

“You’d be lucky to stay in a single server for more than an hour before it crashed, which prompted Rockstar to release the “We’re sorry” stimulus package of $500,000 in game dollars.” Certain overpowered vehicles like the LAZER Jet and Rhino Tank would lay waste to new players – setting the scene for years of over-the-top “ griefing” – “but the ultimate problem on GTA Online’s launch was the lack of any meaningful content.”įor years, gamers found it nearly pointless playing the game – grinding in GTA Online to accumulate cash, weapons and cars – with no real payoff in terms of story progression or gameplay, says Isaac. “The launch of GTA Online was an absolute mess,” says Isaac.
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Early reviews praised the story mode, but slated Online as something that should’ve been framed as an open beta, but instead promoted itself as game ready and then, promptly, broke.Ī free add-on, it probably did not have any positive impact on initial sales, says David Cole, principal analyst at gaming industry researchers DFC intelligence. It can be easy to forget for fans who have spent years in the Online game since last touching the storyline, but GTA Online was initially a bust. Isaac, 19, has played it since the start, one of group who got their hands on the game as a tween and are now college-age: “Although the cultural satire has aged, the gamification of Los Santos has turned a realistic interpretation of LA into more of a backdrop to the chaos of flying Deloreans, hovering bikes and tanks in the city, biker gangs roaming the northern parts of San Andreas, with James Bond villain bunkers scattering the countryside laying dormant with weapon labs and government technology.” Liam recently joined an in-game stunt flying crew with another redditor, Jordan, and says: “The game keeps me interested in the friends I’ve made.”.

But numbers playing on Steam – just a fraction of the total across all platforms – hit 260,000 playing at one time in February (its highest total since the first month it debuted on PC.)ĭespite a reputation for random amoral violence, GTA has endured because of the rolling updates that have found new ways to provide freeform opportunities for people to connect, says Liam, one of the moderators of the subReddit r/GTAOnline, which has nearly 800,000 subscribers.

Rockstar is typically tight-lipped about how many players that actually is, beyond labelling it a “record”.
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Around the turn of the year, GTA broke its own record for most players in a month, according to the studio, with thousands joining during lockdown as the PC version of the game was given away free on Epic Games Store in May. In 2020, the number of players actually logging in each month has actually grown, even outstripping developer Rockstar’s more recent competitor Red Dead Online.
