Destructoid Checkpoint: The Early Crimes of GTA 6

GTA 6 has a lot of things this week that it didn’t have last week. It has a release date you can believe in, a price you can save up for, and a couple of controversies that seem to leave people wondering if they want to support the game at all.

GTA 6 was always going to lead to some issues; it’s almost impossible for a game of this scale, with this much money on the line, to launch without scrutiny. So, let’s take a look at the early missteps, then we’ll talk about whether any of that matters.

Limited Edition Locations and Painful Price Points

Games have been doing exclusive content in their limited editions for a while now, but the sheer scale and anticipation around GTA 6 has turned their efforts to charge an extra $20 into some public theater. The exclusive Ultimate Edition content includes weapons, skins, outfits, vehicles, and even missions, but the biggest issue people seem to have is that there will be exclusive shops in the game that the plebian Standard Edition owners cannot enter. 

I’m seeing a little surprise online that people care so strongly about this, but nobody has ever enjoyed running face-first into a sign that says there is real estate they are not allowed to walk on, even if that real estate is decidedly unreal. 

Add in all the guns, outfits, vehicles, and other stuff, and it really does feel like the Standard Edition has been set out to feel incomplete, FOMOing people into parting with the extra twenty bucks, while also allowing Rockstar Games to sidestep the legacy of being the studio that pushed the price of a new game to $100.

At $79.99 for the Standard Edition and $99.99 for the Ultimate Edition, Rockstar Games has found its way to make GTA 6 a $100 game. The price compounds with the method for many people, with the accusation being that you need to pay the higher amount to get the intended complete experience. As I said above, this tactic is nothing new, but the volume of content being held back would likely be considered egregious if done by any other title, so it’s actually heartening to see Rockstar catching some flak for it.

No Physical Disk

The biggest and most interesting move is one that Rockstar appears to have failed to explain correctly. There will be no disc in physical copies, only a code for those who wish to visit their local brick-and-mortar stores. 

Initially, this seemed like an interesting attempt for Rockstar to control two things that they might not like. The first is that GTA 6 gets into the wild before launch, copies of the game going missing between pressing and sale, or worse, large shipments being stolen. It also gives a way to control, or in this case, eliminate the secondary market. No disc means no second-hand sales, which means every copy sold is new and price-controlled by Rockstar. 

Now, there were reports circulating that a physical disk version would appear roughly a month post-launch, but they have been shot down. Even if it were true, it is still punishing, as plenty of people are happy to jump on a game early, then sell it on afterward to reduce the cost of their hobby.

Even if a physical disk does come out later, that could technically look even worse for Rockstar, who can then be accused of trying an even earlier-than-usual double dip. Rockstar has made billions selling GTA 6 to the same people over and over again, and it’s easy to point fingers at this move as an extension of that tactic.

Now, ultimately, none of these tactics will matter. Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive are well aware of what they have with GTA 6, which is likely going to be the highest-grossing game of this year, next year, and the year after that. The bigger issue is whether this truly starts the push in the industry to move the cost of games upward in a meaningful sense.

We have already seen a number of games released with higher prices, and developers and publishers will argue that they are not immune to the same rising costs that make such price increases a bit of a deal for consumers. 

Layoffs at Bungie

As predicted last week, there is bad news to cover this week, as layoffs have struck Bungie, with hundreds of developers losing their jobs. All the arguing on Twitter between Destiny 2 and Marathon fans turned out to be for naught, as both teams took losses, although the Destiny 2 team was particularly hard hit.

I don’t really want to talk about it too much. I just want to express thanks to the Bungie team for over a decade of fun in the Destiny universe, and it is my fervent wish that some version of the team will be able to get back to working within that universe at some point in the future. 

I’d love to say that this will likely be the worst week in gaming this year, as Xbox snuck in yet another console price increase, but I fear it’s just getting started. 

What’s happening, Destructoid?

While the idea that Tim Sweeney wants to sell you undisclosed AI slop might sound like a conspiracy, he’s not helping by being mad at Steam for pushing AI disclosures. Andrej Barovic has some thoughts. - “AI has been the bane of, well, everyone’s existence for over three years now. It started as a gag, a gimmick even, a fun thing to try out and see how far neural networks had come. Now? It’s a corporate trend where they try to convince you that, yeah, productivity is the end goal of society, damn all the Luddites and their desire to keep human creativity intact.”

Hadley Vincent wants to know which indie game you'd like to see on the big screen. - “Horror has seen a resurgence in recent years, where more original movies have come out of the woodwork to terrify their audience. With the rise of original ideas such as Sinners, Weapons, Bring Her Back, and Obsession, it’s clear that people want more horror. But there’s uncharted territory that indie directors are only now dipping their toes into, and it’s the world of indie games.”

Scott Duwe has spent time with Star Fox. - “The biggest improvements in Star Fox are its technological advancements. The game is just plain gorgeous, but the Switch 2 also allows for smoother gameplay and much better presentation with full-fledged cutscenes in between the action. There’s also a fair amount of lore to dive into with a Codex that you unlock by playing through the campaign several times over, and it feels like there’s more backstory than other entries have fit in before.”

And that’s it for this week.