Despite The Flaws, There’s No Denying The Impact Of GTA Online

Seeing GTA in the title immediately made you think of GTA 6, didn’t it? I’m afraid I must disappoint you by talking about a GTA other than 6 today, but hey, just the fact that there’s no ominous “Another GTA 6 delay” news is great news, right? Let’s hope it lasts till November, but in the meantime, I think it’s only fair to talk about something that made so much money for Rockstar that the game we’re so anxiously waiting for could become the unbelievably massive billion-dollar deal that it is.

That’s right, it’s none other than GTA Online, the gigantic, ever-changing sandbox with loads of fun stuff to do. While GTA 5 reigned as the premier single-player experience, GTA Online took the whole “free to do crazy things” we know and love GTA for to a whole new level. It may have changed drastically over the years, for better or worse, but the fact remains that its social and cultural impact really shaped GTA’s legacy, and even affected gaming as a whole. After all, what else can make a million dollars a day even now?

13 Years Of GTA Online

I can’t believe it’s been 13 years since GTA Online came along. GTA was first and foremost a single-player concept, and many people still think the same. It’s not like I can’t understand where they’re coming from, but still, I think the early years of GTA Online really did a great job of portraying the whole “wild crime spree with exciting chaos” aspect of the series in an online setting. The game still has an unbelievable amount of fun things to do for franchise fans, and if you’ve been away for long, you can even opt to purchase GTA 5 money to catch up quickly.

Over the years, though, the game really has changed a lot. Being an online experience, receiving seasonal content and consistent updates throughout is only natural, but not everything is an instant hit. You’re bound to have a couple of misses, and GTA Online has had its fair share of those. When the game strayed from the grounded, realistic approach to the world that GTA is so beloved for, that’s when I found it at its lowest.

The middle years were downright magical, but then slowly, all the logically impossible kind of stuff, wacky missions, and especially the flying vehicles made it all very complicated. I think we can agree that the Oppressor was a bad idea. However, all this still doesn’t change the fact that a lot of stuff in GTA Online is what made the series what it is today. It’s an undeniable part of GTA’s legacy, a reminder of the series’ history and where it’s going next. Especially, now that it’s trying to bring back the good stuff.

I will never buy a flying car/bike
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A Powerful Testing Facility

Beyond a standalone GTA experience, I think what GTA Online did best was test new and unprecedented ideas and how they would actually work in the game. When it comes to single-player games, the original design, once released, is final. You can try new stuff in the DLC, but the core experience remains unchanged for years. However, that’s where the flexibility of a long-running online game comes in handy.

A GTA Online Appreciation Post
byu/CaptainStarReddit ingtaonline

With seasonal content, you can rotate ideas and come up with new quests or game modes to gauge their reception among the fans, and that’s exactly what GTA Online has been doing all these years. In addition to being a source of consistent funding for Rockstar, it’s also an experimental facility. I think looking at GTA Online’s 13-year history, it’s clear that the times when it stuck to what made GTA so special — the extreme sense of reality when executing mastermind criminal heists and chaos — are when it was at its best. 

Alternatively, the inclusion of exaggerated content, illogical vehicles, and the prevalence of low-effort predatory stuff made the game less productive. If you ask me, these 13 years are a perfect blueprint for what to do and what to avoid in GTA 6. Trust me, there’s been a lot of amazing stuff in GTA Online, and I’ll be thrilled to see it all in GTA 6. But at the same time, it’s best to avoid the things fans have hated in GTA Online. Do it right, and there’s no doubt GTA 6 will be the amazing masterpiece we want it to be.