GTA 6 is going to be a shitshow. Everything from Rockstar/Take-Two over the last couple years is screaming this.
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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I think the singleplayer, aka the important bit, is going to be good. Leaks looked pretty promising. Probably not going to be as revolutionary as people expect after 10+ years of hype and speculation, but still probably a top tier video game surpassing their previous titles in many aspects. Online is probably going to be biggest shitshow of all time, though. Microtransactions, FOMO, subscriptions, battle passes, the works. Every bad thing about games as a service packed into one, with the additional bonus being that Rockstar can't program a multiplayer to save their lives, so it's going to be peer 2 peer, with the shitties netcode and matchmaking possible and absolutely zero protection from hackers. You know, like their last two multiplayers.
GTAO will be the main focus. SP will be an thing due to traditions.
Rockstar Games ALWAYS makes the greatest online shitshow IMO.
If any game dev wants to know how to make a good multiplayer, just do the opposite of Rockstar lmao
GTA as a service with monthly subscriptions to every single thing you can think of
Only $9.99 to unlock the sixth star!
GTA+ subscription required to unlock a bigger wallet and carry more than 1000$
Is anyone else finding themselves less excited for a GTA now that the Housers have both left Rockstar? I really worry the over the top satire of American culture by Scottish writers may be lost.
I keep saying that there's not really anything left for this series to say or do... Unless they go to a whole new country or time period (RDR is this)
Well, aside from the old 2D London expansion they've never gone prior to the 80s, a 70s game could be fun.
Then again, it's not like the US hasn't had plenty to satarise since V came out in 2013, but as others have pointed out a lot of the groups wouldn't take it in good humour any more. It would either be described as a woke commie simulator or fash adjacent
Dan Houser and Lazlow (the guy responsible for all of the amazing radio ads and talk shows) both only left very recently (relatively speaking) and likely did a big share of writing for the game before that. And Sam Houser is still there, isn't he?
Fair dos, don't know where I got the impression they both left from.
Also: The world has become super toxic regarding basically everything mocked in GTA. I highly doubt GTA 6 will be even a bit like previous versions. It will end up as toned-down unironically "woke" cashgrab. To me, GTA ended with GTA V.
Or we could just wait for the game to have actual trailers/gameplay or even wait untill it's released before we start saying the game is shit. We don't even know anything about it yet.
NO! We base our opinions on rumours and hearsay nowadays!
Yeah, the fact that so many element of society have no sense of humour about themselves or the capability for self-deprecation anymore won't help.
I don't imagine it will even be "woke", I imagine it will be bland and safe to avoid putting off any of the audience as it will have to recoup a huge development cost.
GTA 6 will inevitably be labelled woke, but I don't think that'll be the issue. I just don't think GTA's humour works nowadays and needs to evolve. Even ignoring the childish poop and sex jokes, writing poignant satire in 2023 simply is a lot harder. I think ultimately Take-Two is just gonna play it safe, take no risks and the end product will be bland as a result. Just like the new Saints Row.
It's inevitably going to be labelled woke because it has a female protagonist, a non-white female protagonist at that!
Also there was some stuff in the leaks about
spoiler
a right-wing militia which you can encounter and presumably slaughter, kinda like the KKK in RDR2, so expect Ben Shapiro to get upset about that
I don't think GTA6 is gonna be quite where they play it safe just yet, their brand recognition relies too much on crass satire of America. The Saints Row Reboot also totally flopped financially, so I don't think anybody is going to take them as inspiration. I think the execs are just smart enough to know why GTA sells.
GTA 6 is really set up for failure. There's so many expectations from gamers after all these years with no new installment. Nevertheless, I hope to be wrong about this. GTA games are always a fun sandbox to me, and hopefully GTA 6 manages to get that part right once again.
It will be the most expensive game in history, with a reputed development budget of around $2 billion. Anyone can do the math and realize that it would have to sell in ridiculous numbers to make that up. If it doesn't capture the magic of past GTA releases, it will be a massive money loser.
There's close to zero chance that GTA VI doesn't make $2B.
That's grossing $2 billion. But they'll still lose money at that point. They will have to net $2 billion, which won't happen until they sell like $4 billion or more.
Assuming that their revenue only came from boxed sales and not the behemoth that is GTA Online, they gross $2B with under 30M copies sold. GTA V has, to date, sold a little shy of 200M copies. GTA VI will be fine. In fact, GTA V made so much money that if they pissed away $2B on GTA VI and it sold zero copies, the company would still be fine. They've been making half a billion in profit per year for a long time now.
Actually no. They probably did not gross $2 billion until they sold around 40-50 million copies.
GTA6 will have to fully match the success of GTA5 to be a success. That is the risk here.
No, it actually doesn't, and I outlined why in the comment you replied to. In fact, I just checked what GTA V did sales-wise, and that 30M copies sold was passed in its first six weeks. It brought in $2B in its first six months. Of course GTA VI is going to do that again, regardless of what it does in subsequent years. And this is still not factoring in the revenue that GTA Online brings in. It doesn't have to be anywhere close to being as successful as GTA V in order to make back the $2B they spent making it.
Not everything sold at full price. By six month, it was probably closer to 50M. GTA Online has a much higher cost basis. It is not a magic trick to generate free cash. Again, they need to NET $2 billion, not gross $2 billion.
Again, GTA6 really has to match the success of GTA5 or else it will lose money. You don't know if it can.
The first evidence I can find of a sale for GTA V was in 2015, over a year after launch, and the first price cut appears to be in mid-2018, five years after launch, meaning that they could continue to sell copies at that $60 for five straight years without much extra motivation for consumers. Whatever you think you the cost basis is for GTA Online, it is still a pittance compared to what they'll bring in.
You don't know if it can.
Funny then that you seem to know that this is some enormous risk instead of probably the safest investment a video game company has ever made.
It did not sell at full price everywhere.
And again, it has to NET $2 billion, not gross. You are simply deceiving yourself if you think it is guaranteed to make money.
Hey, feel free to put some money on the line and call me a fortune teller when this game comes out profitable. Nothing is guaranteed, but a new GTA game, especially after GTA V, is about the closest thing to guaranteed success you'll see in this industry.
I’m expecting they will introduce some online service like GTA Online along with a slew of micro transactions to make up the budget. I can’t really say why but I’m getting the feeling this will be a always-online game
That's lifetime budget, so including all marketing and development after release as well
I think everyone will be fine with a slightly improved GTA V set in Florida / Miama. One of the protagonists is also a thirst trap latina and the gameplay mechanics in the leak seemed nice. Like with read dead but improved.
Imagine the satire you could put in a new GTA game set in Florida these days.
Plus, where does this franchise really have left to go?
It doesn't even really have to go anywhere except having new characters in a new city. There aren't a ton of crime story settings in video games these days, let alone GTA's brand of it.
I mean, personally I don't care about the story or anything. If I can just mess around in a big fancy sandbox like all the other GTA games then it'd good for me. But GTA 6 has big expectations to contend with, so they're gonna aim high. There's the chance that they mess that up, either with scummy monetization or DRM, or by releasing a trainwreck of a game. Or they fck it up by releasing a soulless game like Saints Row did
Unrelated but: I fucking hate the sentence: "before the end of the next year." Just say: "next year"!
Fiscal year goes up to march 2025. It's easier to write "before the end of the next fiscal year" than "next year after March or in the first three months of the year after next"
I think I read over the word: fiscal. Good for pointing it out!
As long as they can continue milking GTA Online there won't be a GTA 6, and if there will be a GTA 6 it most likely will be online-first.
This comment is a little silly imo. There already is a GTA6. It's been leaked in a playable form and we already know some of the storyline. The marketing machine has already started ramping up.
And 6 is obviously gonna have its own Online. And as somebody who was very active in the GTA Online space until a few months ago, they're hitting the limit on what they can cram into this decade old game without it just crumbling under its own weight. Like, genuinely, the engine is struggling.
[GTA 6 has] been leaked in a playable form
You mean that crude alpha test code? I would't say GTA 6 was leaked in a playable form, but hey 🙃
It compiled, and you could run around. That's 'playable' in my opinion. Playable is the baseline, i.e. you can play it, but why would you want to. Bad Rats or Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing are also playable, and those are complete experiences.
You clearly have a different opinion on what "playable" means. But yes, in this case it's "playable", I guess.