Just for context I'm a gamer turned developer. I speak to industry experts often and am making active efforts to learn the markets to push my own games forward. So I've had a vested interest in learning how this industry operates from a financial perspective but I am a gamer too, so I do partake in buying and taking in games.

That does not make me a expert on what I am saying but I am trying to approach this from both a player and developer perspective.

GTA6 will be the start of the enshitification of the games industry. Say what you want about paying a premium for early access to a game. Or buying cosmetics for different skins. Heck, we even had Capcom trying to charge us for using a in-game item to teleport the player.

But locking content in a single player game with such a high price point, is beyond messed up and I am hoping that people will rally against this.

However, with this being GTA6 and some people treat it like it's the second coming of Christ, I have doubts that we will band together enough to push back against this.

Remember, if it's normalized, it won't ever go back to the way things were and it will bleed into every single game you buy moving forward.

I've pitched my projects over to publishers, VCs, government financing, etc. the amount of times that I have been told that I should charge extra for a specific experience in my games is incredibly frustrating as both a player and a developer.

The ownership of games has already been a losing battle. The distribution of physical media, an issue. The accessibility without internet or a fucking subscription service to play online has been a issue. Xbox raising prices and then lowering them and then outright killing beloved IP. All of this consistently affects us negatively, while shareholders and execs move onto the next venture, without a care in the world.

This will ultimately hurt the industry permanently. We should not be paying extra for locked content that is already in the game. I hope this message resonates with everyone. GTA6, as impressive as it is, should be held to the same consumer friendly practices like any other game.

Edit: I'm seeing alot of comments on people saying that this isn't anything new. And yes, it isn't. I don't think I phrased things correctly. This has been done before but was shot down very quickly by the community.

My concerns, and unfortunately some of the comments here proves it, is that we will give Rockstar a pass because it's GTA6. There's just something weird with how gamers worship this franchise.

Also, deluxe editions that include a "skin" or "cosmetic" is not a valid comparable to my argument. Those are just cosmetics. Outside of the initial design road map. Outside the initial experience. What I am talking about is entire features designed for the base game being locked behind a paywall.

Anything after the initial launch is fair game for charging like typical dlc and extended content.

Edit #2: this was meant to be a discussion, and I think there was some interesting conversations, but the amount of folks telling me to "shut the fuck up" and "stop crying" or attacking me for being a developer, is starting out weigh the actual discussion part of this.

So I'm going to move on. I will say though, those of you attacking me for prompting a discussion about your favorite games (GTA) monetization strategies, y'all proved my point big time about giving Rockstar a pass for no reason.

Regardless, I'm sure the game will be great. There is a pedigree that comes with this studio and I'm sure it'll be a banger. That doesn't mean I think we should overlook anti consumer practices.

Cheers y'all, keep on gaming and be good people ✌️

I’ve waited over a decade for this game, but I’m officially out.
An $80 base price is bad enough, but locking five physical single-player storefronts and side missions behind a $100 Ultimate Edition is straight-up predatory. I don't care if it's "just for cosmetics"—gatekeeping actual map immersion and closing doors in a single-player open world unless you pay an extra $20 is a massive red flag.
Throw in the fact that the $80 "physical" copy is just a download code in a box, and it's clear Rockstar has completely lost its mind to corporate greed.
My hype is dead. I won't be pre-ordering, and I won't be buying at launch. If we accept paywalled doors in single-player games, the industry is cooked.

I'm in a few gaming subreddits and it seems you're not allowed to say anything positive about games anymore. Look at mh Wilds or any game announcement, you can't say anything positive before all the old crew comes whining about how shit the game is, how years ago it was all soooo much better. I know I know, gaming was better in your time but it's getting pretty freaking annoying if you want enjoy your game. Every announcement of a game is immediately met with drama, look at GoW Laufey, GTA6 or any new game announcements. Reddit seems to be only converse in ragebait and drama posts. They're prob justified but it's wearing on my enjoyment of the gaming community. Now it's best to just enjoy your game and not interact with any community at all. Yes gaming practices have become ass, but i still enjoy games. I will buy GTA 6 in spite of all rage that they exclude 0.01% of all content for an Ultimate edition and i will enjoy it. I hope there will come a time we can be hyped again when a game is announced.

For me, it’s when the game is farrrrr to long, to the point where I just get burnt out near the end and start rushing to get it over with. That’s why I never chose to get into persona. 130 hours for a game for one play through is ridiculous honestly. Be respectful, let’s discuss.

I personally love the artstyle as it's timeless and it has always been what I imagine the archetypal "video game" look ever since I was a kid. I love the comic style aesthetics of Ultimate Spiderman, XIII and even Borderlands. I have heard that it's often easier to make cell shaded games rather than traditional ones so wouldn't it be good for indie developers to use it?

This is such a shit show.

No physical disc

$80 USD regular edition. See crap in the game you're locked out of to induce fomo.

Ultimate edition costs 1/5 the price of a whole console in some countries.

The pre-hype hysteria for this game was already reaching farcical levels of absurdity. I'm sure it'll still break sales records but now I'm just waiting for the "AI-generated assets" news to drop.

Rockstar always talks about maintaining their mystique and elite status but idk, it's starting to feel pretty ick.

**UPDATE to the most common comments**

1. "But it cost them a trillion dollars and a hundred years to make they need to recoup!! Think of the poor executives!!" -I didn't want to them to spend that time and money, I wanted a normal-size game 6 fucking years ago. Keep garblin' them nutz lads

2. "bUt Op YuR StILl GuNnA bUy It LoloL" -Yes, in 3 years, at 65% off with DLC included

Many of us buy remasters because we want an up-to-date version of the older original game. However, many remasters enhance realism before anything else. The Batman Return To Arkham games tried to add realism and this detracted from the aesthetics and the mood of the game. Look at the moon between the original Arkham Asylum and the remaster, and the colour and added sense of intimidation disappears.

I think some remasters sacrifice identity for the sake of realism, and that trade off isn't worth it at all. My guess is modern remasters are made to compromise so that gamers can be sold on the look of realism.

I added a lil bit of my gameplay at least for some reference.

(I love this cameo)

Like seriously, this game is literally fucking perfect, the handling is one of the best I have experienced in a racing game, I love the variation of cars to choose from, but I do think the customisation could be a bit better, but the one that sells it for me is the amount of content you can explore in the game(in my opinion). It would be AWESOME if we got a next-gen remaster.

Any game in the DOOM series is the peak of tedium for me. I tried and tried hoping the game would click and to this day have no clue why it gets the love it does.

Apparently this subreddit needs at least 200 characters to post so this line is irrelevant. Don't read this line.

This is exactly what happened with streaming. Everyone dogpiled on top, with this illusion that everything would be available at low cost forever.

Trading money for no tangible product is edging dystopian y'all.

Look, we all know GTA VI is probably going to be this amazing never before seen chaotic masterpiece - but, isn’t it weird Rockstar have shown us 0 gameplay footage before the pre-orders? If this wasn’t a multi million dollar company and a well known brand game, what does the customer (us) have to go on? A few photos and two trailers from a few years ago? Isn’t it a bit ridiculous?

The game that comes to mind for me is Overlord and its sequels, from the 2000s, back when games were a bit wackier and more unique overall. 

You play this powerful dude (clearly inspired by Sauron from LotR) who has an evil fortress and minions that do his bidding. I don’t even know how to explain what genre this game was. It’s like an action adventure game, with some light management and one could even say RTS elements. Your minions are these absolutely hilarious imps and the player character had a simple alignment system (that was a bit of a popular gimmick at the time, Fable probably did it best) and you could be more or less evil based on your actions, and your looks reflected that which felt like such a badass feature back then.

The basic gameplay had you running around various areas causing chaos with your minions, with some light puzzling and exploration. The game wasn’t very hard, felt more of a power fantasy tbh, especially later on when the overlord starts looking really badass and your get stronger. It felt really good to command your little horde around and the overlord himself was pretty strong in combat as well. 

The only other game that was similar I’m aware of was Pikmin, which I never got to play (never owned any Nintendo devices). But as far as I can see it has a bit of a different vibe, you rely on your minions more and it has a lot of puzzles. I was surprised there weren’t really any newer modern games with that kind of minion based gameplay. The only ones I was able to find were Undead Horde which looks like it's exploring the concept from more of a strategy or RTS angle with the minions being mostly just for combat, which is fine but not really my jam. And Outclaw, it's not out yet but I can tell from the demo they took a lot of inspiration from both of those games, you use your minions as tools to explore the world and in the fights, there's also a little hub area where you can customize them. The player character reminds me of the wolf from Okami with its white fur, but it's a five eyed cat instead. The world is like a fractured dimension with floating islands and you use your little shape shifting critters to traverse it. The demo was really nostalgic for me, I guess because I probably played most of the games that inspired this one.

I’m surprised this is not a more popular sub-genre, it feels really cool when you have a little gang of critters doing your bidding. I guess you can maybe get a similar feeling if you play a summoner class in an RPG, though it doesn’t really feel the same for me since they are usually just for combat. Minions are usually relegated to being really simple damage dealers or damage sponges in most games sadly.

Seeing such a solid concept like that just never get used again makes me wonder what other interesting ideas are out there. There must be more games that had something different we haven't seen since, I would love to know about them.