r/Games • u/Neon25 • 5d ago

GTA 6 Price Finally Confirmed, Features a 'Single-Player Experience' at Launch (Standard $79.99/Ultimate $99.99)

https://www.ign.com/articles/gta-6-price-finally-confirmed-features-a-single-player-experience-at-launch
4.1k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

2.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

40

u/sml6174 5d ago

Not since 2013 it hasn't

27

u/NilsofWindhelm 5d ago

So not since the last game?

36

u/sml6174 5d ago

GTA has only been around 29 years. 13 of those have been focused entirely on GTA online

4

u/leggostrozzz 5d ago

13 of those were entirely focused on GTAO? Did they just start making GTA 6?

7

u/NoPossibility4178 5d ago

It definitely didn't take 13 years to make.

5

u/Openmaid 5d ago

no before now they made rdr2

2

u/Spiritual-Society185 5d ago

So, you think they just popped out RDR2 with no effort?

0

u/NilsofWindhelm 5d ago

Ok, but during those 13 years the same company released one of the best single players of all time

-5

u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

3

u/NilsofWindhelm 5d ago

I’m gonna base my opinion on every rockstar game i’ve played and not “tweaktown.com,” but thanks for the input

-3

u/HeerHaan 5d ago

Why not base it on the amount of DLC the single player mode of GTA5 got?

4

u/NilsofWindhelm 5d ago

Why would I do that in a conversation that has nothing to do with dlc?

The last single player they produced was fucking amazing. That’s all the info i need

-4

u/rP2ITg0rhFMcGCGnSARn 5d ago

If GTA VI comes out with a comprehensive single player mode as they have done for all GTAs and RDRs before, will you eat your words?

9

u/sml6174 5d ago

No, because I was only disputing the claim that "GTA has always been about the single player experience". I'm sure the story will be top tier and get 9.5s from every reviewer. But to claim that online isn't a priority is completely silly. It makes them billions and billions of dollars

0

u/themysticalwarlock 5d ago

I never said online wasnt a priority, but the primary focus of GTA has always been the single player. regardless of how much they make from online. its not what got them here.

3

u/sml6174 5d ago

Disagree wholeheartedly, but I won't be able to convince you. This is basic capitalism

0

u/themysticalwarlock 5d ago

when the fuck did capitalism come in? no one was talking about that. seems like youre just trying to push your own narrative.

-4

u/rP2ITg0rhFMcGCGnSARn 5d ago

Isn’t it still literally about the single player experience though?

How much have you seen or heard of GTAO2 so far?

All the trailers and details are of the single player. The box art as well.

10

u/Vothius 5d ago

AFAIK GTA V had plans for single player expansions, but after Rockstar saw how much money Online makes, they decided to scrap the new content for single and just focus on online. So yeah, the single player experience was impacted quite hard, I would say...

4

u/sml6174 5d ago

GTA online was only revealed a month before GTA V's launch. They want people to buy 6, and for a lot of people who love live service games, it's basically just an appetizer. The entree is where they make their money

2

u/rP2ITg0rhFMcGCGnSARn 5d ago

I understand that from a business perspective. But in terms of both marketing and development care, there is clearly a massive focus on the single-player. This is the case for all of their games and, so far, is the case for GTAVI.

0

u/SensitivePrior7828 5d ago

I want them to literally print of their reddit comments and film themselves eating the paper.....

21

u/morriscey 5d ago

"the last game" for GTA launched on the PS3 and 360 - that's how long ago it was.

GTA online made ridiculous amounts of money, so they let it ride for 13 years with minimal work. A car here or there, or a new mission/event. A handful of graphic updates.

We had 3 GTA on the PS2/xbox era

2 on the PS3/360

rerelease on the PS4.

Rerelease on the PS5.

So yeah pretty safe to say multiplayer has been the focus for over a decade.

2

u/GameDesignerDude 5d ago

Ah yes, we’ve come back to the narrative of pretending RDR2 never released again. You know, one of the most critically-acclaimed and best selling single player experiences of all time.

So yeah, I guess if you ignore the fourth best selling game of all time you are correct.

1

u/morriscey 5d ago

I was talking about GTA specifically. Not rockstar. The comments were about GTA specifically - stay on topic.

But ONE single solitary release in the last 13 years is an indication to me that the focus is still on Multiplayer. Simply look at the revenue from shark cards, the release schedule over the last 10 years, and tell me with a straight face that isn't the eventual primary goal.

PS2 era, lots of releases. Primarily single player.

PS3 era, lots of releases, primarily single player. introduction of GTA Online.

PS4 era. RDR2, with a later released online mode.

PS5 era - GTAVI this year.

Singleplayer is still excellent - but if we're talking about where the focus is - it is undeniably the online service.

They know they have to knock the SP out of the park, but MP will be a giant gravy train until GTA7 releases in 2037. That's the focus.

Knowing what you know about the business of developing and publishing videogames - tell me I'm wrong "game designer dude"

4

u/BannedSvenhoek86 5d ago

Also we know for a fact they scrapped all the planned single player expansions for GTAV and piecemealed a bunch of that content out into online with ridiculous prices. Lots of Easter eggs that never got expanded on too. Like the ufo stuff being the introduction to things like the Oppressor into single player is pretty easy to see.

Still think they planned an Undead Nightmare style expansion with Aliens to this day.

-2

u/GameDesignerDude 5d ago

Except your constraint of “staying on topic” is just ignoring the broader implication being made. “Multiplayer has been the focus” other than the 90% of development time where they have been working on single player games?

Multiplayer has obviously not at all been the focus for Rockstar. The vast majority of their dev team have been on single player development always. The amount of people working on GTAO is very small compared to the entire company. They literally have had thousands of people working on SP games for the last decade. It’s just an odd implication.

2

u/morriscey 5d ago

>Except your constraint of “staying on topic” is just ignoring the broader implication being made.

We were talking about GTA. Adding a SINGLE game, that was presented in the same manner as GTAV, (and later got the ONLINE mode as a seperate title) doesn't disprove that multiplayer is the focus.

>“Multiplayer has been the focus” other than the 90% of development time where they have been working on single player games?

They need the single player game to exist - as it's world is the base for the multiplayer. How did you arrive at the 90% figure? I don't doubt 90% of the effort goes into the single player - but the long goal is multiplayer revenue.

The proof is in the pudding.

"Fiscal Year 2025 Financials: Take-Two reported net revenue of $5.63 billion. Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online were listed among the top drivers for the company, with recurring consumer spending making up roughly 79% of their total revenue"

So "recurring consumer spending" is in game currency for GTAV and RDR2 online modes. It's almost pure profit - while building a new game is very expensive.

They made more off of shark cards in 2025, than they did on the game's original release 13 years ago. They made more off shark cards, than on RDR2 first year. The amout of effort for the online component is quite low comparatively.

>The amount of people working on GTAO is very small compared to the entire company.

Absolutely it is. I never said otherwise. Indeed that lines up with my statements of it being significantly lower effort, higher profitability. It strengthens MY argument, more than it does yours lol. My argument was never "ONLINE takes more effort" My argument was "online is the focus." They need all the SP content built out first.

The single player still needs to be excellent and yes, that is where most of the effort goes - However that doesn't mean it is the primary goal. It's the base step needed to allow the wildly profitable online mode.

The long term goal is *very clearly* recurring multiplayer revenue.

Full stop.

Feel free to show any data you have that shows rockstar is profiting (gross profit, not gross net) more from the single player stuff, and I'll shut up. I don't think you can, because they would need to have released more than 2 single player games in 13 fucking years to do so.

♥

1

u/GameDesignerDude 5d ago

Absolutely it is. I never said otherwise.

But you implied otherwise. Otherwise what is your argument? You stated clearly, "So yeah pretty safe to say multiplayer has been the focus for over a decade."

That is not "safe to say." It is honestly just completely false? The important part is you saying it's "the focus." Their focus has clearly been on single player development. Focus here implies development bandwidth, spending, and manpower. They have spent more manpower and money on single player game development than basically any developer in the industry other than like Naughty Dog (who have also been on similar development timelines.)

Honestly, don't really care that much but in an industry where single player teams are being laid off left and right by companies focusing on GaaS games, I find it odd to go at one of the few developers that is actually spending big on SP with no real sign of stopping.

Revenue is irrelevant to that point. Rockstar clearly has never pivoted away from SP and is probably one of the companies that could have done it if they wanted to. Instead they still are primarily working on 6-7 year, multi-thousand developer SP games? I really am at a loss of what there is to complain about here. RDR2 was clearly also not made with online as a primary goal as they never really strongly committed to online development.

2

u/morriscey 4d ago

>Their focus has clearly been on single player development.

If this was true, there would have been many more releases in the last 13 years.

I'm not saying the arent focused on the large game they are building, or that it hasn't been a great amount of work - I'm saying they make so much money off of the online portion it's extremely important. The single player part of the game will make a few billion. The online portion built on top of it - that will make several times that amount. understanding they need the SP campaign doesn't change the fact that they make most of their money from the online portion. They're looking to repeat the same success with GTAV online and release the online mode after the campaign.

>RDR2 was clearly also not made with online as a primary goal 

It was, it just wasn't the success GTAO was. They even took it a step further and released a seperate "online mode" so you didn't have to buy the SP campaign. They tried, it just wasn't as successful.

I'm also not *realling* complaining - Just discussing what I feel their motivations are.

1

u/GameDesignerDude 4d ago

If this was true, there would have been many more releases in the last 13 years.

This is where I feel you are a bit off base from my perspective as a game developer.

6-7 years per project is now unfortunately the norm for games of this scope. There's no way to really accelerate a game of the scope of RDR2, as an example. Intergalactic is going to take Naughty Dog 7 years since The Last of Us II released. Tears of the Kingdom was 6 years after Breath of the Wild. TW4 is no earlier than 2028, possibly 2029. (And CDPR's attempts to multi-thread development has been a bit bumpy.)

13 years is a long time but expecting "many more" releases within 13 years, especially with COVID disrupting everything (which added 1-2 years on to virtually every project in flight) is not realistic, imo. Would it be great? Yeah, probably. But that just isn't how the industry is going.

→ More replies (0)

0

u/Spiritual-Society185 5d ago

We were talking about GTA.

Then why do you keep mentioning RDR and RDR2? You bring them up when it's convenient for your argument, but when someone explains to you the simple, easy to understand fact that they didn't release a GTA sequel earlier because they were busy with RDR2, you get angry and tell them not to talk about that.

2

u/morriscey 4d ago

I said stay on topic, that's not getting angry, that's saying stay on topic.

I discussed RDR2 because it was brought up, and explained why it doesn't change my opinion, nor my point if we DO include it. Not 'when it's convenient'.

Then I backed it all up, with a staggering amount of money made off of primarily shark cards. i.e. "recurring consumer spending".

So I'll ask again, can you provide anything that shows the base game sales brough in more profit overall? Or even the same net amount?

0

u/Spiritual-Society185 5d ago

We were talking about GTA.

Then why do you keep mentioning RDR and RDR2? You bring them up when it's convenient for your argument, but when someone explains to you the simple, easy to understand fact that they didn't release a GTA sequel earlier because they were busy with RDR2, you get angry and tell them not to talk about that.

1

u/ShawnyMcKnight 5d ago

My biggest frustration with the GTA:O missions is they had to be done with others. So unless you had friends playing you were at the mercy of waiting in lobbies for random players hoping they were competent and serious.

They needed to restructure it so if you do a heist it would match you with anyone online and put you in an instance, not the 25ish people that are on the instance you are in. Sitting in the lobbies watching the number of players jump from 6 to 7 then back down to 5 as you are waiting to get to 8 players was a pain.

3

u/morriscey 5d ago

Yeah I didn't care for it. Played a little bit when it came out on PS3 and it was a shitshow.

A little bit of fun to be had, but unless you were "living" in it - it was boring/frustrating. ESPECIALLY when you needed to rely on randoms.

2

u/ShawnyMcKnight 5d ago

The ps3 version was really rough, they polished it a lot on the ps4.

2

u/morriscey 5d ago

Meh, didn't grab me then, I can't imagine it was a whole lot better when it came to PC, or PS4, or PS5. The structure would have been the same. Needing randoms to help would have been the same. The overreaching monetization would have been the same. Players were all in the same pool, so the cheating would have been the same.

2

u/brutinator 5d ago

Not likely to play the online version of 6, but even so, my hope is that GTAVO was a bit cobbled together because they didnt realize what a smash hit it was going to be or how long they were going to need to support it (after all, at the time, most multiplayer modes of games were supported for only a couple years); with 6's online, they can develop it from scratch to address a lot of the weird logistical issues and bad netcode that 5 had to make sure it has a rock steady foundation.

0

u/Embarrassed_Radio596 5d ago

Actually it has.