8 Things Rockstar Games NEED Right Now

5. Start Scaling Down GTA Online

GTA Online
Rockstar

GTA Online was a blast when it was at its peak, but the story over the last couple of years hasn't been all that positive.

Back when it first started out, GTA V's multiplayer was a buggy mess. It would take months for the first update to arrive and a further two years for heists to join them, but once they did, players started to have a ball. The big payouts that came from heists meant more in-game spending, and Rockstar met the demand with new vehicles, weapons, clothing and property for players to spend their earnings on.

But then prices started to rise, and regular payouts got more and more difficult to achieve without having to grind in open lobbies with trigger-happy players.

It was around this time that GTA's Shark Cards - currency that could be bought with real-life money - began to explode. More and more players looked to these microtransactions to stay in the loop with Online's updates, to the point where the game's final heist required a sizeable investment from players before they could get it started.

With these Shark Cards, GTA Online has netted Rockstar an estimated $1 billion in revenue, and it's showing no signs of slowing down. Of course the mode has a loyal fanbase, but one gets the feeling that it's distracting from more creatively fulfilling opportunities - like, for instance, Red Dead Online, which is in major need of attention.

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Content Producer/Presenter

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.