LONG BLOG
Is It True, Rockstar?: Will GTAO Require Real-World Money For In-Game Money?
A Reddit post last night confirmed something I had been dreading - Grand Theft Auto Online may involve a bit of pay-to-win. �
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This is (reportedly) an XML file taken from the game code itself.
Now, this is worrisome on multiple levels - why on Earth would a game that just finished selling a BILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF ENTERTAINMENT SOFTWARE in a mere seventy-two hours need further monetization? �I don't care about what your server costs are, or the $250M dev budget that went into it, the game has already broken every record in every book that has ever been written, and still, they're planning to milk players by using real money to buy game money? �I was always wondering why money was so goddamn scarce - now we might have found out why, and the reason is more than a little sinister considering what the game has already grossed in profit alone.
Secondarily, better cars, armor, guns, hangouts, they'll all be bought with this in-game currency, which means that the people who can afford to drop more real money into the game will have a distinct and unfair advantage, which will risk leaving people who are actually wanting to play the game outright in the cold against overwhelming opposition or far more powerful teams / elements simply because they could afford it in real life. �This basically breaks the community before it even solidifies.
Also - if you kill a player in GTAO, and they drop money they purchased with real funds, and you collect that money, you're stealing their actual money. That's pretty heavy territory.
I don't know if this is true or not. �I don't know if this is how it will actually work. �But all I can say is this: if it is the case, Rockstar done fucked up. �BAD. �And people need to flip their shit over it if this is true, because they already became the most successful videogame publisher of all time, and those sales are still climbing. �There's no motherfucking reason to do this to customers who shelled out that much money.
You give me a free iOS app, it's fun, you want to drop $5 on it, that's one thing - that's their entire profit margin. �Applying this ethos to games that cost $60 or more, however...that's just fucking deplorable. �I pray to every god in the book that this ain't the case, because this sets a bad example for the rest of the industry. For a game that makes a billion dollars in gross sales in less than half a motherfucking week to sell in-game money piecemeal for real-world cash like a game that cost a hundred-thousandth of the money to develop, that's just flat-out wrong.
Everyday Legend 
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This is (reportedly) an XML file taken from the game code itself.
Now, this is worrisome on multiple levels - why on Earth would a game that just finished selling a BILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF ENTERTAINMENT SOFTWARE in a mere seventy-two hours need further monetization? �I don't care about what your server costs are, or the $250M dev budget that went into it, the game has already broken every record in every book that has ever been written, and still, they're planning to milk players by using real money to buy game money? �I was always wondering why money was so goddamn scarce - now we might have found out why, and the reason is more than a little sinister considering what the game has already grossed in profit alone.
Secondarily, better cars, armor, guns, hangouts, they'll all be bought with this in-game currency, which means that the people who can afford to drop more real money into the game will have a distinct and unfair advantage, which will risk leaving people who are actually wanting to play the game outright in the cold against overwhelming opposition or far more powerful teams / elements simply because they could afford it in real life. �This basically breaks the community before it even solidifies.
Also - if you kill a player in GTAO, and they drop money they purchased with real funds, and you collect that money, you're stealing their actual money. That's pretty heavy territory.
I don't know if this is true or not. �I don't know if this is how it will actually work. �But all I can say is this: if it is the case, Rockstar done fucked up. �BAD. �And people need to flip their shit over it if this is true, because they already became the most successful videogame publisher of all time, and those sales are still climbing. �There's no motherfucking reason to do this to customers who shelled out that much money.
You give me a free iOS app, it's fun, you want to drop $5 on it, that's one thing - that's their entire profit margin. �Applying this ethos to games that cost $60 or more, however...that's just fucking deplorable. �I pray to every god in the book that this ain't the case, because this sets a bad example for the rest of the industry. For a game that makes a billion dollars in gross sales in less than half a motherfucking week to sell in-game money piecemeal for real-world cash like a game that cost a hundred-thousandth of the money to develop, that's just flat-out wrong.
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About Everyday Legendone of us since 1:32 PM on 08.24.2009
I am the Everyday Legend, and I am a male, 31-year old Florida native and videogame fan of the most epicurean order. I'm also the father of a very precocious (almost) three-year-old daughter, and a newborn daughter as well!
My natural state: very, very tired.
I got into gaming when I was 5, and my Aunt and Uncle had an NES that they had bought because they thought it was the coolest thing ever. As a matter of fact, they weren't too far off of the mark. I was introduced to Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt (naturally), and soon followed up with the very first Zelda. I remember the very first game I beat by myself - Megaman 2, in 1989. I was six at the time.
Shortly after that, I played Street Fighter II for the first time in a local skating rink and was hooked. Bad. Like, smack-habit bad.
I remember playing against the college kids that would come in there to hang out and chill - there was a lounge connected to the place that you had to be 18 to get in - and a lot of these guys used to come in and spend a ton of time and money on playing SFII. I learned how to play from these guys, and within a year, I had become just as good as they were. I was hanging out with people almost twice my age, and conversing with them on their level about a mutual passion - and that's where I've been ever since.
Videogames don't make up my entire life: I cook, I write, I sing, I have a full-time career in IT and am still attending college for a degree in Computer Science, then moving into a Masters in Information Systems Management. Gotta have goals.
Nothing beats a good trip to a good bar where they serve good beer and have a good selection of good tunes. Also, chilled Junmai Ginjo (unfiltered) sake is the nectar of the gods, in case you weren't aware. Of course, those trips are very rare these days, because there is always another diaper to change, and leaving your kid at home in the crib is never an option if you want to be able to look at yourself in the mirror.
Oh, and I really, really love sushi. I can put away amounts of that stuff that some may label as borderline genocidal. I put species of fish on the endangered list singlehandedly. I'm not ashamed. It's their own fault for being born so damn delicious.
XBL (defunct): Everyday Legend
PSN: Everyday_Legend
STEAM: Everyday Legend
Skype: everydaylegend
Your eyes do not deceive you. There's a trend.
See you out there.
- EL