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[nikos]

I'd take Midnight Club 5 over RDR, no question.

 

[Perrott]

So I wonder, hypothetically what would have made more money in the same period of time:

What we got with GTA: Online and RDR2

OR what we didnt get: GTA DLC, Bully 2, Midnight Club 5 and a Smaller Scale RDR2.

GTA V/Online has brought T2 way over 10 billion dollars in revenue by now.

On the other hand, GTA V DLCs, Midnight Club 5, Bully 2 and a RDR2 with half the budget would have barely crossed the 2B mark by now.

Y'all remember that Rockstar's last non-GTA/RDR game, Max Payne 3, bombed hard.

 

[mckmas8808]

Don't get me wrong, I disagree with Benz's incessant need for online, but you can't argue with the financial results of it. It made Rockstar a truck load of money. With that said, I do hope that we get GTAVI single-player DLC in the future. Especially with how GTAVI looks already, it's shaping up to be one of the best games of the year in 2025 (if it comes out then).

If GTA 6 doesn't have single-player DLC, I'd but 1000% shocked. Just look at Cyberpunk 2077's DLC for instance. Why would Rockstar NOT want that extra money 3 years after GTA 6 is released?

For a company like Rockstar with a seller like GTA V, I think the "but online makes them a lot of money, so I understand the shark cards" argument doesn't count. It's not like they were a struggling small developer before online. It's more like a "Now I want 10 yachts and two planes instead of one" motivation, which I find disappointing for some guys who put so much love in their SP games to do so half-hearted low effort stuff for the online money making machine.

 

[Hypereides]

Its incredible how much GTAOnline creatively stunted this company. Gone are the days of us seeing something like State of emergency (haters gonna hate), The warriors or Midnight club again. I miss when Rockstar did a boatload of "bad boy" games.

GTA V/Online has brought T2 way over 10 billion dollars in revenue by now.

On the other hand, GTA V DLCs, Midnight Club 5, Bully 2 and a RDR2 with half the budget would have barely crossed the 2B mark by now.

Y'all remember that Rockstar's last non-GTA/RDR game, Max Payne 3, bombed hard.

And, in retrospect, that was absolutely unjust. I played it for the first time about two years ago and was mega impressed. Gameplay-wise, its an one of kind TPS. Took what Remedy did, then expanded and built upon it.

 

[Lupin25]

Rockstar and GTA/O have been a gift and a curse to console gaming for years

On one hand it's supports the younger gens who love GTA5/O & GaaS in general
On the other hand, og fans who remember those high-output ps2/ps3 days, even if they enjoy GTA5, know it's being milked and have been ready to move on.

Compared to then, it's such a reduction in varied content over the years. It's been over 6 years since RDR2
GTA 6, BioShock 4, and whatever else is cooking was and is sorely needed.

 

[Yoboman]

You can. Have you ever played RDR2?

1 game a generation from the studio that gave us

PS360
GTA4
GTA4 Lost and the Damned
GTA4 Ballad of Gay Tony
Midnight Club LA
Red Dead Redemption
RDR Undead Nightmare
GTA Chinatown Wars
LA Noire
Max Payne 3
GTA5

 

[Perrott]

1 game a generation from the studio that gave us

PS360
GTA4
GTA4 Lost and the Damned
GTA4 Ballad of Gay Tony
Midnight Club LA
Red Dead Redemption
RDR Undead Nightmare
GTA Chinatown Wars
LA Noire
Max Payne 3
GTA5

You forgot Table Tennis

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

1 game a generation from the studio that gave us

PS360
GTA4
GTA4 Lost and the Damned
GTA4 Ballad of Gay Tony
Midnight Club LA
Red Dead Redemption
RDR Undead Nightmare
GTA Chinatown Wars
LA Noire
Max Payne 3
GTA5

Most of those are either DLC packs or games made by external partners.

Also: games were orders of magnitude smaller back then, and took far less time to make. And that's not just a Rockstar thing. Which we all already know.

 

[Yoboman]

Most of those are either DLC packs or games made by external partners.

Also: games were orders of magnitude smaller back then, and took far less time to make. And that's not just a Rockstar thing. Which we all already know.

Whats your point? Half the complaint is we didn't even get the planned expansions for GTA5. The gen before they pumped those out in addition to new games

You forgot Table Tennis

Wasn't that original Xbox?

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Which we all already know.

some people conveniently forget about it.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

RDR2 and GTA6 wouldn't have been what it was without GTA online, it's just a fact. The amount of motion capture used in RDR2 is probably the equivalent of 10 TV seasons, it's absurd. And they're spending even more on GTA6, simply because they can now. You can say it's just simply for the money, but it's very evident that money is being used for betterment of their SP products, therefore the shark cards have a payoff for us too, not just for a bunch of men in suits.

GTAV sold something obscene like 200m copies.

It continues to sell today. Even without GTA online pushing vbucks, GTAV sales alone would have been more than enough.

The continuous, consistent boxed games sales GTAV has generated alone dwarf GaaS revenues generated by something like the bottom 80% of all GaaS games.

 

[phant0m]

And still no 60fps patch.

Plays at 100fps on my PC.

 

[Woggleman]

I have accepted the fact that online will still be a part of GTA VI and if it allows them the budget to truly go all out so be it. I just hope they show that they still care about SP because that is what built them as a company. They would be nothing without all the fans who loved the PS2 games.

 

[ReBurn]

Wasn't that original Xbox?

Nope, 360.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Plays at 100fps on my PC.

Does on mine too. Online is hackfest 101 tho.

 

[xrnzaaas]

What always bothers me is even if Rockstar didn't have any manpower left they could've created or bought new studios with the money from GTAO. This could allow to bring back their other IP's as smaller projects.

 

[CuteFaceJay]

The multiplayer portion of GTA 4 never got microtransactions, even thought the multiplayer portion was so limited.
While GTA 5 Online got it at day one in 2013.

Grand Theft Auto Parent Publisher Defends Microtransactions

"We are not in the business of erecting toll booths along the way of gameplay," Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says.

www.gamespot.com

Pretty sure Leslie was working on All GTA's from GTA3 and up. 4's online was actually nice.

 

[Rocco Schiavone]

Pretty sure Leslie was working on All GTA's from GTA3 and up. 4's online was actually nice.

GTA IV was the only GTA I enjoyed playing online.

 

[TVexperto]

this is really the worst timeline

 

[RagnarokIV]

Leslie Benzies - good riddance.

And that new thing he's trying to promote looks fucken awful.

 

[CamHostage]

Its incredible how much GTAOnline creatively stunted this company. Gone are the days of us seeing something like State of emergency (haters gonna hate), The warriors or Midnight club again. I miss when Rockstar did a boatload of "bad boy" games.

State of Emergency was made by VIS Entertainment, and Midnight Club was by Angel/R* San Diego (with some help from Rockstar London on the PSP remix, who also made Manhunt 2.)

The problem here, (if folks read the embedded SynthPotato tweet and understand the timeline,) isn't that Rockstar just bought all in on GTAO. These other projects existed because there was a belief and business plan that they could and should do both... unfortunately, because of internal strife and a lack of direction and an unexpectedly overwhelming increase in manpower to make then-current-gen games, the other projects all had to give way as the only thing paying off while the massive projects like RDR2 and now GTA6.

...The problem is that Rockstar stopped developing a farm league. No more partners like VIS and Team Bondi. No more relationships which turned into subsidiaries like Rockstar San Diego (formerly Angel) and Rockstar Leeds (formerly Mobius, makers of GTA LCS/VCS/CW), also Rockstar London and Rockstar Toronto/Vancouver. They haven't set up the splinter groups and small offices and partner groups who would make the other games outside of GTA which made Rockstar a publisher instead of just a GTA provider. They haven't trusted any relationships with outside studios which could make side-games or DLC or lesser sequels that were prevalent in the PS2/PS3 eras. They've worked with Grove Street Games on GTA/Bully remasters and Video Games Deluxe on LA Noire remaster and a new VR project and Virtuous on some other remasters and Double Eleven on the Switch remasters. None of those external developers have been given much leash to do anything different; arguably none are at a capable scale (or quality, though I like Double Eleven) of making flagship new Rockstar titles, but Rockstar hasn't been actively making any of these anyway.

It makes perfect sense (unfortunately) why GTAO was such a talent vortex for Rockstar studios and why other projects (in a time where new projects in general hit a wall at publisher-owned studios all across the market,) but instead of admitting that they couldn't do it all in-house anymore and letting some new blood in to re-expand the Rockstar brand, they kept course while every other vessel but the mothership GTAO.RDRO and the other huge GTA/RDR battleships sunk. And in this time of consolidations and studio closures, I wouldn't be confident that things could change once GTA6 finally ships and clears the docket.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Money machine goes brr

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

Pretty much what everyone with a fraction of a brain cell has been saying for years, GTA online has been the death of rockstar and their games. Who suggested the other day that gta6 won't have online? You're nuts.

It will. Just prolly not til after launch and they'll just roll GTA Online into it