Back in the days of nearly a decade ago I used to be an avid and regular player of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V. For the time I think you could easily attest to it being the most played title in my entire library, with probably thousands of hours invested into it yet somehow not a dime beyond the base asking price of the game. This is astounding, when you consider that most of that time was spent lounging in Rockstar's incredibly lucrative online side-hustle; Grand Theft Auto Online; a product built and funded under the assumption that it could outpace simple folk like me and force me to spend money to keep up with the trend. (I guess that's when the industry learnt that people could grind quicker than their developers could develop, who'd a thunk) In-game currency, though entierly earnable ingame, is the premium currency that has shot Rockstar to one of the best earning entertainment brands in the world consistently, and the extent to which players are willing to go in order to earn these shadow upon real currency have often pushed past the boundaries of fair play and even legality. (But who reads those EULA agreements anyway, right?) What we have today is one such story of low down means to achieve the highlife, only with consequences. (And a whole lot of salty responses.)
When I played I remember a friend of the time telling me a theory about the sorts of players who indulge in Grand Theft Auto online, and the way that their methods and personality mirrored that of the game's protagonists. It went something like this: Those who are willing to play the game by it's own rules, struggle for every single milestone and grind themselves ragged, they were Franklins. Those that jumped at the chance to uses glitches or buy their way into the latest expansions and fast cars, well clearly they were Micheals. And those that acquired money not to indulge in the activities of the game but to fund their single man crusades against everyone else's good time, (see: Everyone who ever purchased a tank) there's your Trevors. I, being the sucker that I am, was always a Franklin, but I knew my fair share of the other two and so I'm familiar with the cycle of money making glitches that forever plagued the GTA Online community. (Or graced it, depending on which side of the fence you were on)
In my day it was the car cheat which, and forgive my hazy memory of almost 8 years ago, I think used the garage and so hot-switching to clone expensive cars that could then be sold off for considerable amounts of money. This was how a lot of people I knew made their fortunes off the game, all the while whilst I was grinding that one decently consistently paying mission over-and-over. What was that called again... That's right- Coveted. Oh, Coveted. This was the mission that everyone played in order to make the big bucks. I'm told that Rockstar have changed the mission reward structure since my time in order to discourage... legitimate play? (Seriously, you were getting the retention time Rockstar; what was the problem?) Rockstar were actually responsible for a lot of micro-transgression like this which kept punishing those that had found decent ways to make money in the efforts of pushing them towards newer content; which usually paid like ass thus demoralising people. What I'm saying is, Rockstar's Online didn't exactly incur the best relationship among the players in the community as everyone feared the patch boogey-man everyday.
Of course, since I was there for so long and saw so many of the cheats which swept the community, I also saw the repercussions when they landed as Rockstar (who had jokingly become known as the IRS) swept across servers rolling back funds of those who had sold a few too many identical cars for their own good. my friend, however, did manage to keep his garage full of identical supercars even after losing his wealth, so the team still weren't the best at honing in on culprits. (Pretty crappy IRS that doesn't even bother to check assets) I even heard some stories of legitimately earning folk who got caught in the wave of punishments, simply for the act of generating ingame income a little too quickly. (Not sure if that was actually truthful or just the guilt spinning a web, but the accusation is there.) But that was the cycle of the GTA Online world. A glitch would come out, a chunk of the community would exploit it, and Rockstar would crack down with wrist-slaps galore. I'm sure things are significantly newer and different these 2020 days!
Well recently the economy of the Grand Theft Auto Online world has been rocked by a glitch which has allowed folk to illegitimately make ludicrous amounts of money with very little effort on their part. All it took was buying some apartments, messing with the active game memory through application suspensions and overwriting those apartments with other apartments which forced a refund- or something; I'm not clear on the specifics. But, wait a minute... isn't this eerily familiar to the car glitch? And countless others from over the years? How in the world is Rockstar still falling for the same old tricks in 2020? Unless- No. That's too ridiculous. This must be a legitimate bug which popped up out of nowhere and unfortunately ended up in the hands of Redditors; the single most dangerous hands for any even remotely sensitive information to end up.
Thus the cycle did as cycles do; it repeated itself. People flocked like wildfire to get the money they felt they deserved after 8 years of hard grind, only to find themselves out of pocket when Rockstar swung around their might hammer of repercussions. (Oh Noe, who could have ever foreseen this?) Only, things are distincly- harsher than what I remembered. (Or maybe my memories just crap, that's wholly possible.) Because alongside the resets that have rocked the community, apparently Rockstar have rolled around issuing complete account resets. As in- having your character and all 8 years of your experience with them rolled back into nothing. (Scary stuff indeed) That would mean all the quest progresses, levels, cars, probably purchased money packs, all that has been flushed down the drain in a hard slash back from Rockstar mods. (Way to go nuclear)
And, it's safe to say, people aren't happy about this at all. I've seen a considerable number of tweets and images over the past few days of people absolutely melting down over this grave injustice upon their person. Some bemoaned the years of history they lost, others argued that they'd only bought cars with the money so therefore shouldn't have been punished as harshly (not following the thread of the argument there, but okay) and even some people have taken to wantonly flashing how they didn't get caught in the wave and that they still have their illegitimate funds. (What are those people, masochists?) One fellow even showed off a picture of his Xbox-One disc-copy of Grand Theft Auto snapped in three; symbolic of the way that he probably has the game on digital like everyone else. (Real powerful message there, buddy.) Most curious of all, however, is the people who declare their retirement from the GTA Online world, most commonly matched with a variation upon the phrase 'you messed up, Rockstar'. Yes, I'm sure the single most profitable gaming mode in the world is missing their, clearly non-paying, contribution to the infrastructure. How tragic of a break-up story.
But as I said, this sort of stuff happens every year so why, then, am I so interested about it today? There were stories like this last year, what's changed? Well the account wide bans got me thinking. Thinking about the regularity of these glitch waves, how they'd always rise in the Spring and be quelled by Autumn, how I always heard about them despite not being involved in the GTA world in the slightest. And how these glitches seem so similar to the ones from 8 years back. Like, seriously Rockstar- learn from your mistakes. And I've come up with a theory. That this is manufactured for regular publicity stunts. Now I'm not saying that the glitch isn't real, nor those who exploited and got caught; I just think the glitch was created to be found, in order to justify a ban wave and make the news. Think about it; why else would GTA Online be in the gaming news if not for deleting 8 year old progression. How could Rockstar miss so many folk if not just to embolden them for the next time GTA pulls this stunt? And why is it always revolving around the purchasing system? It may be conspiratorial for me to say, but we live in a bold world of marketing nowadays and it makes total sense to me. If it's true, then let me be the first to congratulate Rockstar for another job well done, you worm your way into the news cycle like no other. Your reward was this blog, hope you liked it.
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