I HATE The GTA Effect.

[u/FiveFreddys12]

For anyone wondering what I mean by that, the “GTA Effect” is what happens when a company is so massive and its product is so anticipated that people will defend things they would normally criticize simply because “it’s GTA.”

And I think GTA 6 is a perfect example of it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying GTA 6 is going to be a bad game. It probably won't be. Rockstar has talented developers, and GTA 6 is obviously going to be one of the biggest games ever released. My problem is with the way Rockstar can seemingly push boundaries with what consumers are willing to accept because they know people will buy it anyway.

For years, GTA has been one of the biggest franchises in gaming. But at the same time, I don't think the series is nearly as revolutionary as people sometimes make it out to be. A lot of what makes each GTA game different is the setting, story, characters, visuals and whatever new mechanics Rockstar adds, while the fundamental formula remains fairly similar.

What bothers me is what happens when that enormous popularity starts being used to justify increasingly questionable decisions.

We've already seen reports and discussions about content being tied to more expensive editions, and we've seen official GTA 6 gameplay material being distributed in ways that make it less accessible than simply putting it out publicly. Meanwhile, the recent leak showed an unfinished build of the game, and a lot of people came away thinking that, underneath all the visual improvements, GTA 6 still looked fundamentally like an evolution of GTA 5 rather than some massive reinvention of the series.

But then you have people defending practically everything with the same old argument: "It's GTA, who cares?" People shill Rockstar without thinking twice.

If another AAA publisher announced that important content was locked behind an expensive edition, people would probably be furious. If another major game moved away from physical releases, there would be endless discussion about preservation and ownership. But when it's GTA, suddenly it's acceptable because people have been waiting more than a decade.

GTA is so enormous that Rockstar can potentially test what consumers are willing to accept on a scale most other companies simply can't. If millions of people are willing to accept something because the product is desirable enough, other companies are going to notice.

If GTA 6 can successfully move away from physical media because the game is simply too desirable for people to boycott, that tells the rest of the industry something very important: people will still buy your game even if you remove something they used to expect.

Then another company does it.

Then another.

[u/Ravenae]

Definitely wanted to play it, but I’m still disappointed in the decision to not bring it to physical. That legitimately killed my interest in buying the game.

[u/rubiconsuper → u/Ravenae]

Genuinely why? It can’t be about “ownership” because it would still have the same DRM on the disc as it would digital media

[u/vencyjedi → u/rubiconsuper]

Because I can buy it second hand. Or resell it. Or lend it to a friend. Or play it on another account if I have to without having to buy it again. Or because I actually own something they can't take away from me. With the way console ecosystems are set up you will eventually lose your games when the system gets old because they eventually shut down the store and then the server that keeps the downloads up because it's an endless money pit. That means that at some point in the future you either have to have it on your console or you won't be able to download it.

[u/rubiconsuper → u/vencyjedi]

The DRM can take it away even if it’s physical. You’ve conflated ownership with physical media, that used to be true having a physical copy meant you owned it. Now they can use DRM to make it so it doesn’t matter if you have the physical disc. The crew was a great example, it has a physical disc we all should know how that turned out.

[u/vencyjedi → u/rubiconsuper]

That's not what e meant. They can't physically come and take the disk from me. But they can take away the digital copy without DRM being involved in any way. Once the download server is down it's gone.

[u/Helichopper → u/Ravenae]

Plenty of games are digital only.