Rockstar Games has done an interview with PC Gamer’s Andy Kelly about the past, present and future of Grand Theft Auto Online. The interview answers were given by co-studio head at Rockstar North Rob Nelson. We’ve collected some of the most notable responses in this article regarding Rockstar’s views and actions on GTA Online.
Speaking on the creation of the mode back in 2013, Nelson says that they wanted players to feel more connected to the world of Online, similarly to the effect they get in singleplayer. “And creating online versions of these worlds has shown us how to deepen and extend those experiences in new ways. By letting players share the space together, and through activities like heists, we help people create stories of their own, and over time they become more connected to the world.”
Nelson also says that GTA V’s world isn’t a limitation when creating content for GTA Online, even 6 years down the line. “We can go ‘into’ the world by creating additional interiors like the Maze Bank Arena, missile silos, or the underground bunkers. But we also have the opportunity to change the topography in major ways, like the Diamond Casino & Resort building. There’s a lot more we can do with the world we’ve made before we’re going to feel like we’re pushing the limits of what it can handle.”
Interestingly, PC Gamer asked Nelson about what Rockstar thinks of the roleplay scene on Grand Theft Auto Online on PC, and he says “it’s fascinating.” He continues to say “We’ve always wanted people to role-play. Even in the singleplayer games we’re providing an opportunity to play as a character in a specific kind of world.”
We get a sense of this want for players to role-play in Red Dead Online’s recent updates which add roles such as bounty hunters. Some more info from Rockstar’s response to player feedback was that “Sometimes we will release an update and see a lot of negative social media feedback. But we learn by the way that people are engaging with it that it’s actually really popular. We’ve always been trying to deliver something our audience will enjoy and we’ve learned a ton about the game through player habits.”
“Player feedback is always a part of our overall decision-making process in terms of guiding the moving parts of any given update. We often have the larger concepts we want to pursue from update to update as part of our near-to-long- term planning, but the team is constantly looking at player data or the feedback the community sends us to see how we can improve what we’re building as we go.”
Then, the interview pivots to talking about the future of GTA Online, which is what the majority of the audience likely care about. On that front, Rockstar reveal that they don’t tell players about the game’s timeline because “we want to have the flexibility to be responsive to any changes” and “we’ve got really exciting plans for later in the holiday season and beyond.”
You can read the full interview with Andy Kelly here.
2 Comments
I am really angry at rockstar.
they recently ran a promo – get the launcher and social club and they give you gta San Andreas free.
i got both. In order to get gta San Andreas I had to provide age verificatiin via the ONLY accepted method – a German id card, which you only get if you are German. period.
I’m an American living in Germany. I have a passport a drivers license, and the German foreigners Id card. I took photos of them and mailed them in.
rockstar at first denied this was true. the said yes, it was true and a known issue on their side. then I was promised they would fix it and even after the promo ended I would get the game. then I got mails telling me since I didn’t have a German id card I would never get the game. their customer service is in Poland (I think) and even asking about what’s going on about fixing this issue gets very angry responses.
so rockstar – how do you intend to fix this for all the non Germans living in Germany that did exactly what your promo required and yet didn’t get the game as promised?
I have played ever since ps3