Stunts update came after, and we got three race cars - all of them looking like they’re not as cheap as they should be (the least expensive of them was a hair under $2 million). However, I can totally believe that those three vehicles would have 7-digit price tags, especially the RE-7B which is a Group C race car. Almost none of the standard land vehicles looked like they were worth what their actual price tags are, especially the Lynx which underperforms in its class and has a $1.7 million+ price just to spite that. More updates kept coming, and I soon realized that Rockstar wasn’t going to step down from that high horse it had mounted in 2014. You do have to wonder if they were even aware of this problem in 2017...and if they were aware, if they even cared to do anything about it at all. (That said, I do believe that they nailed some of the hypercars, including the Nero, Vagner, 811, Entity XF and GP1 - they look like they’re worth their respective prices - and not several hundred thousand dollars more, and especially so considering their performance on the road.)
Then the Gunrunning update happened...then Smuggler’s Run happened...then Doomsday Heist happened, which introduced the griefer’s number one weapon to us all in the Orbital Cannon. That tool, in the facility, makes me very nervous in a Public session - I never know who owns a facility, and who’s going to be insane enough to blow all of their money on having the upper hand while playing as dirty as possible. Half a million a shot, kids! Have fun! Or you could just do the MTU glitch and force yourself to be alone, which is the safest way to play GTA Online right now. Even Rockstar has to admit that several lines have been crossed with their current model when people with spending issues believe this is predatory (that is, if they say anything about this practice at all), and that one person wishes they could have spent their real money wiser:
Zack Zwiezen
One Reddit user and GTA Online fan I spoke to, Aleomagic, admitted to spending around $2.5k in real money buying Shark Cards. Aleomagic doesn't believe anyone needs to spend money in GTA Online to play it, but Rockstar is tempting players often to purchase cards. “The game definitely encourages you to buy them,” says Aleomagic. “[Players receive] phone calls, emails, and pop-ups in-game always interrupting you to buy new stuff, which is extremely expensive.” While Aleomagic doesn’t regret spending the money, he does understand he could have spent it on more useful things. He also explains that he too feels GTA Online has an inflation problem. “[In-game] pricing is constantly going up compared to when it first came out,” says Aleomagic. “Things are now very overpriced, but I guess it's a downside to the constant free updates.”
Now look at this ****:
Judging from the above image...Aleomagic, if you’re reading this, I completely agree with you. GTA Online is doing everything it can to get you to buy a Megalodon, without a care in the world for what you’re saving up for, if anything. FYI, I recently bought a Comet SR with in-game money, and I don’t regret it. Yes, I could have spent $25 on a Shark card, but I value what I spend my real money on. I would feel terrible buying a Shark card (especially the Megalodon), and I know for a fact that there are much better things that you - the person reading this, and you - Aleomagic could have spent your money on.
Zack also compared the Turismo R to the Retinue in
this image. The Turismo R, I can live with it costing $500,000 because it looks like something you’d pay $500,000 for. The Retinue, I feel should be around 8% to 12% of the $615,000 it costs. Shouldn’t these prices reflect what the car might cost, if it were to be sold in real life? This is my general philosophy for a good economy in a game that has cars in it, and that’s why I feel GT Sport (despite throwing in microtransactions because I don’t know why) is my personal gold standard of a good economy in a game where you can buy cars and stock up a collection. I definitely believe that GTA Online’s economy should at least reflect their “real world” costs (in brackets because obvious reasons), and the fact that they’ve stopped doing so has led me to believe that GTA Online has a serious inflation problem. I’m seeing this in spades, not just with the above 2014-2018 comparison image, but also with the $1.6 million+ Flash GT - that vehicle shouldn’t have a 7-digit price tag on it! That should cost $250,000 at the most. There’s also the Savestra, Fagaloa, 190z, Rapid GT Classic, and the aforementioned Michelli GT. None of these vehicles should cost what they’re worth. If anything they should cost ~$30,000 to $90,000.
There’s also the addendum:
We have reached out to Rockstar for comment on GTA Online's inflation, and will update this article if they respond.
Zack wrote the article was written on July 20th of this year. To my knowledge's extent, Rockstar and Take-Two have made no comment on the matter as of now.
I feel like AAA game publishers and developers have a motto they should be living up to. That motto should be “customer satisfaction over self-righteousness”, not “money over everything”. But we live in a world where AAA publishers live by the motto “money over everything”. It’s gotten to the point where EA is willing to go to court because the Belgian Gaming Commission had ordered them to remove loot boxes from FIFA 19, and EA refused to comply and is willing to go to court to keep them in - obviously thinking gambling mechanics in an E-rated game is something sensible when it’s really not. Are loot boxes THAT much of a key ingredient to FIFA’s “winning formula”? And if they’re not, why are they even in there to begin with? I think we’ve hit the point where the individual EA Sports games are no longer video games that can be enjoyed by everyone; they’re sports in and of themselves. Career and Season modes are nonexistent, create-a-player sucks, and the Ultimate Team mode is now the main focus of the sport, all masquerading as a product of entertainment.
Sorry for going off-topic (and for focusing on the in-game prices for so long), but I just wanted to get my point across: GTA V has made well more than enough money for R* & T2. The time’s come for them to focus on the “everything” part. They should bolster Online without worrying one iota about how much money they’re going to make this week...or the next week...and so on...and so forth.
I have my own theory, apart from the inflation, which is why GTA Online is making so much money: Tryhards. We know them, they make us mad, they don’t understand what fair play is, (or if they do, they think that everything dirty is “okay when they do it”) they seem to only do things because the game tells them to, and they don’t seem to understand why people hate them so much.
I say they don’t understand what fair play is, because I think they appear to be using the early 2000s-Mr. McMahon definition of the word “fair”, meaning they can target anyone at will and that every dirty tactic they employ is only okay when they and what little friends they have are using them. Sure it's all done "in the interest of fairness", but what they don't realize is that they're only being fair to themselves.
Sometimes they go after lower-rank players and prey on them to further their own K/D ratio. And all of this (and more, which I don’t have the patience to put here) without even taking into consideration or bothering to do any research on CSGO and COD tournaments, as well as finding tips to improve in GTA Online (that is, at PvP combat) without resorting to dirty tactics. Or maybe they’ve got it in their heads that you have no competitive edge over anyone unless you buy an Orbital Cannon, an Oppressor Mk II, and a Heavy Sniper Mk II with explosive rounds. And no, I'm not counting their "trash talk" as a weapon. Of course, I could mess around with these kinds of players, but I’m not very good with aiming a gun with a PS4 controller. Notice I didn't mention using a modded menu on PC, because why would anyone develop such a tool that lets you skip everything, and mess with anyone at will in God-mode? Then again, maybe I don't know much about them in person, because I do my best to stay away from them as much as possible. But the fact that we even have to use a glitch to get into a public solo lobby, just to get away from these people...makes me sick. Right to my 🤬 stomach.
Around August, I decided I'd had enough of everything wrong with GTA Online, but I refuse to give up on it. I want to enjoy hanging out with total strangers, I want to enjoy an impromptu 20-person house party, I want to enjoy hanging out with you, (that is, the GTPlanet crew) and I want to enjoy all of this without someone nailing me with a laser beam from space, stalking me with a fighter jet or tank, or hitting me with a denial of service attack, booting me out of the session because I refused to come out of whatever building I was in and play outside with them. I am sick of other people experiencing hell day in and day out, of people having to put up with one of the worst grinds in AAA gaming history, and of the servers going down whenever they feel like it. I feel like something has got to change. I don’t speak of a minor change in one update, I’m referring to just about everything related to GTA Online’s economy, servers and matchmaking improved to the ridiculously high standard set by the single-player experience.
...And I think I’ve come up with a way to do it that’ll make everyone happy.
It’s a mega patch I’m currently working on, called “Grand Theft Auto Online: Damage Control”. It’s a very rough work in progress and is far from finished, but you can look at what I have so far: I've attached it to this post, but you'll need a PDF viewer. And by all means; if you feel there’s anything that isn’t necessary, bloats the document, needs to be added, or (for some reason) is too generous, please do not hesitate in PMing me. And seeing as Zelnick would like to have a “recurrent consumer spending” model across all of T2’s games going forth, I’ve decided (as one compromise for everything the update offers) to keep the Shark cards as well, but I’ve heavily inflated what’s given to you to adjust for all the crap that’s been added since 2013. Why? Because if I’m going to pay for a card (not that I have any plans to, nor will make any plans to), that purchase should at least live up to the negative reputation of microtransactions in that they should let you skip most of the grind to get what you want, rather than skip a fraction of the grind to get the what want. In other words, I’d like to pay way less real money than I should for most of the content in an update. And also, money should be much easier to earn.
...I didn’t say I expect this to work, because while I’m convinced Rockstar CAN fix Grand Theft Auto Online, and improve it in ways that help to remind people of GTA IV’s multiplayer, with all of the same features there...in my personal opinion, most people are convinced that they WON’T. This mega patch exists to outline what I think they would do, IF they decide that the long hours spent at their computers implementing this overhaul is going to be worth the long-term satisfaction we get out of playing it.
When I said “fix it”, I was referring to a mega patch because I really do believe GTA Online is in desperate need of one. You’d think Rockstar would have caught on to every one of our complaints by now, and worked on something
What I'm thinking they're going to do: Announce a crossover update with Red Dead Redemption 2.
P.S. I can’t wait for Everywhere, Leslie.
