Grand Theft Auto V is 7 years old today | Hacker News Reader

Grand Theft Auto V is 7 years old today

gamezone.com

59 points4cao16 comments

Since 2018 it is also the most profitable entertainment product of all time, overtaking movies such as "Star Wars" and "Gone With the Wind" (adjusted for inflation). [1]

1. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-violent-videogame-has...

That surprised me, even more when apparently its around 6 Billion Dollars

There are still some more profitable game franchises (notably Pokemon, Mario, and Call of Duty) according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media...

But apparently no single "entertainment product" ever earned more.

What's also unique is that all the listed revenue ($10bn for the whole franchise as of now) appears to originate from game sales itself (and perhaps microtransactions as of late), not merchandise, etc. It's reasonable to guess this way is much more profitable.

They timed their releases perfectly. I ended up buying the game 3 times. First was PS3, then a year or so later on PS4 because it was night and day better graphics. Another year or so later I dropped yet another $60 on it for the 1080p60.

I'm guessing the next gen console dev cycle was just a little too short for GTA 6 to hit the same stride though.

Why make GTA 6 when people are still going to buy GTA V for the PS5.

Because then you sell GTA6 on ps5/Xbox, and a year later PC. And 6 years later PS6

And apparently GTA V will be re-released again for PS5 in 2021. [1]

Meanwhile, a huge portion of the revenue must be coming from microtransactions. The total cost to unlock all the in-game content is estimated at GTA$700M, [2] while potential earnings are capped at GTA$500k per hour of playtime at most (GTA$300k is a more realistic figure). [3] At this rate, it'd take hundreds of hours of grinding to get past all the paywalls. And it also has to be noted that competing against other human players, which is what most GTA Online players seem to prefer, does not generate any significant income and in fact costs money. Players are also charged for being logged into GTA Online regardless of what they are doing, and these fees can reach GTA$40k or more every 48 min. [4] In-game currency may be purchased for real money at the rate of GTA$8M = (US)$100 (for the largest top-up available). [2] Unlocking all in-game content through microtransactions would cost $8,800 in real-life money.

1. https://blog.playstation.com/2020/06/11/grand-theft-auto-v-c...

2. https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/364182/how-much-g...

3. https://www.pcgamer.com/how-to-make-money-in-gta-online/

4. https://old.reddit.com/r/gtaonline/comments/90rehp/how_much_...

I miss the GTA: SA game. So many fun cheats to use when you've finally completed the game. GTA V appears to have none, in fact, no modern game appears to have them.

There are official cheats in GTA V (not Online) too, entered by opening the in-game mobile phone (iFruit) and dialing a certain number, for example 1-999-MAKEITRAIN to change the weather. A full list is here: https://gta.fandom.com/wiki/Cheats_in_GTA_V#Phone_Cheats

There are also many unofficial mods, including one called "Angry Planes," which has all kinds of aircraft following you and falling out of the sky all around. One big repository is: https://www.gta5-mods.com/

While mods are not allowed in GTA Online, the game has a history of various bugs and glitches, which have been mercilessly exploited over the years: duplicating vehicles and selling them to generate income, flying under the map and shooting other players from underneath, etc. God mode was also possible numerous times due to bugs, and there was a time when a payout for a mission would have increased up to 20 times if Internet connection was lost and then restored at a certain time when it completed. For some players finding these has been more appealing than playing the game itself.

You can do a lot of things, but not too many things - just enough things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HZ21Lsw5WE

Car radios in GTA never have on-the-fly volume control. When you're doing shit in GTA and you feel the need to bump the radio at a higher volume it's a big pain in the ass to actually do it. I've put together a dedicated stereo system so I can turn up the volume with a physical knob but it would be a lot nicer if this could be done natively with the PS4/PS5/PS6 controller. Ramping up just the radio volume in real time with a swipe on the touchpad would be a massive improvement.

GTA was always a game you go over a friends house play around for 30 min and it became mundane and repetitive after that. They usually had all the cheats available. But even without it was repetitive feeling of missions though. Punch a prostitute and see how high you can get wanted etc. entertainment value like Hollywood blockbuster all explosions no substance I guess the markets there of course and people enjoy that, for me felt like wasting my life after 30 min. Maybe when the iterations get more realistic as real life rather than Hollywood and you actually have to be a smart criminal to not get caught it would be cool to play or still or more clever unique scenarios. To each his own of course

The GTA games actually also have a story in them, at least since the PS2 days. I guess now GTA is mostly about the multiplayer, but the single-player stories are unusually well crafted, for video games anyway.

There isn't much in terms of story in GTA Online but the classic GTA V (retroactively called Story Mode) is an elaborate satire on the contemporary American society, including the technology industry itself. While some of the jokes might be low-brow, in general it's quite entertaining. There's even talk radio, TV channels and social media (where you "stalk" instead of "like").

It might be fun just to take a look how some of the real-world brand names were mangled to create their in-game equivalents: the most common beverage is called eCola (after the bacteria), a common beer brand is Pißwasser (Budweiser). There's a high-fashion brand called Perseus (named after a Greek mythological figure who killed Medusa, and Medusa is featured in Versace's real-life logo). Among the car brands, there's Schyster (Chrysler) and since there's Vapid (Ford, made obvious by the logo), you can also find an in-game clothes brand Tim Vapid (Tom Ford). Lacoste is Lézard (with an acute e) and watersports equipment is branded Speedophile. These are just a few examples I recall. One can appreciate the amount of imagination that went into coming up with it all, especially considering these are such minor details.

It's my understanding that originally there was intention to flesh out the story mode aspect of the game with DLC / downloadable content quite significantly compared to what it is today.

As someone with no previous experience with GTA series since the original top down view version i enjoyed the singleplayer story and experience of GTA V a lot and the world building was amazing. I've run around the map for hours and there's lot's of places that serve absolutely no purpose but gives the impression that it was intended to play a part of some story at some point in the game.

In the end I guess the online part got 'too' successful and basically made Rockstar focus only on this portion of the game. The GTA V story mode world seems like the minimum version for getting story mode to work. And a certain fruit company sure gets mentioned a lot as well :)

> In the end I guess the online part got 'too' successful and basically made Rockstar focus only on this portion of the game.

Remember when TF2 found hats? Micro transactions killed Half Life 3

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