"Will They Kill GTA Online?": Valve Veteran Believes Rockstar Will Struggle to Convince Players to Switch to New GTA VI Online
Rockstar Games specialists will face a major challenge.
GTA V's multiplayer mode, "GTA Online," has been delighting players for many years and, as a leak showed, still brings Rockstar Games / Take-Two a lot of money. This year, the release of the new installment of the Grand Theft Auto VI franchise is expected, and some players believe that a "sequel" for the multiplayer will also appear later.
However, it is not yet clear how the developers plan to convince players who have already invested a lot of time and money in GTA Online to switch to the hypothetical GTA VI Online.
Former Valve writer Chet Faliszek recently discussed this topic – he believes that finding an answer to this question will be a big problem for Rockstar Games:
So everyone is talking about Grand Theft Auto VI, but no one is discussing the real problem the developers will face. That one big problem that will inevitably arise – how they will transfer players from GTA Online to GTA VI Online. I haven't seen Rockstar comment on this issue at all yet.
Currently, Chet Faliszek sees several potential options. For example, GTA V Online could simply be shut down, but that would cause outrage. It would also be possible to launch GTA VI Online as part of the current multiplayer and gradually transfer the audience to the new version, offering players bonuses:
Will they just kill [shut down] GTA V Online? Or will it be a single project, within which players will gradually be transferred to a new version with the possibility of upgrades? Maybe it will be possible to play both versions? That would be crazy. But what are they planning to do at all? This is real chaos.
He noted that there have already been examples in the industry where developers replaced an old game with a new one, and this caused a negative reaction:
It's very difficult to transfer people [to another project] because many don't realize: someone bought GTA V for literally half a dollar and now plays online for free. And what can GTA VI offer online that GTA V doesn't? We all understand that the main innovation is improved monetization. And they will have to figure out how to drag you to this "improved" monetization.
According to Faliszek, Rockstar Games itself does not yet have a precise answer to this question, but it does understand that the audience may react negatively to their decision. For this reason, the Valve veteran believes, during promotion, attention is focused only on the single-player component of GTA VI – the decision on GTA Online has been postponed:
I think that's why they are postponing this issue until after the game's release. They say: "Oh no, no, the redesign will only have a single-player game." Because they don't want negative attitudes to arise around the release regarding what they plan to do next. They need you to buy the game, enter the ecosystem, and then they'll figure it out. In my opinion, this is a smart move. They understand: whatever they do, it will cause dissatisfaction. Perhaps they even think: "Let's not anger people too much for now. Let's put it off until later."
The release of Grand Theft Auto VI is scheduled for November 19 of this year on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles. Rockstar Games and Take-Two have not yet reported anything about the PC version's release window or GTA VI Online.
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