The ‘trailer’ for Rockstar’s GTA 5 Expanded & Enhanced landed this week, and it was a shocker which confirmed many community suspicions – they are trying to milk this to death at any cost.
Without wasting too much time on the trailer (which didn’t tell us anything new accept “we’re running late”) the sum up of it was:
- With ‘GTA 5 Expanded & Enhanced’ expected in less than 2 months, this was clearly a vessel for Rockstar to say they have to postpone again, to the surprise of few. New ETA is March 2022 (take with a grain of salt as usual).
- Reused same old footage from existing game and labelled it “enhanced”. This was immediately called out by the community.
- Claimed features that existed for over 8 years are ‘new’, further insulting the audience.
- Basically said nothing else.
The community responded with unprecedented fury, with a flurry of criticism coming through social media.
Bigger Picture
The multi-billion dollar company has long since been comfortable in their monopoly. But over the years the criticism of milking GTA5 to death became stronger and stronger. It has been over 8 years, since the game was released in the days of Xbox360 and the PS3! Instead of building backward compatibility, they now want players to buy the game again for the next generation of consoles. Despite that same community making this game the biggest money maker in the industry’s history.
The Dog in the Manger
Due to the monopoly they hold, they had 8 years of getting away with very little updates to the game. Lacklustre effort to fix glaring bugs for example was common. When revenues start slowing, they will create a few new vehicles or a property instead of ever trying to improve the overall experience. Fixing major bugs, improving UI, improving graphics, working towards cross-play, minimising hacker activity or trying to expand the world – they didn’t have to do it, so they didn’t. None of that is impossible, as was made evident by the developer community, who have created many beautiful remasters of past GTA games (and now Rockstar and Take Two Interactive are sueing them – trying to kill the work they did).
That’s right, the fans who fixed the problems Rockstar never wanted to touch, are now being sued.
Conclusion
Basically, they (Rockstar and Take Two Interactive) are no longer a group of people passionate about the product. That much has been made obvious. Most of their team from back in 2013 have evaporated.
The fan community will have to continue finding the best new experiences in the GTA world out in the 3rd party world. Which is not a bad thing – there’s already some great projects out there, safe from Rockstar’s lawsuits. Fans have remastered the game so beautifully in ways Rockstar have never even come close (or bothered to try). That hope is always there.
