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Is GTA Online ethical?
- Thread starter Avenger
- Start date
A lot of people on this site have completely warped definitions of things like "unethical" or "anti-consumer". It's laughable.
Probably better this way. It was always hit or miss if cars actually saved to your garage in Single Player. Haha.
But unethical? Ehh, not really.
But unethical? Ehh, not really.
at this point, "anti-consumer" may as well be a meme on this site
Oh god, super unethical. Single player gamers have been unrecognized, even down right ignored (see: Shadowrun by FASA Studios, Overwatch by Blizzard just to name two) for ages. However, the whole video game industry has single player games to thank for the entire medium. The biggest hits, the games driving forward discourse and acceptance, are single player experiences. To keep content away from solo gamers is offensive and rude, forcing them into an online space just to drive the new rocket car is the most unethical thing out there, if not at least second to not tipping the valet.
Single Player has all the animal wildlife. Multiplayer has nothing. No deer, no sharks or whales. Totally unethical!!
I haven't played it in ages so I can't speak on GTA online, but if they use the same predatory psychological tactics as mobile games do, then yes its unethical.
Started playing online because of the casino, it had been more than a year since I played the game.
Just play the odds in the horse racing and you'll never need to spend a dime to do anything else.
I made half a million dollars in just a few hours over a couple days.
Unless they nuke the horse racing and make it completely unfair, it's an easy way to make money.
Just putting that out there as an FYI for anybody that might play the game.
Unethical
No
Kinda sucks?
Yes
There's a lot of weird monetization in GTA0 that you can easily make the unethical argument, like the literal casino. Things not being available single player is not one of them. It sucks cosidering gta4 had single player dlc and TBOGT is argably better than the main game. But it is what it is. There are bigger fish to fry, like again the literal fucking gambling
No
Kinda sucks?
Yes
There's a lot of weird monetization in GTA0 that you can easily make the unethical argument, like the literal casino. Things not being available single player is not one of them. It sucks cosidering gta4 had single player dlc and TBOGT is argably better than the main game. But it is what it is. There are bigger fish to fry, like again the literal fucking gambling
Are the online-only cars even appreciably different? I honestly don't know, but there's plenty of cars in the base game, it's hard to imagine there being many truly unique ones in the online game. If they had crazy stuff like San Andreas' jetpack and the only way to experience it is Online that would be pretty lame.
But as far as new models of car with slightly different stats or whatever, the only reason they're still producing content for the game is the revenue form GTAO, so I'm not sure why it would surprise anyone that that new content is exclusive to that mode.
Edit: Just to be clear, even though I do think it's kind of shame if there are truly unique things to mess around with, and I'm in the camp wondering what the hell the OP thinks "ethical" means, this is clearly not a moral issue.
But as far as new models of car with slightly different stats or whatever, the only reason they're still producing content for the game is the revenue form GTAO, so I'm not sure why it would surprise anyone that that new content is exclusive to that mode.
Edit: Just to be clear, even though I do think it's kind of shame if there are truly unique things to mess around with, and I'm in the camp wondering what the hell the OP thinks "ethical" means, this is clearly not a moral issue.
Both your posts are rude in this thread towards the OP.
The premise of this thread is wrong, but GTA Online is unethical. Pushing gambling to an audience that contains a not insignificant amount of children is unethical. Similar to FIFA in that way.
It's always startling to see people demonstrating more empathy towards companies like Rockstar, who have made billions upon billions of dollars off of GTA than people like the OP, who while certainly has misconstrued things, are at least trying to approach the subject with a critical eye. Not sure why so many feel like these companies deserve this. They don't. They are receiving money in return for providing something. In Rockstar's case it has been so lucrative they have made all of one new game for the past seven years.
I thought they did do this? Last time I played GTAV, I had a lot of cars stored in the garage that I assumed were from all the multiplayer updates because they looked so unique. I also remember them updating the radio stations too.
Regardless, I think there's a lot of unethical shit in GTA Online but this isn't one of them and it's kind of ridiculous to think so.
Regardless, I think there's a lot of unethical shit in GTA Online but this isn't one of them and it's kind of ridiculous to think so.
Agreeing with other posters and saying yes, GTA Online is unethical, but not for the reasons you're on about. Businesses want to make mad bank, and having the exorbitantly priced cars/houses/yachts/casino/whatever is what's getting them the money via the shark card purchases. That's what you can argue is unethical, since unless you have thousands of hours to play the game, you will not generate enough currency to obtain the items without purchasing the shark cards. You could also argue that having the casino in the game now is unethical, claiming that it has/will introduce many to a gambling addiction.
I don't think it's showing empathy to Rockstar to show the flaws in the logic of the OP. The money they have made off of GTA doesn't effect the original question asked. Game companies have no obligation to provide support that is the exact same in all scenarios merely because one bought a game. I'm all for them doing it of course, but it is by no means unethical.
Other items brought up can be discussed and are significant, but to me it is not showing empathy to a company to simply say no this isn't an expectation one should have. The amount of money made off of the product doesn't change the answer most people are giving in here. GTA Online may or may not be ethical (I don't even know what all it offers), but if it isn't ethical it's for reasons other than the OP has.
OP figured out that GTA Online is incontrovertibly designed to make players buy shark cards for the plethora of over the top, "free" content by making it insanely expensive.
lol at the marks thinking single-player and online are different games. Like, all it takes is a widely-available script to be able to spawn online cars in single-player, the only reason they're restricted to online and cost ten times what they would've at launch is to sell shark cards.
Grand Theft Auto Online is a separate game. you are getting access to it by purchasing gta v rockstar stated that back in 2013.
it technically isn't a separate game. For instance, since its free on EGS and hackers are going wild, they can get into your singelplayer mode to fuck with you if you're still connected to rockstar game servers.
They can call it whatever they want, but that's like saying the multiplayer component of Modern Warfare is a separate game from the campaign or Warzone.
It's not, though?
It's made to appear that way, but they may as well have been completely different games, the way these things work.
Look to any big budget SP/MP game and see that usually, if the MP is important to them, an entirely different team or studio works on that.
This.
Also I believe there's a mod on PC that transfers some of the mp cars into sp, the casino, and maybe even some of the heists. Careful trying this when logged into Rockstar's network though, could result in a ban. The Rockstar Launcher scans your GTAV install folder at launch and can recognize when there's different files from the base install present (ie mods).
spending real money at a virtual casino should payout real money. otherwise, that should be illegal and/or properly laid out in the ESRB rating
In a lot of ways, it is. The way they build the games, COD especially, they usually have separate teams working on each aspect, then cobble them together.
The fact that they share a license and a launcher in-game frontend doesn't really change that.
Whats the ethical issue? Not providing content of the single player thats found in the multiplayer? If so, no. Its not the exact same game, and the developers work seperately on the singleplayer and multiplayer. Why would it be an ethical issue though? It would be possible to make that content as paid DLC in the singleplayer for sure, so its not exactly a technical reason indeed, but it would require more work and testing to make sure that it works in the single player too (its probably not tons of work if i should guess, but some extra work nontheless), and i agree that it would be nice if they did this, for sure, but its not an ethical issue since they're not obligated at all to provide more content outside of what they promised for they game's release.
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Destiny has multiple developers working on different aspects of each game, the same way COD does. Are we gonna say Destiny's PVP mode is a separate game from the PVE on the same bases?
Idk this is such a weird distinction to make
Öhm.. yeah... this place...
either Kapitalism is unethical, or this practice is ethical. it acts to its full extend in the capitalistic framework it was conceived and published in.
Every producer that mas more than one product tire is essentially doing this: giving incentive to consume the other one, even if it (depending on the viewpoint) is not the same experience.
example phones: normal version and "pro" version. Pro has the better camera.
I dont want the pro because its way bigger and not what i want from my "phone" experience.
But the better camera, i want it. It is already developed, puting it in the smaller phone is not the problem. (ignoring that there would be testing costs and so on)
But they want you to buy the "pro" phone, since they have a bigger margine on it.
It this ethical?
by the wai, ethics are not a set of universally agreed upon values. Is being unproportionaly wealthy, ethical?
Some would say yes, some would say no, others would say its "agnostic", there is no ethics in wealth (and those people would be fucking stupid). By the way i formulated this sentence, you probably know on what front i am (not wealth general, but the kind like bezos...)
either Kapitalism is unethical, or this practice is ethical. it acts to its full extend in the capitalistic framework it was conceived and published in.
Every producer that mas more than one product tire is essentially doing this: giving incentive to consume the other one, even if it (depending on the viewpoint) is not the same experience.
example phones: normal version and "pro" version. Pro has the better camera.
I dont want the pro because its way bigger and not what i want from my "phone" experience.
But the better camera, i want it. It is already developed, puting it in the smaller phone is not the problem. (ignoring that there would be testing costs and so on)
But they want you to buy the "pro" phone, since they have a bigger margine on it.
It this ethical?
by the wai, ethics are not a set of universally agreed upon values. Is being unproportionaly wealthy, ethical?
Some would say yes, some would say no, others would say its "agnostic", there is no ethics in wealth (and those people would be fucking stupid). By the way i formulated this sentence, you probably know on what front i am (not wealth general, but the kind like bezos...)
they share some assets but that its it. rockstar stopped supporting the singleplayer years ago people need to move on.
I hate to stick up for corporate, and I do wish that we'd get all the stuff in SP... but when you're right, you're right.
I mean I'm not really arguing against that. I just think it's a bit weird to consider GTA Online a wholly separate game instead of the online component of GTA V
That is a bad example, as Warzone is literally a separate game that is available for free and stand-alone from the rest of Modern Warfare.
It's a legitimate distinction when the original question was why some assets or aspects of the MP don't make it into SP.
It's a different game except that you need to buy the single player game to be able to play (or the Epic giveaway, but that was probably not their intent when they made the game).
Outside of needing to buy a game, it is clearly structured as a overly grindy F2P.
I'd say it is unethical in that aspect alone.
Outside of needing to buy a game, it is clearly structured as a overly grindy F2P.
I'd say it is unethical in that aspect alone.
My favourite one ever was someone saying that if you enjoyed Fallout 76 then you are anti-consumer.
I am not showing empathy to Rockstar. I don't care about GTA Online, haven't played it beyond an hour or so at launch, and I deeply dislike their monetization.
What I dislike even more than that (it is after all pretty easy to ignore a game if you don't like it) is the overdramatization from a lot of users where everything these days seemingly has to be "the best ever", "the worst of this generation", anti-consumer, unethical or whatever completely inappropriate word gets thrown around next instead of what it actually boils down to, which is "I don't like it". Which is fine, plenty of people dislike GTAO. No need to be all dramatic about it.