10. The Entire Economy Revolves Around Microtransactions
Rockstar
By far the biggest change between playing GTA Online in 2015 and playing it in 2020 is the economy. Rockstar's fictional online war zone has inflated with each update, with the average price of a vehicle now sitting just above $1.3 million.
That's one vehicle.
Whereas long ago completing the Pacific Standard heist would leave you with a sizeable chunk of cash, now, that final payout is barely enough to put a dent in the new bunkers, offices, arcades and nightclubs you need to progress and enjoy newer content, as in-game earnings haven't risen with inflation.
It'll take you days to accumulate enough cash to start the Doomsday or Casino heists, something made doubly worse by the fact most of these missions now have to be done in public lobbies, with griefers rampant. Compounding all of this further is that, as soon as you open up the game, you'll be bombarded with calls and texts pressuring you to buy buy buy.
It's very... icky. So much coverage has been devoted to predatory loot box models or mobile games, but GTA Online is up there with the very worst.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
