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GTA V Makes $800 Million In 24 Hours
An anonymous reader writes "The highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto V was released at midnight yesterday, and to no surprise has managed to break the record for highest sales in 24 hours. Distributors Take-Two Interactive have announced that the game has managed to achieve a staggering $800m (£490m) worth of sales within the first day, and is certainly going to break the forecasted $1 billion within the week. The record was previous held by Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops which made $500m within 24 hours in 2009. The game also holds the title for the quickest entertainment product to achieve $1 billion in sales as they hit the mark by day 15."
You feel anger because its the truth. GTA is shallow and boring.
The youtube lets play I saw of Red Dead Redemption was interesting. But it was far from worth watching more than 30 minutes of it. It was nice to see someone try to make a historically interesting western game. However http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_(video_game) seemed like a more fun and compelling game minus a few pitfalls in gameplay (one I actually did play). I could see how the story in that game might be decent if the time was invested in the gameplay.
I've seen first hand a few people play GTA. And I played a friends GTA4 console version for a few hours ~2.
It was no where near as fun as Saints Row 1 or 2. They decided to "simulate" reality in too much detail. Rather than being a game, arcady. They sacrificed good gameplay for faux realism. The guns reached the uncanny valley. And I sat there thinking. Damn, this is bullshit. Its nothing like real life. Its a farse. The selling point is to give people a simulation to act out their criminal fantasy in. But its a horribly inaccurate simulation. The abstraction they used is not fun from a gameplay perspective. The entire game holds up this promise and falls flat in every regard.
The storyline is no better than a B movie at best. It doesn't tell a compelling or thought provoking tale full of meaningful choices. At least Saints Row was a humorous parody on political topics.
They should have just made a fun shooter. Like Serious Sam.
To me GTA falls short of being a game. And is more like an attraction. And not a very good one.
Detailed virtual worlds exist. But in games like Eve (player made), or Dwarf Fortress (procedural), or Angbhand, Archimedean Dynasty, Frontier: Elite II.
GTA is a pale imitation of real life lacking in fine detail. Even F.E.A.R. was more detailed and compelling. Or Dues Ex which had a well thought out and developed universe.