Not content with selling many millions of copies, Rockstar is looking to wring every last drop of income out of the decade-old GTA 5 and its popular multiplayer mode GTA Online. A new feature, added to the game today as part of the Bottom Dollar Bounties update, locks some crucial quality of life features behind the release’s monthly GTA+ subscription. The decision has already left some fans nervous about what it could mean for GTA 6 and its multiplayer mode.
For those of you who don’t know, GTA Online allows you to own multiple businesses in Los Santos. Each of these outlets enables you to add another wrinkle to your criminal empire, whether it’s a shady Nightclub front that doubles as a dodgy import/export business – or the newly added Bail Offices, which let you launch bounty hunting missions. In addition to new cutscenes and content, many of these businesses include passive income.
The downside is that in order to collect your passive income, you need to manually visit each location and physically collect the cash from your property’s safe. While the money can add up over time, the hoops you need to jump through get tedious. However, a new update adds an oft-requested feature to your in-game smartphone: the ability to claim business earnings wherever you are at any time. The downside? You need to be a GTA+ member to use it.
That’s right, this essential quality of life upgrade is locked behind Rockstar’s monthly membership, which costs $7.99/£6.99 per month. You do get other perks with the subscription, like access to legacy Rockstar games, a monthly deposit of GTA$500,000, discounts to Shark Cards, and the ability to drive a rotating selection of premium cars. You can even call these rented vehicles to your location now, making accessing your rewards easier.
But this addition will make fans nervous about exactly how GTA+ will be integrated into GTA 6’s multiplayer mode. Rockstar said when it introduced the subscription it’d never lock gameplay features behind a paywall, and yet here we are. While you can still play and enjoy the entirety of GTA Online without the paid membership, we’d argue this update edges the game closer to MMO status. We wonder how far the developer’s willing to go.
Comments 57
This is pretty far pushed. It goes clearly towards that GTA+ will be almost mandatory to "enjoy" grind in GTA 6.
Shady Rockstar shady
Good thing i only care about single player when it comes to GTA.
Sounds like standard Rockstar at this point, unfortunately. Milking money out of the multiplayer is and has been their main priority for years.
Don’t care how good the game is, I refuse to give any money to these predators. If the story is good enough, and all the online rubbish can be ignored, I might get it second hand down the line. But T2 will never get any of my money. These guys are honestly worse than EA.
My guess, GTA6 starts locking things behind GTA+ for the single player game too - they will do anything they think they can get away with because they will think the GTA name alone will keep people hooked.
MTX/Subscriptions need (another) massive customer backlash (eg battlefront 2 / EA) to set them back - maybe this will be it, or maybe the casual gamers will pay up because its GTA.
Not surprising in the least. Rockstar has become what they used to lampoon: the ultimate in corporate greed and capitalism. Locking an essential feature like this - if you don't think it is, you haven't played online recently - behind a paywall in a game that's over 10 years old is ludicrous.
Decisions have been disgusting, but this is far worse. But I'm Not surprised.
@DennisReynolds
Before long, they'll be coming for your kind too.
@thefourfoldroot1 I agree. 2K is definitely one of the worst when it comes to slimy, greedy publishers, led by overpaid CEOs. Yet somehow they always seem to get a pass.
Tbh I would not be surprised if all of GTA 6's online is behind a subscription, MMO like. And you know it would sell a bazillion subs.
Simply disgusting.
And they saying they wouldn't lock gameplay behind paywalls was already a half truth at best, since we all know GTA Online is P2W, plain and simple.
The fact that they added such a basic quality of life feature 10 years later is already appalling from a design standpoint, but putting it behind a paywall really is taking the p*ss.
Remind me again how this game is good?
I'm done with GTA online and done supporting predatory approach of macro transactions.
Just leave this mess out of single player content and we'll be fine.
@Olskeezy “Rockstar has become what they used to lampoon”
Spot on dude, I hope R* read your comment!
I put it a couple of months ago and I’ll say it again; they will lock the full GTA 6 map behind this paywall. 100%.
As an upfront I do not nor will not play gta online.
But seriously this is nothing new? Often the quicker options are done via a season pass/dlc/purchasables in many games.
This is exactly what some others here said a few months ago.
I'm not surprised at all considering the way R* have milked the same game for 3 generations and artificially inflated the unit sales by making it cheaper to get online currency by buying another copy rather than buying the currency itself.
@DennisReynolds Agreed. But I can think of a dozen ways that they could paywall the single player.
Anyway... nothing is too big to fail. It just takes longer, that's all. If GTA 6 lasts as long as GTA 5 did then there is plenty of time for the mood to sour if Rockstar starts getting seriously scummy.
The only thing I want from GTA6's multiplayer mode is the ability to uninstall it and not have ot be the default option when booting the game
After sega and the ng+ situation I'm not surprised
Obviously not all of the online games are like this, but this is a perfect example of why I stopped playing any online games and just enjoy the single player portions or just single player games in general.
I commented this on one of the GTA 6 articles, but I have a bad feeling Rockstar will lock certain things behind the paid sub in 6, even for the single-player.
They're going to wring any amount of money from players in any way they can.
From day one online content has had a wall in GTAO, either in grind time or real money shark cards. GTA+ only offers the real money option for some features. I can easily imagine online for GTA6 sold separately like an add on dlc. From there either a monthly fee or an expanded GTA+ for some of the content/features.
The putting of auto collecting safe money from our businesses behind a real money pay wall is just plain incredibly pathetic.
I'm interested to see how bad the monetization gets. I'm sure it'll be a great game, but I'm guessing things are going to get nasty on that end. They know they can getaway with a lot.
Don't buy anything from T2. They're a greedy, scumbag company who fire employees to maje their shareholders a quick buck, and treat players like utter garbage.
@__jamiie yes, the deals they gave to buy the criminal enterprise start up pack was the greatest. Tons of GTA cash for far less than buying shark cards of equal value plus the added bonus of some proper and vehicles
Guess I won't be buying gta6
@Bamila I hope you stick to those words for real, no one should be supporting these slime balls anymore, they have got away with predatory practices for far too long!
Gaming developer's being predatory is standard In 2024 and Gaming company's as big as this don't come much bigger, this game has been on 3 generation's of systems now and one of the biggest games of all time and the more we pander to it ....the more they will do it. Naughty dogs The last of us has been the same, no way should we be expected to pay for upgrades I'm sorry on PlayStation 5 and no way should rockstar be doing this but guess what ....isn't going to stop unless people don't buy into it . I've got gta5 on ps5 and played it online for 2 hours and never went back and don't intend to . Dear rockstar....GTA5 HAS BEEN RENT FREE IN OUR HEADS FOR A DECADE HAVEN'T YOU MADE ENOUGH MONEY SERIOUSLY...
You have had to visit businesses manually for the past like 6 years... This isn't Rockstar locking a previous feature behind a paywall, this is them adding a new feature that gives it's subscribers an extra benefit 90% of players won't care as they are so used to collecting them in person
@clvr
The single player part is amazing 🤷♀️
At the end of the day it’s just a game. One doesn’t have to buy this “quality” of life feature. The hilarious thing to me that this feature is for the digital phone in game which saves time. A little microcosm for how people are in the real world with their smart phones.
@SNARF gaming is a hobby. No one is entitled to a free lunch for these games. The best thing a consumer can do is Boycott with their wallet. Not saying I agree with this move. Just that these non-life essential corporations can do as they please. Especially for a vanity hobby like gaming.
@Mikey856 it’s a vanity entertainment company whom seeks to maximize profits. Personally I’d save the word shady for practices that make our lives more expensive for life essential needs. Like food and housing.
@BrettAwesome no It isn't. GTA games have always been incredibly overrated, and it was fine when they were new and innovative 3 gens ago, not now.
The gameplay is trite and repetitive, the controls are abysmally clunky, the story is complete nonsense, the characters are terribly written, the so-called satire people bring up is non-existent, the collectibles are a huge downgrade...should I go on?
Hell no Take Two, jog on with your shady business practises.
@Vaako007 nah practice like this can definitely be called shady
Rockstar really do get scummier as the years go by, more profit and greed driven.
It's funny to me that so many of the online grinds are bank heists when Rockstar themselves are dipping their fingers so deeply into players bank accounts for the "privilege" of doing so, without doing anything like fixing server problems or minimising griefers.
Online is the reason that there hasn't been a new GTA in 11 years, but to be honest GTA V ranks below several other ones anyway, personally, so I don't consider it a huge loss. The three protagonists are childish and somewhat unlikeable. The mature writing of Red Dead Redemption II is a lot better, the single player campaign is more satisfying and they'll be hard pressed to ever make a better protagonist than Arthur Morgan. The online for that died because Rockstar couldn't monetise it to the same insane extent they have with GTA V.
The sad thing is I just know, it's basically a dead cert that they will release RDR2 again for current gen consoles, finally with 60FPS, and charge as much as they think they can get away with. This is really sad because as anyone with a jailbroken PS4 or PS5 knows, it's a one line code patch to unlock the frame rate, and even a PS4 Pro without the benefit of the speed enhanced PS4 modes of the PS5 can run it at 50-60FPS pretty consistently.
I mean... it's a quality-of-life upgrade. If you want it you pay, like health benefits at work or Amazon Prime.
Probably the biggest concern surrounding GTAVI was how much the devs (or publisher) planned to lean into mtx. Possibly to the detriment of single player. It looks like concerns have been well-placed.
I'm giving it a few months following release before buying anyway. This game has me worried that the quality of GTA as a franchise might be declining.
This is exactly why I have no faith anymore in R* or any real excitement for GTA6 it will be the exact thing all over, cancelled single player DLC just to focus on cheap, low effort, copy/paste(for the most part)content, poorly balanced payouts/pricing of items(like some s###box car costing well over 1mil being 1 example) all in the name of pushing shark cards.
And guess what it worked, as most people just followed R* blindly, without asking questions, just like good little cash sheep.
While things like this are indeed predatory and scummy we really should be bemoaning a large portion of the consumer base for this and other games, if nobody bought it, well it wouldn't exist. Thing is people will and do. Have you guys seen the cash that Honkai Star Rail pulls in a month? It's ridiculous. They make the budget of a AAA game in 8 weeks just from people pulling for characters. It blows my mind that this kind of thing exists at all but humans gonna human.
This happens when people would rather spend thousands of dollars on MTX than $60 on a single-player game.
Ever since I learned in GTA V PS3 version how earning decent $$ to afford additional properties etc was tied into buying & selling on the stock market & then there were online & offline versions i knew the GTA games as I fondly enjoyed were being stripped away....by how much with GTA Online I could've never guessed until when I used to work was swarmed with digital shark card purchases!
I miss old Rockstar,its wearing a suit & tie & laughs along with Strauss Zelnick's jokes in board room meetings!🙄😔
@clvr
So my experience with it is wrong? I didn't think the single player part was amazing? 🤔 Ok. Thanks for clearing that up. Any other misconceptions you wanna clear up? Maybe I don't even like video games at all?
@BrettAwesome the day you learn the difference between enjoying a game and thinking it is good, call me and maybe we can have an adult conversation.
There's plenty games I enjoy but wouldn't call "good", and GTA is the gold standard of that.
@clvr
So, let me get this straight. The games I like but you don't, are bad. Lemme guess. The games you like but I don't, are good. Right? Because my experience is my opinion. But your opinion is fact? Yeah. Quite the adult conversation we could have 😂😂😂
@BrettAwesome you know why people like you get on my nerves?
Because I explained very clearly my point of view but you use uncalled for strawmen and passive aggressive comments with incredible arrogance, while your reading comprehension languishes in a corner, the poor thing.
What part of 'There's plenty games I enjoy but wouldn't call "good"' is hard for you to grasp exactly?
I'm not surprised your media literacy is so limited, if you can't even comprehend such a simple sentence.
@clvr
Nope. I said "the single player part is great" and you answered "no it isn't" as if my opinion is wrong bitnyour opinion is fact. If anybody's being passive agressive, it's you. I get on your nerves because I don't agree with you. That was literally all it took. You then proceeded to berate me for not sharing your opinion.
@BrettAwesome again, learn the difference between an opinion and a value judgement. You probably don't even know what passive aggressive means if you think I was the one exhibiting that behaviour (read your first reply and tell me with a straight face that isn't textbook passive aggression).
Anyway, talking to you was a huge waste of time, since you still think I "berate you for not sharing your opinion".
If you think trying to explain the difference between an opinion and a value judgement is berating you, I'm sorry but you're acting the victim without any reason.
Replies like yours would have me in stitches if they didn't imply such a little understanding of media literacy and how taste works in general, and not gonna lie, I find it incredibly sad.
@clvr
I can't even be bothered to read all that. Go fly a kite.
@BrettAwesome wow what a rebuttal! You truly are on another level of ignorance and arrogance.
If you're not even gonna read people's replies, why do you even engage in conversation? To breathe from your mouth?
@clvr
Bla bla bla. People don't always share your opinion. Man up and deal with it.
@BrettAwesome I'm really sorry that you didn't understand a single point I made, but hey, that's life.
And again, you're being rude for no reason.
I'm not really sure what your problem is, but have a good day/night nonetheless.
@clvr
You're just too immature to admit when you behave poorly. You don't like when you can't meet you own lofty standards, and keep taking it out on me. Might be time to get off that high horse. Arrogance don't make you right.
@BrettAwesome whoa, thanks for the psychoanalysis, that'll save me some money.
You have the pretense of psychoanalysing me out of nothing, but ok, I'm the arrogant one lol
Some people never cease to amaze me.
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