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."

Comments

Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people are stupid and like shallow entertainment.

Re:Sure

[Joining Yet Again]

This. I would never require people to invest more generously than in shallow entertainment, but the fact that we freely choose not to is enough to make me lose interest in humanity.

Re:Sure

[mwvdlee]

And some people are both stupid and arrogant.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you bought a copy of GTA.

Re:Sure

[jcr]

Jealousy is a very ugly emotion, kid.

-jcr

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Jealous that some people... bought a game and liked it? Somehow, that just doesn't seem very likely.

Re:Sure

[flayzernax]

You feel anger because its the truth. GTA is shallow and boring.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Question - Why do you have a manually-inserted "jcr" following your comments, when it's identical to the user name displayed above them anyway?(!)

Re:Sure

[Joce640k]

Most people are stupid and like shallow entertainment.

You don't have to be stupid to enjoy shallow entertainment.

Re:Sure

[somersault]

GTA is shallow and boring.

Compared to what? GTA is one of the most free-form and detailed virtual worlds there is. It's filled with beauty, technical awesomeness and humour. Are you just not a fan of games in general? What did you think of Red Dead Redemption?

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you work for Rockstar, by any chance?

Re:Sure

[somersault]

I wish :p

Re:Sure

[flayzernax]

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.

Re:Sure

[flayzernax]

Most smart people wait till that shallow entertainment is at least in the bargain bin before wasting their hard earned payolla on it.

60$ would be a nice drive + meal in a remote and wild place. Or visit to a historic and interesting site. Or half a plane ticket to another locale, even a foreign one from where I'm at.

I'm not convinced that smart people would immediately spend that on day 1 without waiting a few months for reviews.

Sheep bought it. Well trained sheep.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, this is atypical of people who play nerdy games, I can't judge you, but you seem like the type to play the "zombie" like games or "space exploration" and have no problem boring yourself for a couple hours a day.

I have played GTA since it came out, and I will say they aren't the first gaming company to have thought of a "free-roam" world but they managed to but the first to come out with such a game. Anything since is a copycat...

Yes I am an asshole when it comes to GTA compared to copycat games. but they continue to add to the GTA franchise, it isn't "REALITY" it is a "VIDEO GAME".. And that is whats make them "VIDEO GAMES" you are trying to live in a Hollywood-esque
world where games and reality cannot be linked together one day it will come to that, but it would be labeled something completely different.

Re:Sure

[flayzernax]

I liked Just Cause and Just Cause II, but I got the former for 19$ used, and the latter for free. I do not mind mindless tactical puzzles. But GTA doesn't even do that well IMO. The trappings they throw on it just makes it worse.

It is a Hollywood bias. Your right. I don't think I will enjoy games that attempt to be serious. Unless they are scientific or about exploration.

But if I had to compare GTA to almost any other games out there. Its just not a franchise I put any faith in. Even after seeing the first one. I was playing Quake3 heavily at the time of its first release. And mods like Team Fortress, or other cheesy mods (A DBZ one comes to mind).

Gameplay matters. Making fake virtual "ads" and AK47's is pretty dull and has been done to death. Wrapping them together in a package, throwing some nice shaders, and textures down, doesn't make a work of art.

Re:Sure

[drinkypoo]

Gameplay matters. Making fake virtual "ads" and AK47's is pretty dull and has been done to death. Wrapping them together in a package, throwing some nice shaders, and textures down, doesn't make a work of art.

Gameplay and Story both matter. What GTA's got, especially since San Andreas, is some of the best story around. If you don't like the genre you won't like the game, but that doesn't change the fact that they have a well-developed story.

Also, you may think the gameplay is dull, but GTA successfully combines several different kinds of gameplay in a way that clearly captivates many players, perhaps even a majority of them. And I find the fake ads hilarious, and that the game world would feel dull and empty without them. When I go rocketing through the airport race (I don't have GTAV yet, just IV) and one of the pisswasser ads goes by for a fraction of a second it's hilarious. Does that mean I have an infantile sense of humor? Maybe. Congrats Rockstar for knowing your audience.

I've been playing GTA since the first one, which we played at LAN parties, which were still a thing. And now I'm soon to go out and buy the new one. At full price, no less. The last game I did that with was GTA IV. I've been playing it off and on right up until now.

Meanwhile, how's that Quake franchise doing? Half-Life? Hmm.

Re:Sure

[ifiwereasculptor]

GTA I through Vice City, sure. San Andreas was already bit stale. IV was just incredibly annoying and not sandboxy at all.

Re:Sure

[RaceProUK]

Most people are stupid and like shallow entertainment.

Even emeritus professors occasionally laugh at fart jokes.

Re:Sure

[Talderas]

Once you go Row you never go Auto.

Re:Sure

[Lithdren]

Just because you dont enjoy something doesn't mean people who do are 'sheep'. You sound like a jerk, because you are.

60 dollars for a few hundred hours of entertainment isn't a bad deal. Its not entertainment if you dont like the game, which you clearly are dead set to not like. Good for you! So dont buy it.

Not buying something doesn't make you smart, it means you know what you like. That may sugest some wisdom but when your reason is "Because you're all SHEEP!" that more or less shows you're neither wise or smart. You just want to have something to hold over people to try to feel superior because you're not. When the best you can do is not doing something, it only shows how truly pitiful you are. I'm almost sorry for you.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

60$ would be a nice drive + meal in a remote and wild place.

Okay, so that would get you 4 or 5 hours entertainment, good wholesome entertainment.

Or visit to a historic and interesting site.

Getting slightly better, a similar amount of entertainment, and maybe some education too.

I'm not convinced that smart people would immediately spend that on day 1 without waiting a few months for reviews.

There's plenty of information about what the content of the game is. That, and rockstar have a reputation to uphold. You can therefore pretty much guarantee that it will have a good hundred hours of entertainment in it. I'm not convinced that smart people would pass up the chance of 100 hours of entertainment at $0.60 an hour because they might be able to get 4 or 5 hours of entertainment in a different way.

Re:Sure

[flayzernax]

Dead, mostly IMO because the studios aren't keeping up with the times. However Unreal did alright for a bit. Half Life Orange box was an amazing shooter all around. There are some good triple AAA shooters, Killzone comes to mind. But they fall well short of the classic and nostalgic titles for me.

I suppose I'm pretty jaded and and older than most of the people who probably found GTA as one of their nostalgic games. I played Saints Row before GTA4. The two games are similar in genre. And while Saints Row came out well after GTA San Andreas. I think Saints Row did a 10x better job of making a game of it.

If you haven't played Saints Row. Check it out, and see what you were missing. Even the latest one seems amusing (though it is nothing like the originals, and published by a different publisher).

I can in no way justify through experience the purchase of GTAV. But thats me. I'm going to stick by it =) I'de rather purchase a Star Trek adventure game XD.

Call me a snob.

Re:Sure

[somersault]

I loved Saints Row 2 (didn't try the first as it sounded like a poor quality knock-off of GTA). It seemed like the spiritual successor to the GTA 3 games. They didn't take themselves nearly as seriously as GTA IV did. I've not played enough of V to know how it compares properly to the previous games (only done a couple of missions), but so far it definitely feels like a more enjoyable place to be than Liberty City in GTA IV.

You should play Vice City or San Andreas if you want to see why everyone loves GTA so much.

I agree that the original Deus Ex is awesome :)

GTA was traditionally not about being real, or living out crime fantasies - more about having fun doing silly things. IV felt like it took itself too seriously sometimes, but hopefully V is back to form.

Re:Sure

[flayzernax]

Nah, I'm quite personally biased from buying games for 20+ years now. I think I should have learned a few lessons about shelling out hard earned money for software ;)

Rockstar has a reputation to uphold. So did many other grand studios and publishers. Like Epic, Origin, 3d Realms, Actavision (DIAKATANA *COUGH*), Atari, Blizzard (Diablo III, *COUGH*), and many many others... I mean I could sit here for an hour making a list of reasons not to ever buy a game on release date.

Re:Sure

[flayzernax]

Not to mention were talking about day1 sales. Not even word of mouth sales a week in.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Question - Why does it bother you?

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

-jcr

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Answer - It doesn't. I am, however, curious as to why people do that.

Re:Sure

[interkin3tic]

Do tell, what entertainment do YOU like? Wait really? You like THAT? LOL! Well, fine if you like it, but that's (pick all that apply):
Overrated, Shallow, Stupid, technically flawed, Pretentious, communist, capitalist, feudalist, colonialist, neocolonialist, imperialist (I guess like storm troopers?), mysoginist, hipster, racist, elitist, too mainstream, vulgar, liberal, conservative, unamerican, something sheeple would do, libertarian, classist, immoral, gluttonous, lewd, vain, arrogant, environmentally unsound, unsustainable, disrespectful to native americans, disrespectful to african americans, disrespectful to moon men, culturally insensitive in some other way, fanboish, stupid, homosexual, (some insult based on heterosexuality), effete, too macho, lame, overrated again (because somehow other people liking it is somehow a really big insult), too mainstream, Too popular, not popular enough, Lame, Whiney, left, Right, transgendered, cis-gendered, no-gendered, triple-gendered, Supports DRM, Unrealistically does not support DRM, closed-source, M$, Fandroid, Apple fanboi, Linux insult, nerdy, Lamp,

Okay, I'm out of steam now. I think that should sufficiently cover whatever it is you do for entertainment and why it's bad and I'm better than you.

Re:Sure

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

"Most people are stupid and like shallow entertainment."

Says the first post troll...

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

He's right though. They do lack depth. Which is a synonym of shallow.

Re:Sure

[flayzernax]

I'm making an assumption here based on my own biased information. I suppose not so smart. But I've learned that my intuition is pretty dead on. It would be interesting to see the average income level, education, and IQ of all these first day sales though.

Re:Sure

[interkin3tic]

They "lack depth?" In what aspect? They're sandbox style games. GTA has some of the biggest maps with the most you can do in them. It's quite deep compared to other games in that reguard.

If you're talking about "it has a shallow plot" then you need to realize you aren't reading a book. You are playing a sandbox style game.

If you are complaining about shallow driving, shooting, and dart minigames, then you need to realize you aren't playing a driving simulator, a shooter, or a dart videogame. You are playing a sandbox style game.

Why not just say "overrated?" The hipsters do it for a reason: no one can argue with overrated, and it shows your disdain of the vulgar pleasures of the commonfolk. If you find one guy who says "I LUV GTA! IT'S THE BEST!' then you can accurately say that the game is overrated. If you make more specific picks about a popular game you hate simply because it's popular, you could be wrong.

Re:Sure

[the_fat_kid]

Just to quote wikipedia:

In e-mail and newsgroup usage, another type of signature exists which is independent of one's language. Users can set one or more lines of custom text known as a signature block to be automatically appended to their messages. This text usually includes a name, contact information, and sometimes quotations and ASCII art. A shortened form of a signature block, only including one's name, often with some distinguishing prefix, can be used to simply indicate the end of a post or response. Some web sites also allow graphics to be used. Note, however, that this type of signature is not related to electronic signatures or digital signatures, which are more technical in nature and not directly understandable by humans

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, you mean like the 10th rehash of Metroid or the 20th rehash of Zelda or the 50th rehash of Mario.

Re:Sure

[Gilmoure]

I am not paying $60 to sit in some stuffy restaurant where they serve little bits of food on big plates. I'm also not paying $60 for some musical stage thing where all they do is sing show tunes. Definately not paying $60 to go deep sea fishing just so I can sit out in the hot sun, stink, and drink cheap beer.

I'll probably pay $60 to sit in the sun and watch a bunch of cowboys get bucked Oof of horses and bulls. And would pay $60 for a pile of comics at the comic book store. I'd even pay $60 for Elder ScrollsVI and waste a lot of hours there.

I any of y'all like or dislike stuff that is different from me, y'all are fools but if you do like the same things as me you're all posers who are trying to muscle in on my groove and now I hate the stuff I used to like.

Remember, nothing is any good if other people like it -and- nothing is any good if other people like stuff I don't.

So there!

Re:Sure

[drinkypoo]

I've gotta say that the minigames in GTA4 are anything but shallow. Even the pool game is way more complicated than it seems at first. The precise way you wiggle the stick as you hit the cue ball is completely relevant, not just the english point you set before striking. Bowling likewise. I can't imagine they'd have made the minigames in the new title any less complex. Similarly, the driving is quite detailed; it is however frustrating because of map errors and slow loading, for example when you hit a seam in the pavement that looks like nothing from any angle, even up close, or when you hit some orange cones which haven't loaded yet. If you can't display the damned things, how can you have the audacity to have me run into them? Now I have to memorize the locations of traffic cones so that when I'm really hauling ass I don't fly off my motorcycle and into the river? Thanks, thanks a lot, especially when one of those points is on a race route. Still an amazing game in spite of its flaws. I had to stop playing Fallout because it corrupted my autosave one too many times. That is just fucking unacceptable. No GTA title has ever done that to me, although I'm sure it's happened to someone somewhere somewhen.

Re:Sure

[drinkypoo]

IV felt like it took itself too seriously sometimes, but hopefully V is back to form.

I personally really appreciated that GTA4 was more like a contemporary drama. But I also like silly games. I believe it's time for a re-envisioning of Interstate '76... in the RAGE engine. And with Rockstar-quality writing.

Re: Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Insert witty comment here

-jcr

Re:Sure

[mythosaz]

Your intuition is always dead on when you fulfill your own prophecies.

I'm sure those grapes over there are sour. You didn't want them anyway.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I'm aware of how .sigs work in general (I've been on the Internet for almost 20 years) but the simple duplication of one's account name as a .sig is fairly pointless and rarely used here. The end of the message is obvious and the account name is displayed above the message. Just comes off as pointless and mildly egotistical if you ask me (like someone wanted to pointlessly draw our attention to something that is already clear)... anyway.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you are but what am I?

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

You were getting there when you said "mildly egotistical". Anyone who's seen jcr posting for a while knows that he's rather worse than "mildly" on the egotistical front. He's an ex-NeXT employee who thinks that having met and worked for Steve Jobs he's a master of the universe and knows everything.

It's funny in some ways. The "- jcr" pseudo-signature (Slashdot actually permits you to set a signature that's turned on for people who want to see signatures - that jcr manually adds his, bypassing that user preference, shows a stunning lack of respect for Slashdot's readers) is itself enough of a WTF to make you realize you're talking to someone who thinks a little too much of themselves.

"Stunningly egotistical" is how I'd put it.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

What's that got to do with the question that was asked, you retarded cunt?

Re:Sure

[Espectr0]

Why not both? Finished SR4 on saturday, started GTAV on tuesday :) Love both!

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Many smart people earn enough that $60 isn't a significant amount of money. I know it's below my "devote any brain power to it" threshold and I assume that's the case for many people here. The price won't drop for a significant amount of time, so why should someone for whom the ~$30 discount represents less than an hour of work wait months to purchase it?

The saying, "penny wise, pound foolish" comes to mind. Much like movies, a baseball game or even hobbyist hacking, a game like this is a necessary diversion to keep myself sane...it's what my mind needs to be able to focus on the things that aren't fun. Concerning myself with $60-level costs isn't fun. Concerning myself with the proper trades for my portfolio is also not fun. But one of the two will pay for the other (historically, hundreds of times over).

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I should have learned a few lessons about shelling out hard earned money for software

If you've been shelling out hard-earned money for 20+ years, perhaps the more important lesson to take from that is that there's probably an easier way to earn money. Shelling out easy-earned money is quite liberating.

Re:Sure

[skids]

I'm not convinced that smart people would immediately spend that on day 1 without waiting a few months for reviews.

With GTA5 you are pretty safe in getting at least your $60 worth of entertainment. If you're worried, you can glean enough information from what has been released in adverts and sneak peaks to confirm a reasonable assumption that it will be at the very minimum playable for days worth of entertainment.

Of course there is always the risk that they will screw the game up in tiny ways you find annoying (e.g. increased "air control" where there was way too much already) but you know that since you put up with its other likely-to-return shortcomings (e.g. no remappable controller buttons) and still enjoyed it, you'll get over that and still enjoy it.

Re:Sure

[jcr]

Why do you care?

-jcr

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Making fake virtual "ads" and AK47's is pretty dull and has been done to death

They aren't "fake ads". They are satire- the ads are crafted to closely resemble existing advertising and poke fun at advertisers, products, and consumers. If you didn't figure that out it's either because you have a crippled sense of humor, or are entirely lacking in exposure to modern society.
Those things are not the game. They are flavor which add to the game, helping to create a fuller sense of immersion in the game world.

Wrapping them together in a package, throwing some nice shaders, and textures down, doesn't make a work of art.

That's a lot like saying that taking some paint, throwing it on a canvas, and hanging it on a wall doesn't make a work of art. And you'd be correct in some cases. What makes it a work of art is the final product, not the individual pieces.

Re:Sure

[Algae_94]

I had to stop playing Fallout because it corrupted my autosave one too many times. That is just fucking unacceptable. No GTA title has ever done that to me, although I'm sure it's happened to someone somewhere somewhen.

I have indeed had this problem with a GTA game. GTA Vice City had a save game corrupting error. If you saved the game at Cherry Poppers Ice Cream Company, you would not be able to load the game any more. You would also have lost a lot of time as it's only available a bit into the game. I know it's not the best citation but here's the page at gta.wikia.com. I've had no other problems with the games and enjoy them all, but that corrupted save file pissed me off and really soured me on the Vice City one.

Re:Sure

[Algae_94]

GTA was traditionally not about being real, or living out crime fantasies - more about having fun doing silly things. IV felt like it took itself too seriously sometimes, but hopefully V is back to form.

If we want to get technical GTA was originally about stealing cars, with some elements of gang warfare... And before people think I'm misunderstanding the original game, it was from a top down perspective and was out before the PS2 was a thing.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

60$ would be a nice drive + meal in a remote and wild place.

Most people wouldn't drive to a remote place to eat a meal if you PAID them $60 to do it. I'm a pretty big outdoors kind of person, but I'm not packing up the wife and kids and drive an hour just to sit in the wilderness and eat sandwiches at 1 AM on a weeknight. Which is generally when I'd be playing this game.

Or visit to a historic and interesting site.

Translation: A shitty tourist trap designed to lure in sheep and fleece them of their money.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

You are confusing breadth with depth. I hope you're not CS major.
Would you say a jack-of-all-trades has any depth?

Re:Sure

[flayzernax]

GTA's satire is weak sauce compared to other games. Mostly I guess because they didn't want to break something called 'immersion'. Which is broken by their above dedication to a non-hollywood esque environment. It totally does not suit educated and enlightened tastes.

Re: Sure

[loufoque]

The funny thing is that GTA V is the only franchise where all of the above apply.

GTA simply reeks of black gangsta culture. You'd need to have pretty shit taste to like it.

Re:Sure

[Tukz]

Holy Thor, Interstate '76... I completely forgot about that.

Remake. Now.

"Shut up and take my money"

Re:Sure

[KozmoStevnNaut]

With GTA V on the 360, the recommendation is to only install the "Install" disc and play using the "Play" disc in the DVD drive, even if it is tempting to install both to the hard drive. The reason for this is the bandwidth required to stream content into the game world and the seek time on the hard drive. With both disc images installed to the same disc, it has to constantly search both these images. With just the "Install" disc installed, the game can load content from the hard drive and the DVD drive simultaneously, giving more effective bandwidth and much less pop-in.

I went one step further and installed the "Install" disc to the hard drive and the "Play" disc to the fastest USB drive I have, so the game can still load from two locations at the same time. That way, the DVD drive isn't roaring constantly and it cuts down on wear and tear of moving parts. There's still the occasional bit of pop-in, but never any geometry, just the rare odd texture here and there.

Re: Sure

[KozmoStevnNaut]

And yet it's the tastiest turd I've ever had.

Have you even played GTA V before you made up your mind? There's a whole lot more to it than "black gangsta culture". Hell, the one black main character even goes out of his way to repeatedly decry his stereotypical gang-banging "friends".

Re:Sure

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I did the same thing, and while I loved SR4 for being a cartoonishly fun superpower romp with plenty of silly humor, I can also say that I'm highly unlikely to replay it again any time soon. There just isn't any real replay value and there's no fun to be had running around the city after the story mode is over.

GTA V on the other hand, is on a whole other level, it's bigger, more ambitious and I can already tell it's got massive replay and exploration value.

Re: Sure

[loufoque]

The white characters are still pretty much "wiggers".

Re:Sure

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Ah yes, 1994. I can believe my parents let me buy GTA, I was only 9 years old. I guess it looked arcadey and cartoonish enough that they didn't care about the gang warfare and running people over bits.

Re: Sure

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Haha, what?

Of the main characters, one is a former bank robber who's having severe family troubles and battles with anger issues because he's terminally bored since he retired. He has a therapist and their scenes are very reminiscent of Robert de Niro in "Analyse This".

The other is a psychopathic redneck meth king who smuggles weapons across the border and lures people to cannibals in the mountains.

In fact, the only white character who uses "street" slang in the game is played as an immature idiot and ridiculed by the other characters.

Re:Sure

[drinkypoo]

I went one step further and installed the "Install" disc to the hard drive and the "Play" disc to the fastest USB drive I have, so the game can still load from two locations at the same time. That way, the DVD drive isn't roaring constantly and it cuts down on wear and tear of moving parts. There's still the occasional bit of pop-in, but never any geometry, just the rare odd texture here and there.

Yes, I have also read about this elsewhere. I will install the play disc to a 16GB OCZ Rally2, which is probably not the fastest thing around any more, but which is pretty damned fast. I bought my 360 used and when the optical drive failed I found that it had already been turned up, so I had to replace it. Luckily I know my way around a soldering iron, apparently unlike the prior owner, so I replaced the drive mechanism and kept the original controller board; the standard fix to avoid having to pull the AACS key out of the drive. I'm in no hurry to do that again, so I religiously install before playing so that I only need to read discs once, and at a reasonable speed.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

See here.

Re: Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

If they ever release the gta -> Zork mod I would stop lording over you and leave my ivory tower. In fact I would play the whole series. Til then .......... You see an ivory tower. There is one obvious exit: sheeple.

Re:Sure

[twocows]

I take issue with the idea that a game's story can't be as good as a book's. KotOR 2, Deus Ex, Planescape: Torment, these games all had great stories (and the first two were good games, too, though KotOR 2 was buggy and incomplete). The rest of what you said is pretty accurate, though.

Re: Sure

[loufoque]

I never could quite tell the difference between black, hispanic, and redneck cultures.

Re: Sure

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Well, that's on you and your ignorance, then.

Re:Sure

[Provocateur]

And some of us emeriti subscribe to Playboy for their pictures, as well.
 
/me adjusts bowtie

No PC yet

[phizi0n]

Those numbers would be even higher if they stopped shunning their roots by delaying PC releases and turning PC into a shitty port from consoles.

Re:No PC yet

[Dunbal]

I'm a PC gamer and, nahh, it's not really my type of game anyway. I prefer something that requires a little more thought, like "Europa Universalis (IV)" or something. You won't see that on a console ever, the 12 years old would simply not understand what's going on (wait I press speed 4 and everything is exactly the same nothing is moving no one is shooting at me!).

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

It would have been lower as everyone would be downloading the cracked version 12 hours after launch.

Re:No PC yet

[richy freeway]

Which you can also do with the consoles...

Re:No PC yet

[gl4ss]

you do understand that they're two totally different game types and liking both is not that uncommon?

have fun enjoying the story in europa universalis..

Re:No PC yet

[Sockatume]

You can have a refined, bug-free, well-performing PC release after the console versions are done, or you can have a crappy, poorly optimised version day-and-date with the console release, but you can't have both. Rockstar North favour the former. EA has you well served with the latter, if for some reason you prefer it.

Unless you're suggesting they should've just sat on the finished console versions for a few months while they finished the PC release, just to save you from feeling slighted.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm playing (and have/am beta testing) EU4 and I'd still give a pinkie toe to play GTAV on PC right now.

Different genres are different, doesn't mean or imply that they are mutually exclusive.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you ran the relative numbers per console before making such an inane comment?

Re:No PC yet

[phizi0n]

You can have a refined, bug-free, well-performing PC release after the console versions are done, or you can have a crappy, poorly optimised version day-and-date with the console release, but you can't have both. Rockstar North favour the former.

How do you explain GTA4? It was delayed a year and performed like shit on PC when it was released. GTA was originally a PC game and they have been treating PC as a second class citizen lately.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

This is such a shitty non-argument. Please, consider leaving this place. You don't understand anything about video games or piracy for that matter.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

not only that, the damn rockstar social club would not let you login, and FORCE you to register...i paid 20 euros for the game+all dlcs on a steam offer and it took me 2 weeks before i could manage to register and play...then it run like shit.... it was the laziest console port i have ever seen...so thanks rockstar for the pc version that will eventually come out, i will get the RELOADED version from TPB and seed as hard as i can...

Re:No PC yet

[DrXym]

GTA plays far better on a PC with a mouse and keyboard than with a controller and I'm quite certain that lots of PC owners would appreciate the mindless entertainment of playing it. It's not like the PC is lacking its share of first person shooters, sandbox games etc. demonstrating there is a market. Saints Row 4 just came out on the PC for example.

A more likely reason is that PC games typically retail for less, suffer higher rates of piracy and must cope with a wider variety of hardware which must all be developed and tested for with higher resolutions and assets to boot. I assume that all these reasons play their part in consoles taking over from PCs in the last few years. Perhaps with digital download services like Steam and wannabes taking off that the PC market is more attractive than it was a few years back.

Re:No PC yet

[dingen]

GTA was originally a PC game and they have been treating PC as a second class citizen lately.

If by "lately" you mean "since 1999", then I suppose you're right. GTA hasn't been a PC game for a looooong time.

Re:No PC yet

[Joce640k]

XBox: http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/8913151/Grand.Theft.Auto.V.XboX360.RF_iND
PS3: http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/8914424/Grand.Theft.Auto.V.PS3-DUPLEX

Re:No PC yet

[aiadot]

I disagree with that and for two reasons. First, while there is a chance the total sales of PC+PS3+360 may be bigger than PS3+360 alone, that doesn't always hold true, as sometimes the only thing you succeed in is in shifting the console sales to the PC(not even talking about piracy). Also actively supporting PCs increase the development and marketing and post sale supporting costs. Yes I know that console games are developed on PCs and most likely Rockstar has a working build of GTA5 for their PCs, but, as you said yourself, they are not optimized and most likely will require monster PCs to run well (see GTA4). Second, and IMO most important reason, marketing 101 dictates that you should milk the cashcow as much as possible. If you release such an overhyped mainstream game on a limited selection of platforms such as current gen consoles you WILL attract people from other platforms such as the PC and the people waiting for the next gen consoles regardless. Then you re-release the game on the next gen consoles with better graphics and performance, inducing a lot of people to rebuy your game. Then, finally, you release your game on the PC, inducing a final third wave of sales. You must remember that Rockstar just like the overwhelming majority of game companies, publishers or "indies", are not "for-gamer" but for-profit corporation. It's part of their mission to minimax their losses and profits above anything.

Re:No PC yet

[Sockatume]

Yes, console gamers would never buy something as complicated as Final Fantasy Tactics for example.

Re:No PC yet

[drinkypoo]

How do you explain GTA4? It was delayed a year and performed like shit on PC when it was released.

It performed fine if you had a quad-core. This was an expected result, because the 360 is tri-core and the OS doesn't butt in on your executable left and right. People who whine about a 360 port not working when their PC is less powerful than an Xbox 360 should probably buy a clue.

Re:No PC yet

[Sockatume]

Taking time is a necessary but not sufficient condition for doing a good job. I'm not sure what platform the first GTA game came out in matters to this discussion; as a game completed for MS-DOS and latterly ported to other platforms it's hardly relevant to the multiplatform development of a modern game..

Re:No PC yet

[Tukz]

It did NOT perform "fine" if you had a quad-core.
It performed extremely bad on my i7, until the patch.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

I love FFT and have sank literally hundreds of hours in on multiple play-throughs but...

It's not really that complex a game. If you read the battle mechanics FAQ it's no more complicated than a basic AD&D ruleset RPG and anyone who's had a highschool history class on the Reformation has had to deal with a more confusing story.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

You actually prove his point, FF tactics is a niche game on consoles. It's nowhere as big as the big franchises. i.e. complex games are rarer on console because consoles cater to people who are of lower average intelligence and are tech illiterate (the people who buy all the DLC like horse armor and taught game devs and publishers the gaming masses aren't too bright).

Re:No PC yet

[CastrTroy]

I Seriously wish the consoles would just get on with it, and encourage everybody to use a keyboard and mouse. Or at least something that gives a similar level of control, but can still be used on a couch, like a trackball, and a boatload of buttons/keys. Some custom controller with a trackball with about 4 buttons, plus about half a keyboard's worth of keys, could easily sit on your lap, and would allow much better control in most first person games than we currently get with gamepads. To this day, the only first person game I really enjoyed on console was Metroid Prime (GC), because it was mostly about exploring, and not fast reflexes. Still, I didn't ever finish it, because later in the game, it becomes pretty difficult, and the distance between savepoints is too far. The part where I quit was when I was 45 minutes from the previous checkpoint, following a walkthrough (because I was convinced I was going the wrong way), only to die because of an onslaught of enemies. Probably still about 20 minutes from the next save point. After a couple times doing that, I just stopped playing. I never understood why anybody enjoyed first person games on consoles. The love everyone seems to have for GoldenEye just blows my mind.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Which requires advanced modifications to the console including soldering. Little bit more difficult than copying a cracked .exe. You and richy freeway are both being disingenuous and you know it.

Re:No PC yet

[jitterman]

Agree with you here. I own Liberty City and San Andreas on PC; unless they build a PC port for this release I won't get it.

The PC / console thing has been going 'round and 'round for ages; every time a new console gen launches, the death of PC games is announced. As the consoles age and the PC components catch up (quickly) and then surpass (sometimes vastly) the consoles' abilities (think about Skyrim's expansions and the problems the PS3 had), that talk tends to die down.

I personally enjoy shooters on PC, driving games on console, and everything else is mostly a push (I don't play NFL/NBA games, so not sure how those compare).

Re:No PC yet

[jones_supa]

How do you explain GTA4? It was delayed a year and performed like shit on PC when it was released. GTA was originally a PC game and they have been treating PC as a second class citizen lately.

Indeed, the game is quite CPU-intensive. The PlayStation 3 version runs poorly too, the frame rate constantly dwells in the sub-20fps range.

Re:No PC yet

[Sockatume]

Yes, because Europa Universalis is outselling Borderlands right now.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if console sales weren't ten times higher than PC sales, they would.

Why the hell would they prioritize a platform that makes them less money? "Tradition"? They're running a business here.

Re:No PC yet

[Joce640k]

Which requires advanced modifications to the console including soldering.

If anybody's being disingenuous it's you.

The 'sheeple' all know you can just take your console to a modding shop and they'll do the scary advanced modifications for $20 (including soldering!).

Re:No PC yet

[ddegirmenci]

Not that I disagree with you - the comparison is definitely invalid, but I found that I can actually enjoy the story in EU by having Wikipedia handy and reading about thousands of different events in the history of Europe and the world in general (and Crusader Kings is even better at this). This comes from a person who has repeatedly failed history classes in his past.

History has no plot holes that are easily realized to much disappointment, only some unknowns and Paradox is a master at imagining them at a very entertaining/awesome (as in awe-inspiring) way. Every now and then I find some event that wasn't represented very well in the games but well, who cares? The story is out there if I want to read and learn about it, and the game is here for me to play the way I want it.

Go watch Vikings or Pillars of the Earth and then play CK2 and it's DLC The Old Gods. It has the best. story. ever. Hell, you have no interest in real history? Watch Game of Thrones and play it in CK2. Or go ahead and play Oblivion & Skyrim alongside CK2 with this mod.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation whatsoever with Paradox or the mods or that wiki. I'm just slightly(?) passionate about the games.

On a slightly related note, I've found EU4 to be incredibly shallow, almost arcade-ified compared to CK2 bar the trade system (haven't really mastered it yet, don't want to judge too early). I'm sad now :( but DLCs ahoy, I guess.

Re:No PC yet

[ddegirmenci]

go ahead and play Oblivion & Skyrim alongside CK2

Meant to write Morrowind & Skyrim of course, sorry. But I'm amazed at how many mistakes I made anyway, I guess I lost it at the mention of EU :P

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends where you live. few bucks at a grey market shop in china.

Re:No PC yet

[mythosaz]

And, in the case of the 360, risk having your box banned from XBL forever.

Re:No PC yet

[Joce640k]

...which is why you have an 'online' and an 'offline' console.

Re:No PC yet

[gl4ss]

I do have an interest in history. Why would I need to play a game to read european history? I don't, furthermore a game that would go as history wouldn't be much of a game either. To read about it I can just open wikipedia and google the names and happenings I remember from school history lessons - I do that sometimes to refresh memory or to look up what some thing x, y or z was named after and what it's a reference to.

However, I can't enjoy the _story_ in GTA V, GTA:SA or GTA vice city without playing them.

I do wish they would have made pc release on the same day though, but saying that it sucks because of that and that "my chosen genre xyz is bettar!!!" is like bitching that people are stupid for listening to Metallica... so tell me are hakkapeliittas badass in eu iv?

Re:No PC yet

[interkin3tic]

You're suggesting the number of sales would decrease if they increased the number of potential customers?

... I suppose homeopathic principles don't really sound DUMBER applied economics than they do in medicine, but that's not really saying much.

Re:No PC yet

[interkin3tic]

And buying a used copy of a console game or borrowing one from a friend is far and away the easiest way of playing the game without paying for it. What's your point?

Re:No PC yet

[interkin3tic]

Companies of course have no loyalty to specific fanbases. And it's the whole industry, not just Rockstar. For instance, Bungie started out with Marathon on the mac, then made Halo exclusive for the xbox. Their next game that doesn't belong to MS? Still going to be skipping any machine with a mouse.

Blizzard and Valve seem to be the only large developers that aren't focusing on consoles.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Advanced modifications, huh? Soldering, huh?
Looks like most of the chips out there nowadays are completely solderless. You just plug a ribbon cable in and go. No fuss.
That sounds even easier than dealing with PC cracks to me!

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are the one being a bit disingenuous. Those 'advanced modifications' you are talking about can be as easy as downloading a custom firmware to a thumb drive and installing it on your console from there. This is all I had to do for my PS3, Wii, and PSP. Similarly, you can install custom firmware on your 360 disc drive to play burned games, though this DOES require opening the console. The DS doesn't require installing anything special, just buying the special cartridge and a flash card on which to copy the games. Not to mention that you can avoid doing all this yourself by buying a pre-modded console.

Re:No PC yet

[ddegirmenci]

Of course you don't need to play a game. I'm just saying that the game does have a story, mostly as a reply to your "have fun enjoying the story in EU" (never meant to imply you aren't interested in history, sorry if I did. I was referring to the general audience there). I mostly enjoy the European history even though I'm no history geek, and I definitely enjoy it when it's packaged together with good gameplay.

Also that part about school doesn't really apply to me - might matter a lot when it comes to enjoying learning about it, I'm Turkish and my history classes sucked so bad. Full of nationalist, ancestor-glorifying piss.

As I said, I have nothing against the GTA part. I have to note though, IV was much worse compared to SA in terms of gameplay depth.

They're not a unit type, instead a national idea for Sweden (cavalry cost -some%). Although I guess that's pretty badass, they've blobbed Scandinavia and now roflstomping through Novgorod :) glad I'm the Netherlands in this one.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Rockstar managed to get two purchases of GTA4 out of me. The first was buying the Xbox version. The 2nd was buying the PC version after getting nauseous using the stupid controller for a 3d game. Mouse+Keyboard or GTFO!

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

GTA plays far better on a PC with a mouse and keyboard than with a controller and I'm quite certain that lots of PC owners would appreciate the mindless entertainment of playing it. It's not like the PC is lacking its share of first person shooters, sandbox games etc. demonstrating there is a market. Saints Row 4 just came out on the PC for example.

A more likely reason is that PC games typically retail for less, suffer higher rates of piracy and must cope with a wider variety of hardware which must all be developed and tested for with higher resolutions and assets to boot. I assume that all these reasons play their part in consoles taking over from PCs in the last few years. Perhaps with digital download services like Steam and wannabes taking off that the PC market is more attractive than it was a few years back.

While I generally agree that FPS style action benefits from the keyboard/mouse, I completely disagree when it comes to driving activities. I'll take a console controller any day of the week for driving, primarily because keyboards and mice are not analog. I like my gas peddle to have variable positions, you see, as well as my steering wheel, and keyboards aren't analog and simulating it with a mouse is clunky at best. And the GTA interface on consoles does enough to make up for the lack of mouse/keyboard that I don't really find much benefit.
Note that I DO still play GTA on a PC, but I plug in a controller pad and rarely touch the kb/mouse combo.

Re:No PC yet

[mcgrew]

Those numbers would be even higher if they stopped shunning their roots by delaying PC releases and turning PC into a shitty port from consoles.

I'll bet my daughter Patty is glad it only came out for consoles -- she's going to college full-time and is ordinarily assistant manager of a GameStop on the Kentucky side of Cincinnati, but her boss moved to Texas so they've made her full manager, right when GTA is coming out. She says she's not doing as good in school as last semester, when she managed to get straight As.

Poor kid, she's working her ass off. She says she's sick of the hillbillies coming in to get GTA for their five year old "so they'll know what the real world is like." I knew there were stupid people in the world but DAMN, we're doomed.

Re:No PC yet

[Wraithlyn]

GTA4 was buggy as shit when it first came out on PC. Seriously, probably the buggiest AAA title I've even seen.

So no, I don't think the delay is (primarily, anyway) to make it "refined and bug free"... it's because it's so much easier to pirate on PC, ergo a simultaneous release would hurt console sales.

Simply stated, X number of people would download the Skidrow crack instead of rushing out to buy the XBOX or PS version, where X is some value greater than zero.

Re:No PC yet

[Espectr0]

I am a PC gamer, but there's no denying that it's the console games that generate revenue. I have played all GTA 3D games on the PC, but this is my first one on the console (xbox 360).

I don't justify the cost of development of the PC version, i don't see a return of the investment. Too few sales and lots of piracy. Piracy affects the console versions as well, but it's a lot harder to do in comparison to a PC version.

Having said that, i am hoping for a PC release spring-summer 2014.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't cost just $20 anymore though...

Re:No PC yet

[jtownatpunk.net]

You can have a refined, bug-free, well-performing PC release after the console versions are done, or you can have a crappy, poorly optimised version day-and-date with the console release, but you can't have both. Rockstar North favour the former.

How do you explain GTA4? It was delayed a year and performed like shit on PC when it was released. GTA was originally a PC game and they have been treating PC as a second class citizen lately.

No shit. Christ, what a steaming clusterfuck that was. It took me hours to get that game running. And I've been a PC gamer since the 80s so I've seen just about every poor design decision that's ever been made. First it took forever to load the data from the discs. Then I had to create two online gaming accounts (Live and Social Club, I think), then link them together. Then I could finally launch the game...and learn that I had to wait for a video driver update because nothing rendered right.

I guess it's a good thing they didn't release it with the console version. Probably would have molested my dog or something.

Re:No PC yet

[CronoCloud]

I'm a PC gamer and, nahh, it's not really my type of game anyway. I prefer something that requires a little more thought, like "Europa Universalis (IV)" or something.You won't see that on a console ever,

That's what they said about DOOM

"You'll never see DOOM on a kiddie console."

And look what happened.

They also said it about Bioware games....and Bethesda games, and Blizzard games and Minecraft, and Terraria and Don't Starve and so many other games that it's just a silly thing to say.

And yes, I know how PC-centric and anti-console some European developers like Paradox can be, especially the older ones. That's just dumb economics. Euro-studios also seem to have trouble with "polish and usability"...maybe they'd learn a few things if they did a console game now and then.

the 12 years old would simply not understand what's going on

You do know the average console gamer has been an adult since the PSone days right?

Re:No PC yet

[Luckyo]

Halo and Halo 2 were released on PC later on. It couldn't compete with other big name FPSs and suffered from bad porting, so they gave up on it.

Re:No PC yet

[CronoCloud]

GTA plays far better on a PC with a mouse and keyboard than with a controller and I'm quite certain that lots of PC owners would appreciate the mindless entertainment of playing it.

Keyboards are not analog, how can you stand keyboard movement in games, it's horrible and it's been horrible since it was invented for PC gamers in the DOS days without joysticks!

GTA isn't the sort of game where headshots at long range are the prime thing so the mouse isn't as big an advantage as it would be in other games.

Re:No PC yet

[hairyfeet]

I've been a PC only gamer since the late 90s and to GTA V I have a big old...meh. After GTA IV and the whole "take me bowling" bit and comparing it to the batshit crazy fun of flying down the street on a broomstick or sucking up gangbangers in what looks like a giant Hello Kitty mobile (if the kitty went on a 3 day crack binge) and launching the gangbangers from the attached cannon several blocks into enemy vehicles?

I don't know about anybody else but when i play a sandbox i want total batshit balls to the wall FUN with a capital F made from fire and awesome and until another Just Cause comes out so I can grapple pursuing cars to the street and recreate the scene from T3 again I'll take the Saints Row series. The action is more extreme, the missions are often challenging without being frustrating, I just find the Saints games to be more FUN. From what I have seen so far it looks like GTA V has gone even further into that whole "dark, depressing, and gritty" feel and real life has enough of that already, thanks. What GTA needs is another Vice City so I can do 140+ MPH in a Hawaiian shirt and jump what feels like miles while Flock of Seagulls blasts on the stereo, now THAT was FUN.

Re:No PC yet

[CronoCloud]

And Europa Universalis IV is a niche game on PC, just like all the other turn-based strategy games from anti-console European development houses to poor or to partisan to do a console game now and then.

complex games are rarer on console because consoles cater to people who are of lower average intelligence and are tech illiterate

Let me guess, you're European or a second worlder, you live in a nation where everyone hates consoles because it's easier to pirate PC games and because of that, everyone thinks consoles are for kids.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

3 words for you: Red. Dead. Redemption.

Re:No PC yet

[CronoCloud]

Modding shop? Let me guess, eastern europe? Brazil? Russia?

You people have a very skewed idea on how prevalent piracy is on consoles...in the US/Canada/UK/Japan it's pretty much nonexistent. But it's the Euro-pirates/BRIC folks going on about flip-top's and HDLoaders and whatnot.

Re:No PC yet

[CronoCloud]

GTA was originally a PC game and they have been treating PC as a second class citizen lately.

You did know that GTA 1 and 2 were cross platform, right? Rockstar was never a PC-centric development house.

Re:No PC yet

[Joce640k]

I never said it did.

(Though it might if you buy your consoles down the pub...)

Re:No PC yet

[hairyfeet]

Keyboard stomps a controller, sorry but it does. if we were to race in something like Burnout Paradise, you on controller while I used a keyboard? i'd murder you and the reason why is response time. With a keyboard i can pop between the handbrake and the gas insanely fast which makes drifts as smooth as butter and with all those game controllers you seem to get a tiny lag and with a game where you are dodging incoming traffic at over 200MPH? Lag equals death.

Hell if anything I've found you take those console racing games and put them on the PC as long as the devs make the controls keyboard compatible (for an example of why that is important see TP:Sons Of Liberty sometime,where anything but a 360 controller will cause the game to become unresponsive for up to several seconds on any fast movement as the game translates your input,hell you even go into key bindings and it shows an X360 controller) the PC game will often be piss easy simply because the much quicker response makes what was challenging on the consoles a cakewalk on the PC. There really is no comparisons and this is why every attempt to get console players and PC gamers playing against each other has ended in failure, the console controls are sluggish enough that the PC gamer will run rings around the console guy.

if I had to guess why I'd say it comes down to build quality, I have used PC controllers that were just as responsive as a keyboard and mouse but the cost nearly $100 a pop so my guess is the price for getting console controllers price down is response time, as we know when it comes to manufacturing it all comes down to trade offs. But I have tried every kind of console controller, both on their native consoles and on the PC, and they all tend to be inaccurate and laggy when compared to even a $20 1600 DPI mouse and OEM keyboard, much less a good clicky clack and Razor mouse.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Given how similar the new gen processor/GPU (e.g. PS4) is to mid/low ended PC, I wouldn't be surprised that they are porting them and releasing them around the same time frame for GTA5. Next gen consoles are not even sold yet. PC ports requires a bit more tweaks to get the keyboard/mouse controls and not to mention gpu settings/drivers etc.

They are milking the market for the existing console as that's low hanging fruit. The configuration is pretty much identical, so more predictable configurations.

Re:No PC yet

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...go to Craigslist and type in "cracked (name of console)" or "Jailbroken (name of console)" and there ya go, you don't have to know jack shit except where to meet the guy to pick it up. Since I do a lot of HTPC installs i get to see the inside of a lot of homes and I can tell you that the X360 is one of the most pirated platforms out there, PS3 less so but even out here in BF AR I've sen more cracked consoles than i could count in folk's living rooms. With a cheap pre-cracked console one trip to TPB and some blank discs and you are good to go friend, its really not difficult.

Re:No PC yet

[Uberbah]

Maybe if console sales weren't ten times higher than PC sales, they would.

Maybe that's an obviously self-reinforcing cycle. Cuz gamers waiting to buy GTA aren't going to buy a PC copy of the game months after they bought the console version for the same price.

Re:No PC yet

[hairyfeet]

I don't know, maybe I'm weird, but I love FPS games, play them constantly (just blasted through some Borderlands II last night, hence why I'm a dreary eyed zombie at work right now) but I just don't get what the big fucking whoop was about the Halo series. The guns were VERY "pew pew" and just didn't have any real power behind them, the vehicles all handled like ass, the writing was VERY predictable, the levels kinda boring and other than a few cute lines from the little fat minions (which got old REAL fast as they had such limited dialog) the whole thing just screamed "generic shooter" to me. I had both Halo I and II and frankly after a single play through I was "is that it? Really?" and promptly uninstalled them never to go back.

So I really don't get why there was such a big hoopla over those games when the whole thing to me felt about as special as a Mickey D's combo, bland,tasteless, and boring. Hell if anything I'd say they should be looked down upon for pushing that whole "two gun" thing which even in the context of that game made no damned sense! You telling me a guy in fricking power armor can't carry more than a single rifle and a pistol? Really? Hell give me a backpack to drop the ammo in and even my old behind can carry more weapons than that!

Re:No PC yet

[Stan92057]

Not going to happen. Because when it is released to the PC it will be the most Stolen game in history as well. So its no surprise its not released to the PC on release day.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

"Which requires advanced modifications."

Nope, many mods are plug and play. Of course you'd have to be a console modder to know that.

Re:No PC yet

[spire3661]

You are saying you are a superior gaming driver with a KEYBOARD? You are a fool or lying. I would DESTROY you in racing games with an analog controller. I bought the original dual analog for PS1 when it came out JUST for NFS Hot Pursuit. I had NegCons, steering wheels of every kind.

Re:No PC yet

[spire3661]

And you have a skewed idea of how easy it is. I can go to a game shop right now in America and have it done. I dont because quite honestly its easier to wait a few months after release and get it cheap versus fucking around with pirate crap. Its can be a lot of work.

Re:No PC yet

[spire3661]

NO their heart was never in it. If they wanted to shift units, they wouldnt have forced Halo 2 to be Vista only.

Re:No PC yet

[broken_chaos]

The love everyone seems to have for GoldenEye just blows my mind.

It was really, really fun to play with a group of friends back when it was released. Except for that one fucking friend everyone had that would always pick Oddjob.

Re:No PC yet

[Luckyo]

They were trying to use Halo 2 to get Vista to sell. That's not a new trick.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

You're making the mistake of 'moar cores = moar betters!'

Re:No PC yet

[spire3661]

Thats the point, they didnt really care about Halo 2 sales on PC as much as they wanted to use it as a carrot to spur Vista.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

How was it originally a PC game? It's always been a multiplatform franchise since the very first top-down installment, and in the eyes of some has always been associated with Playstation moreso than PC even.

Re:No PC yet

[DrGamez]

M&KB is great, I was raised on it, I will die by it.

M&KB is not great for: Driving. Slowly moving.

In both those cases having an analogue stick to slowly creep you around is a lot better than tapping wasd lightly, and in the case of driving, not having analogue brake/gas/steering is really... just not fun.

There is no comfortable way to sit on a couch and use M&KB in the same way you use them at your desk, it sucks, but just claiming that M&KB will fix all the woes of console gaming is simplifying things a little too much.

Re:No PC yet

[DrGamez]

The reason you can do so well in racing is: Burnout Paradise (while one of my favorite racing games) is pretty friggin' liberal with it's steering and sliding. That's part of the fun of it all.

Try to race in Grid 2, or Forza, or F1, or any game that has a slightly less arcade-tuned engine, and suddenly the loss of analogue brake/gas/steering is a death sentence.

Re:No PC yet

[DrGamez]

The 'sheeple' all [...]

Really? Sheeple?

Is this the argument you really wanted to make here? Or better yet, is this the best argument you can come up with?

Re:No PC yet

[DrGamez]

Cuz gamers waiting to buy GTA aren't going to buy a PC copy of the game months after they bought the console version for the same price.

Ugh I WISH I had this self-restraint. :( I'll be buying both.

Re:No PC yet

[Your.Master]

There's not a lot of used GTA V copies on day one, nor friends lending the game around.

They are specifically talking about the sales in 24 hours.

Context! It matters usually!

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

You are an idiot. In the same way that a keyboard/mouse combo is vastly superior to a gamepad for FPS games, the opposite is true for driving games. I'd demolish you in a race using my Xbox 360 controller.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I live someone does all that shit for you, you just buy it from them.

Re:No PC yet

[DrXym]

I didn't say it fixed all woes. I said GTA games play much better with a mouse and keyboard because they do. It's vastly simpler to aim and shoot using a mouse - just point and shoot. Driving and running isn't much harder either with a keyboard than it is with a stick either and the ease with which you can rapidly pan the camera around or turn your character more than compensates for that.

I can think of games which play terribly with a mouse and keyboard - the Lego game series for example. Play Lego Lord of the Rings on a keyboard and you will be tearing your hair out. But then again if you come across a game like that on a PC, you still have the option of plugging in an XBox 360 controller and playing it that way.

Re:No PC yet

[Xest]

Saints Row peaked at 2 and went downhill from there. It really just got too silly after that but I guess it depends what you like, I don't mind sci-fi but if I'm going to get sci-fi I expect it to be done properly a-la Crackdown and Crackdown 2, but the problem with Saints 3 is it didn't know what it wanted to be, it couldn't figure out if it was classic gang banging GTA style fun like Saints 2 and GTA or if it was a sci-fi game. Saints 4 seems to have made the evolution to full sci-fi so at least it's figured out what it is but I still don't find it as fun as Saints 2, or as sci-fi from the start games like Crackdown.

But for what it's worth GTA5 is actually excellent. I was a little underwhelmed by 4 (even on the consoles without the PC glitches I wasn't keen), the aiming system was frustrating, the physics were buggy and the storyline/missions weren't overly exciting.

GTA5 seems to fix all that, it seems to solve all those problems and the result is a nice well polished game that's an awful lot of fun. You do have the freedom to play and solve missions in different ways.

Definitely my favourite "crime simulators" as the press seems to be now calling them since 2005 have been Saints 2 and GTA5. They're well above the rest, though I admit there are other open world games that aren't of the crime genre I like just as much - I actually really enjoyed Mercenairies 2 when I played it through coop with a friend, and Just Cause 2 was fantastic.

Re:No PC yet

[Xest]

I've been a PC gamer all my life but when I got a 360 I didn't find it too hard getting used to the controls even playing competitive online multiplayer. It's certainly different to playing an FPS with a keyboard and mouse but I'm not convinced it's worse - certainly I know for a fact that I have as much fun.

That did change somewhat though when I got a PS3 as well, I just don't get on with the PS3 controller, even little things like the fact the thumb sticks have a convex top make it less comfortable. I find it doesn't help that a lot of games use the bumper to shoot which makes me wonder why on earth you have triggers? Triggers feel far more natural for firing a gun for obvious reasons. I do actually look like a complete amateur trying to play FPS games on the PS3 no matter how long I spend trying to get used to it.

I suspect different people are used to different things, and I suspect different people can and can't get used to different things. If I get a PS4 it'll be primarily for slower paced games for the reasons you cite coupled with the fact I hate Playstation controllers, but judging by the XBox One controller I'll still be able to enjoy FPS games on that just as I do on the PC.

But I do use my systems for different things anyway, I'm quite content playing things like Battlefield, GTA, CoD and Halo on my 360, whilst I'll use my PC for things like Diablo, Wargame, and Minecraft. My PS3 is generally for things like Uncharted and LBP. I suspect little will change next console generation with me using the Xbox One and the PS4 for the same sorts of games I currently use my 360 and PS3 if the controllers aren't drastically different and my PC for RTS's, MMOs and so forth.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

This just isn't true anymore. The PS3 has never required opening the console to mod. The 360 is a slightly different story, but tools have been readily available for years that remove the need to solder anything in order to get backups running.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

"Actively supporting PCs increase the development and marketing and post sale supporting costs."
It doesn't significantly increase dev costs if they just do a Windows release, as the dev tools for 360 and Windows are nearly identical (or so I hear, correct me if I'm wrong). As for marketing costs... how? Most marketing takes place through the same outlets regardless of release platform. As for "post sale supporting costs," that's built-in to every sale anyway; it scales directly with how many sales you make, and unless you're doing something very, very wrong, it's going to be a small fraction of each sale.

Re:No PC yet

[Deluvianvortex]

and then hide in the small burnt boxes after you shot them.

Re:No PC yet

[cavebison]

The numbers would be a bit lower if it didn't cost *more than double* in Aus as in the U.S.

A quick google says Tesco in the U.S. for US $38 (AU $40) and here at JB HiFi (one of our decent lower-cost home entertainment shops) for AU $89. Or, AU $98 at a more average shop.

This is a digital product, so someone somewhere is a right wanker. :/

Re:No PC yet

[stub667]

I wouldn't know. GTA4 still hasn't been released in my region.

If a PC release is made of GTA5, I can only hope that this time the publisher actually lets me give them some money.

Re:No PC yet

[hairyfeet]

The Atari VCS had analog sticks, yet you REALLY think that would give you an advantage? You kinda missed the point, here is a WHOOSH for you, its not the "analog versus digital" you should be looking at, its the "cheap and laggy versus expensive and non laggy" which you should be focusing on and the response time of a keyboard and mouse just curbstomps the average X360 and PS3 stock controller because they were made with cost and NOT performance as the most important metric!

If you don't believe me you might want to look up what happened when Sega allowed the Dreamcast players to play games with the PC players, they were slaughtered so badly they pulled it after less than 2 months. I mean why in the fuck do you think with damned near every game being cross platform now that you console guys aren't allowed to play with us PC gamers? Because we pimpslap the shit out of you because our controls aren't laggy. Several times over the years, in multiple genres, has PC and console playing together been tried and so far they have yet to find any genre where speed or response time has any effect on gameplay at all that the PC controls don't open ye old can of whoop ass on the laggy as fuck game console controllers.

Now if you spent over $100 USD on a third party controller? Then this doesn't apply to you but I bet you are like the majority and use the controllers that came with the system and I'm sorry but they suck, they really do. When you compare the response time and degrees of movement between your average 1600 DPI mouse and your shitty controller? No comparison, same goes for even my clicky clack versus the button input on your controller. Sorry pal but console makers only care about BOM, they don't care about performance.

Re:No PC yet

[Smauler]

Maybe if console sales weren't ten times higher than PC sales, they would.

They're not. Diablo III has sold about 15 million units, for example. Steam doesn't release sales figures.

Re:No PC yet

[hairyfeet]

What I like is FUN with a capital F, if I wanted dark and gritty I'd be playing Medal of Duty: Gears of Killzone Extreme Edition, what I want out of a sandbox is to be able to do all the shit one could never do IRL. If you haven't played it you really should try Just Cause II as I have yet to see a sandbox that cranks the badass to 11 like it does but a close second would be the Saints Series including 3. Haven't gotten 4 yet as I still haven't beaten all the DLC in Borderlands II and I tend to stick with one game for awhile before moving on.

To me the GTA series just ends up feeling very grindtastic after about the halfway point, it always felt like the devs just run out of gas and pad out the second half of the game.

Re:No PC yet

[Anonymous Coward]

One correction: The Atari VCS, a/k/a the Atari 2600, had digital joysticks. They had five switches, four for the joystick and one for the "fire" button.

The Atari also had "paddle" controllers, which I believe were analog. Those were two controllers to one plug, and each one was a knob plus a button.

There were also two controllers that, I believe, only ever had a single game: the "racing" controller that looked like a paddle controller (I think it didn't have any limit stops, and let you just turn it however you liked) and the weird keyboard thing shipped with the Star Raiders 2600 game.

Oh, there were also "keypad" controllers used by the Basic Programming cartridge and one or two other games.

$800 Million ....

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd have to kill a lot of hookers to earn that kind of money ...

Re:$800 Million ....

[DrGamez]

Or one real GOOD hooker!

Closure Current Gen

[Silpher]

Nice way to say goodbye to the current gen and welcome the next.

Incredible.

[matt007]

I am baffled by the stupidity of the people.

Re:Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Why is it bad to buy a game you like?

Re:Incredible.

[flayzernax]

I agree the GTA series sucks. And I have played them, among many other games. Along with Saints Row which is by far much more "fun".

Great works of art? Anything of Meaning? GTA is not... its like the last piece of creative work on the planet I would bother with.

Hence, why our opinion that the "Majority" is dumb. IMO its because they are pretty well brainwashed to buy what they are simply advertised and what their peers will be buying. Perhaps the original GTA, was somewhat novel and cutesy. But even then, not worth an investment.

I would drink pabst. But not bud lite. I think people are pretty dumb for drinking bud light as well. Its just shit. Sorry if that rustles your jimmies.

And to answer your question. If you like GTA. Your pretty dumb. Mostly for the aforementioned reasons.

Re:Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you fit that many cocks up your ass?

Re:Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but everything you just said is completely voided by "I would drink pabst. But not bud lite".

Now, I'm not going to argue bud lite is a high quality beer. But I will argue that bud lite, put next to PBR, is good quality beer. I will agree that PBR has more flavor than bud lite, but just because something tastes like water, and something else tastes like what you would pull out of waste water treatment facility, doesn't mean the thing with more taste is better. Throw in that nothing causes a hangover quite like PBR, and yeah....

How swill like PBR could ever become trendy is beyond me. It really is the mentality "lets find something truly awful, and lets drink it". I know my beer, I like my beer, and PBR is the only one I absolutely wouldn't drink, even if it was given to me for free. It's that bad. Hell, it's worse than stella, and that's saying something.

Re:Incredible.

[dingen]

Your pretty dumb.

God I love this line. I can't stop laughing.

Re:Incredible.

[flayzernax]

I wouldn't expect PBR2.0 to make 80mil on the first day debute either. But what I'm saying. Is their both swill. But at least the waste water has a slight probiotic bonus. So how could Bud Lite surpass PBR in sales? Except by the extreme ignorance of mankind.

Re:Incredible.

[Builder]

> And to answer your question. If you like GTA. Your pretty dumb.

Pot, meet kettle...

Re:Incredible.

[drinkypoo]

So how could Bud Lite surpass PBR in sales? Except by the extreme ignorance of mankind.

The same way anyone sells either of those beers, extreme ignorance of mankind. PBR is shit just like Budweiser is shit, it's just different shit. PBR is god's curse upon idiots for becoming hipsters.

Re:Incredible.

[MachineShedFred]

Yeah, how dare they support a developer who actually makes original content that entertains them, and hasn't forgot that single-player mode exists!

Re:Incredible.

[jbmartin6]

You would have to be pretty dumb to think that anyone whose tastes differ from yours is pretty dumb.

Re:Incredible.

[flayzernax]

Mostly for the aforementioned reasons. You fail at trolling a smart ass.

Re:Incredible.

[flayzernax]

Heh, beggars can't be choosers I suppose ;p

Re:Incredible.

[flayzernax]

If you didn't read that in context. Your pretty dumb.

Re:Incredible.

[flayzernax]

Who cares. I think its dumb to be buying the brand at premium prices. Its not a "who dares" no one is supposing we legislate against it. Some of us are just sitting here rolling our eyes going "Oh my god, what hath the humans wrought".

Re:Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your pretty dumb.

Well that pretty much sums up this whole post.

Re:Incredible.

[tompaulco]

Your pretty dumb.

Oh the irony. Your sentence contains a possessive, two adjectives and no noun or verb.

Re:Incredible.

[Hognoxious]

Luckily there's no words ending with s or d, or it's odds on there'd be an intrusive apostrophe.

Re:Incredible.

[CCarrot]

If you didn't read that in context. Your pretty dumb.

...and you suck at haiku...and spelling, and reading comprehension, and irony...

Re:Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your pretty dumb.

Oh the irony. Your sentence contains a possessive, two adjectives and no noun or verb.

I herd you're idea's and their definately good.

Re:Incredible.

[MachineShedFred]

We get it. You're too cool for the room.

Nobody cares. Clearly millions of people feel its worth the price being asked.

It deserves every sale it gets

[AbRASiON]

The game is incredible, if you're a fan of the GTA series, they've really addressed many issues with the game. The storyline is told better and more compelling than previous ones (that includes Gay Tony, which was quite good)

The graphics / environment / effects - god knows how they achieved this, I do not know. Yes some things like Uncharted look nicer but they are a very linear closed environment. For an open world game, it's utterly staggering. I'm playing on PS3 and the resolution seems higher than GTA4, there's more detail and there's more you can do AND the draw distance is further. The frame rate while not a flawless 30 all the time seems honestly better than GTAIV at most times.

The humour, satire, writing in general is utterly tip top. I am not cringing at lines or groaning at character decisions. As usual the commercials (billboard, radio, TV) are just fantastic, some of the random one liners amazing. The stuff they've added like the random mission encounters are awesome. I really can't complain about this at all in any way.
I'm about 35 hours into it (picked it up midnight Monday night) and about 2/3 of the way through it I'd say. It's just brilliant, it really is.
If you want to wait for the PC or oft wished for PS4 editions, go for it - but posting in reply here how inferior this is, pointless - the game is great, you can play it right now. If you want to complain that it's crap because "it doesn't do XYZ that Saints Row does" - good for you, hit up Saints Row!
This world blends together so many immersive things, it's just incredible. I love the shit out of this game.
$89 AUD? In hindsight I think I would've gladly paid $189 AUD. Just brilliant.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

no fucking way does it (or any game) deserve even ONE sale ... at $60+ usd.

GTA6 will start at $80.. u watch.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Movie ticket: $10, 2 hours entertainment –$5 per hour.
Pub: $20, 4 hours entertainment – $5 per hour.
Typical AAA game: $40, 30 hours entertainment –$1.33 per hour.
GTA: $60, 100 hours entertaiment – $0.60 per hour.

I'd say GTA is pretty well priced already.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

$60USD/copy??? I guess GTA is a how-to to afford GTA...

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

More like 2 hours entertainment, 98 hours of mind-numbing button pressing.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Laugh... its as incredible as the dingle berries on my anus... by what standards? Its a total commercial piece of triple A shit designed to sell a console and hardware? That it lets you live out your fantasy of being some kind of important gang banger with no motive other than greed, power, or lust? The game play is certainly not novel or meaningful. You cannot even build an empire. Or work towards some complex goal that requires the evolution of thought.

Should it be there yeah... But why it ranks so well in sales compared to billions of other games, or ideas for games that aren't seeing the light of day. I do not understand.

I'de rather be in Afghanistan in a firefight than play that shit.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[DragonTHC]

Typical AAA game: $60, 8 hours entertainment - $7.50 per hour

There, FTFY

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people don't go to the theatre or pubs because of the cost, and wait until that AAA is $20 (or less).

Another thing worth considering is the actual number of hours of entertainment obtained from the game. Even a fairly thick novel takes 10 hours to read, and very few people have the attention span for that.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[captainpanic]

Movie ticket: $10, 2 hours entertainment –$5 per hour.
Pub: $20, 4 hours entertainment – $5 per hour.
Typical AAA game: $40, 30 hours entertainment –$1.33 per hour.
GTA: $60, 100 hours entertaiment – $0.60 per hour.

I'd say GTA is pretty well priced already.

That just says that the movies and beer in pubs are way too expensive.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[zippthorne]

The secondary market pushes the prices up. Each person in the chain doesn't net pay the whole $60.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

$5/hour in a pub? What are you, some kind of pussy?

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[sproketboy]

Whatever. Not touching it until/unless it comes out on the PC.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[drinkypoo]

Typical AAA game: $60, 8 hours entertainment - $7.50 per hour
There, FTFY

You didn't fix anything. You broke a perfectly fine comment. We're not talking about any asshole AAA title. We're talking about fucking Grand Theft Auto here. I haven't bought an AAA title in years and I'm about to go out and get GTAV as soon as it's convenient. It is, in all likelihood, the last AAA title I ever buy because I won't buy first-sale-killing DRM'd Steam games, the Wii U seems dumb to me*, and Microsoft and Sony are both pure, concentrated evil and I think anyone giving them money at this point is a massive asshole.

* The Wii U seems dumb to me because of asymmetric controllers. And I won't pay the premium for a tablet controller that has limited usefulness in a single-player context. I'm a grownup and I have my own TV now.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Pub: $20, 4 hours entertainment â" $5 per hour.

You drink 2 beers over the course of 4 hours?

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[C0R1D4N]

When you account for inflation, game prices have been going down.. Hard to remember games were more expensive back when mommy and daddy were buying them for you.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

>> In hindsight I think I would've gladly paid $189 AUD

I thought -*selling*- software was considered immoral here on Slashdot?

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[dingen]

game prices have been going down

Especially true if you owned a Neo Geo.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Sockatume]

I'd love to live in a world where AAA games were just 8 hours long. Completing even something like Alan Wake took me months. I'm always on the lookout for something like an MGS or Resident Evil game that I can thoroughly explore within a week or two with a minimum of padding.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[RaceProUK]

GTAV is not your typical AAA game. Plus, there's the online add-on coming in a couple of weeks (for free!).

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Nyder]

When you account for inflation, game prices have been going down.. Hard to remember games were more expensive back when mommy and daddy were buying them for you.

Mom & Dad never bought me games. They did buy a C64 though, cassette drive, no disk drive. And a modem. -- much better then buying me games.

till they got the phone bill...

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I'm playing on PS3 and the resolution seems higher than GTA4

That's because the resolution is higher. GTA4 ran at 1280x720 on the 360, but 1152x640 on the PS3, because the architectures between the two consoles are completely different and Rockstar had an easier time optimizing for the 360. It's the same with Saints Row 4. For GTA5, Rockstar has had a lot more time to really get to know the PS3, so consequently the game runs at full resolution on both consoles with at most a 1-2fps difference in performance in certain busy scenes (mostly in cutscenes, oddly enough). The 360 version has slightly better shaders, while the PS3 version has slightly sharper textures.

I'm completely amazed at how they achieved this on 7-8 year old hardware.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Facebook games and free iPhone/Android games are not a valid indicator of the gameplay in a modern open-world AAA game.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Take away the 3D graphics and they have equivalent skill level and entertainment value.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[KozmoStevnNaut]

8 hours? I've played GTA5 for about 10 hours by now, and according to the game itself, I'm around 16% through with the story missions, never mind all the optional side missions and activities, gun smuggling, races, random events, treasure hunts and collectibles. Or the fact all of the heists can be played through multiple times with different approaches. Or the random dicking around that a GTA game always lends itself so well to, thanks to the wonderfully detailed world and enormous possibilities for outright mayhem they put in your hands.

Some AAA games are linear and more like semi-interactive movies than actual games, true. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing. A 100% slick, well-produced, well-told and immersive story has a value of its own, even if it is linear. Do you complain that your movies and books are too linear, as well?

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Games on consoles have been $60 for over a decade now. Cool your jets kid.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Go to Afghanistan then.

But have you actually played any GTA game, ever?

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[MachineShedFred]

Because everyone blasts through AAA titles at the same speed, and all AAA titles have the exact same amount of content.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[MachineShedFred]

Agreed. I haven't turned on my XBox360 in a year, but I just might for this game.

I won't be buying another console, unless there is a REALLY compelling reason. I'm not seeing it right now. The last few games I've really enjoyed have been Kickstarter driven, and Wasteland 2 isn't that far off...

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[flayzernax]

I took an incredible shit last night. It smelled so amazing. The color was such rich brown and the texture was very nutty.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[CastrTroy]

I agree with you there. I don't go to the pub very often, but last time I went, it was about $8 for a pint of good beer. Even the mass market domestic beers were over $6. That's a lot of money to ask for a beer. $60 for a game that I will play for 30 hours just to finish the first time around (I don't play GTA, but the games buy usually take at least this long), are totally worth it. In terms of "total entertainment value", video games are probably one of the best deals out there.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[tepples]

The Wii U seems dumb to me because of asymmetric controllers

If asymmetric controllers are dumb, the PC is likewise dumb. Player 1 has the mouse and keyboard; other players on the machine have USB gamepads.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

The game play is certainly not novel or meaningful. You cannot even build an empire. Or work towards some complex goal that requires the evolution of thought.

Go play Civ V in Afghanistan then. There is a place for all kind of games. Some likes them some don't. So you don't, big f'ing deal. Doesn't mean your hateful opinion against the game understands the joy others getting from those games. Get off your high Napoleon horse.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Dogtanian]

The humour, satire, writing in general is utterly tip top.

As with previous entries in the series (*), there are apparently a lot of subtle references that only people in Scotland (where the game was designed)- or at least Britain- will spot, without alienating everyone else or spoiling the atmosphere.

Such as the fact that the small Scottish borders town of Hawick has had its name "borrowed" for a fictional town with a "drug addict hipster vibe". They aren't too happy about it, apparently...

(*) GTA IV San Andreas apparently included the "Garver" and "Kincaid" bridges which were closely modelled on the Forth road and rail bridges respectively.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

No one is saying not to make or enjoy the game. The issue I take is that there are so many stupid people who don't see beyond the simple joy of a very week game. There's so many better games out there. That for 800$ million on the first day. Thats like people buying McDonalds for 100$ a meal and calling it the most incredible meal they have ever had.

to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.
—Moby-Dick, Chapter 135. "The Chase.—Third Day"

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Politburo]

"no motive other than greed, power, or lust?"

"You cannot even build an empire."

What exactly do you think drives empire-building?

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[KozmoStevnNaut]

So I take it you've never played a GTA game.

That's fine, just don't jump to conclusions, ok?

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Competition. Protection. Security. Building an empire is not a selfish act. In order to call it an empire. It must include others.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people, see below. Have a hard time maneuvering a cursor through a 3d environment to click on icons.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[tompaulco]

Its a total commercial piece of triple A shit designed to sell a console and hardware?

Available on PS3, which has been out for what 5 or 6 years?

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[PIBM]

Nah, he drinks water; that 5$ per hour are his allowance for his foosball games.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet you believe that is the only games they play just because you don't see $800million in 24 hour on some other games? The game really isn't week.. I mean.. weak if one enjoys it just as much as other games.

I could quote something about "nothing nice to say", but not like I have anything nice to say to you just because you hate that a lot of people actually go buy a game and like it.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[drinkypoo]

If asymmetric controllers are dumb, the PC is likewise dumb.

As a game console? Sure. But it's not a game console, it's a PC. It's not sold as a game console. It's not meant to be a game console. You can make it into a game console, but it just isn't one. I would still own a PC even if nobody made games for it. Indeed, I no longer run a contemporary version of Windows at any time (I have no license for any Windows newer than Vista on any machine) and as such I can not play most PC games anyway.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[MaWeiTao]

I agree that pubs are overpriced and movies offensively so. However, I have a far more enjoyable time sitting with friends and enjoying good beer than hunched over a controller playing any console game. The game might be entertaining, but it's quickly forgotten and in the end I'm left with the feeling that I've just wasted so many hours of my life. GTA5 might be impressive, but I doubt it's going to offer me a better experience than most other games I've played.

So for me, the pub offers far greater bang for the buck.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure conquering other peoples with force and forcing them to obey you is a selfish act.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

could you try just a little harder to sound like a paid shill?

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if it's for Freedom(tm).

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Richy_T]

I hear that Valve are starting to release their games in shorter episodes which should have the added benefit of allowing more frequent releases.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Movie ticket: $10, 2 hours entertainment –$5 per hour.
Pub: $20, 4 hours entertainment – $5 per hour.
Typical AAA game: $40, 30 hours entertainment –$1.33 per hour.
GTA: $60, 100 hours entertaiment – $0.60 per hour.

I'd say GTA is pretty well priced already.

That just says that the movies and beer in pubs are way too expensive.

Maybe movies, but pub prices aren't inflated by artificial monopolies.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention this argument applies to every other entertainment listed...some movies I walked out of after a half hour because they bored me to tears. 40$/h entertainment ahoy!

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

no fucking way does it (or any game) deserve even ONE sale ... at $60+ usd.

GTA6 will start at $80.. u watch.

Based on first-day sales, there are roughly 13 MILLION people who do not agree with you.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

$60USD/copy??? I guess GTA is a how-to to afford GTA...

GTA III had a sticker price of $49.95 US when it released in 2001, go find me something else which had that SMALL of a relative price increase over the last decade.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Take away the video feed from movies, and all you have is a bunch of talking and sound effects.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[CronoCloud]

Tepples wants the PC to be a game console and support same screen multiplayer because he wants to make console games, but there are barriers to entry to keep "amateurs" from doing so. He also is unwilling or unable to do what he needs to do to become a professional game developer/programmer doing console games.

It don't help that he's "you know what" and used to babysit and play samescreen multiplayer on older consoles on SDTV's with kids so he's a bit obsessed with those types of games and use cases. Remember how he used to go on and on about SDTV?

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[CronoCloud]

Most of the good C64 games were disk games, no RPG's for you then?

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you crazy, I work at a bar/pub and we charge at least 75% of the cost of the bottle for a shot. So tell me that that is not over inflated. Im sorry but when the bottle is payed off on the second or third shot or by one martini and there are at least 22 to 24 shots in a bottle you can do the maths and see that its pretty much pure profit. Ive long since stopped going to pub/bar unless I know I can get a discount on my drinks. That is not even including the 50-70% markup on wine. each pub has to compete with the other and in doing so each knows how much a patron is willing to pay, so they collude to set prices high and can get away with it. your better off getting a couple of bottles at home, inviting some friends over and having a GTAV "LAN" party or some other game. you will get loads more entertainment and a better social atmosphere.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[steelfood]

Or you're not spending enough time in a pub.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Name one country that is fighting for "Freedom" and not self interest, and no the "War on Terror" that the US is fighting is not about freedom.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Gibgezr]

...says the anonymous coward.

For what it's worth, I totally agree with the fellow hyping the game; it's an incredible work of art. Best GTA so far. It's very good value for the money, even as a 60$ full-price game. Like Monster Hunter games, I expect to get a few hundred hours enjoyment out of this...maybe over a thousand hours if the multiplayer is all that they are promising it to be, but we will have to wait on that.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[hairyfeet]

Oh bullshit! You may think its the best thing since sliced bread but for every guy like you that will beat the thing there are a good 100 that will get bored halfway through and end up dropping the game, never to return. This has been documented and just because you are a fanboy of the series will NOT change those figures. For the record i have GTA III, GTA:VC, and GTA:SA, know how many of those I finished? NONE, that is how many, as it never fails but the GTA games always end up feeling like a slog once you get a little passed the halfway point. The second a game starts feeling like I'm punching a clock instead of playing a game? I'm out of there and the figures show I'm far from being alone in that sentiment.

For the record the only sandbox games i had enough of a fun time playing the missions to complete were Just Cause II and Saints Row games, JCII because they kept ramping up the "cool guys don't look at explosions" badass-o-meter and with the saints games the missions kept getting more and more batshit so I stuck it out just to see how crazy they got by the end. With the GTA games it always felt like you had seen all the best stuff by the halfway point and they started feeling repetitive so i bailed. Just because this guy doesn't feel its some epic adventure doesn't change the fact that the majority probably won't see the end of GTA V anymore than I saw the end of GTA III-GTA:SA.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[tompaulco]

Oddly, I like GTA and I find the idea that anybody would spend $30 to $40 a night in a pub to be ludicrous.
Apparently, different people like different things. Who would have thunk it?

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[tepples]

He also is unwilling or unable to do what he needs to do to become a professional

How much money should someone seeking a first job in the industry have in the bank to cover relocation and job search? What else is needed?

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

DVD from WalMart: $5, 2 hrs entertainment over and over
D'Arcy's Pint (includes 2 Guiness, corned beef, cabbage, mashed potatoes, 20% tip): $20, 2 hrs
Felbers (includes 4 drafts and 20% tip: $5, 2 hrs
Android Phone: $120, 35,040 hours of entertainment (price excludes $40 per month phone bill, not necessary with wifi)

How much did it cost to develop that $60 game? That $5 movie? Cooking that meal including salaries and other overhead?

Games cost way too damned much.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Any iteration of Civ: $50, 1000 hours - $0.05 per hour

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[drinkypoo]

For the record i have GTA III, GTA:VC, and GTA:SA, know how many of those I finished? NONE

Nobody ever taught you to finish what you start?

GTA games always end up feeling like a slog once you get a little passed the halfway point.

I had that experience with Vice City. One out of the series ain't bad. I think San Andreas is probably one of the ten best video games ever produced.

For the record the only sandbox games i had enough of a fun time playing the missions to complete were Just Cause II and Saints Row games

Maybe it's just not your genre. Personally, I am not really drawn to the Genre, but I do find GTA compelling. Especially since San Andreas, which again I believe to be a masterpiece for a number of reasons both subjective and not. I won't be insulted if you disagree, though.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I have. I just think they are boring and it's basically walking around between boring mini-games and following a boring story.

OMG! I have a different opinion! I must be elitist. It couldn't be because I genuinely find it bad, no, that can't be it.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

I play games to become immersed and stimulate my imagination by being actively involved. Not "crack addiction" style immersion, but immersion into the world. For that I don't need great graphics. Pretty graphics don't make up for boring games (and I find GTA games boring, sorry if that offends you).

When I watch a movie I'm immersed in somebody else's imagination and I'm passively involved. Visuals have to be good enough to not make me suspend my disbelief and yank me out of the fantasy world I'm immersed in.

Your analogy is terrible.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[moogaloonie]

Any place that restricts you to consuming only what is sold on premises is creating an artificial monopoly. Otherwise we'd all bring our own beer from home that cost us a third as much.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Movie ticket: $10, 2 hours entertainment –$5 per hour.
Pub: $20, 4 hours entertainment – $5 per hour.
Typical AAA game: $40, 30 hours entertainment –$1.33 per hour.
GTA: $60, 100 hours entertaiment – $0.60 per hour.

Getting out and spending time with other people face to face: priceless.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you live that movie tickets are only $10? They're more like $15 here.

What the fuck kind of pub do you go to where $20 will last 4 hours? Here, $20 is like two drinks and maybe one game of pool at a local bar.

Typical AAA game for $40? Not unless it's been out a while. Standard release price is between $50 and $60.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

The humour, satire, writing in general is utterly tip top.

As with previous entries in the series (*), there are apparently a lot of subtle references that only people in Scotland (where the game was designed)- or at least Britain- will spot, without alienating everyone else or spoiling the atmosphere.

Such as the fact that the small Scottish borders town of Hawick has had its name "borrowed" for a fictional town with a "drug addict hipster vibe". They aren't too happy about it, apparently...

(*) GTA IV San Andreas apparently included the "Garver" and "Kincaid" bridges which were closely modelled on the Forth road and rail bridges respectively.

Also, there's Jakey's lager. Im not sure how to describe a jakey to someone outside the Scotland (well, for people in the UK "chav" is a good description).

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[KozmoStevnNaut]

So a story that's at on par with the best mainstream cinema has to offer is boring? I'm glad you love your indie and French art films, but a lot of us actually like stories that are just a tiny bit accessible.

Also, you can't seriously argue that GTA V is a bad game. It has a 97 out of 100 score on metacritic, which makes it the second-highest rated game ever (GTA IV is #1 at 98 out of 100). The only negative reviews are from users, who complain that it's not as good as Dark Souls or complain that it has too much driving or that the characters are too violent (they're criminals, for Pete's sake!). It is objectively a very good game, it just happens to not be in your particular (very particular) taste.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Pretty visuals do help with immersion in video games, though.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

The AC he was replying to had "AAA game" and "GTA" as separate categories. The "average" AAA game these days is 6-8 hrs of a linear story that you likely only want to play through once. Call of Duty and Gears of War are closer to "average," where as GTA and Skyrim are huge outliers.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.howlongtobeat.com/index.php

Just look at the listings for some of the biggest selling AAA games. The industry as a whole is pretty obviously targeting an ~8 hr window when scoping out how long to make their games.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[DiEx-15]

My question to you, AbRASiON, and I hope you do reply:

Is GTA5 anything like GTA3: San Andreas?

I ask because that game, I think and strictly my opinion, was the best game so far in the GTA series. I can't explain why but I was drawn into CJ's story, plot, and world. Ever since then, I can't get drawn in nearly like I did with SA. Even the past games and GTA4 just couldn't do what SA did.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Duly noted and agreed.

Obviously a lot of people want interactive movies rather than open-world games these days.

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not insightful. The Poster did not get what Parent was claiming (hint: read grandparent as well, parent is not talking about GTA at all). Neither did the poster get it nor did the mods...

Re:It deserves every sale it gets

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, borrow it from your friend for 2 hours then install it in your xbox hard driver after that 100 hours entertainment 0.00 $
For further guide about the size and installation process see this post. i found it quite helpful
http://iworldpost.com/size-gta-5-xbox-360/

More non-news superlatives!

[ReallyEvilCanine]

It ain't news, especially not nerds who understand the concept of "constant dollars". It certainly ain't any sort of stuff that matters. It's time to change the tagline to:

Look! Shiny!

This place isn't even SCO/GNEW-Lunix advocacy anymore. "Quickies" were long ago ceded to reddiggit and stories about Microsoft are neutral to positive/pleasant. Five bucks says Taco is running Win8.

Re: More non-news superlatives!

[Anonymous Coward]

Taco left Slashdot a long time ago; his choice of OS isn't really relevant.

Re:More non-news superlatives!

[Sockatume]

It's conventional in the entertainment business to do these comparisons with unadjusted dollars, but given that the previous record holder came out just a few years ago, and this has beaten it by almost a factor of two, it's moot.

Unless inflation has suddenly got a lot worse than I thought.

Re:More non-news superlatives!

[zippthorne]

Funny you should say that... it did, or will. Not sure if it's priced in yet.

Re:More non-news superlatives!

[moteyalpha]

It is a rookie karma whore mistake to poke fun at the zoo keepers.
Taco is playing GTA V and will get back to you after he checks his stock quotes on his windows phone.
I could be wrong, but I think the moderation dice(.com) are loaded. It does not surprise me that fantasy is a better business than reality because reality is hard and it guarantees no reward. It is the old mouse experiment from the 1960s. You give a mouse a button that stimulates the pleasure center in the brain and they will never eat again and push that button until they die. I think that Ringworld had a running story line about Louis Wu and "The Wire" .That is essentially the problem, It is why heroine and pain killers are such nasty things. At least this type of escape doesn't leave track marks and heroine is a far more expensive habit.
So excuse me while I reconnect this wire.

Re:More non-news superlatives!

[Richy_T]

The comparisons should be made in Bitcoins.

Need more numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

This is close to the highest grossing films (Avatar at 2.7 billion), but there is a difference in that we don't get to know how much a game cost and how much it sold unless the publisher wants us to.

All films have budget and box office numbers on their Wikipedia pages and IMDB and I think it's about time that happened for video games as well.

Re:Need more numbers

[Sockatume]

Various independent estimates (presumably based on Rockstar's public financials and staff numbers) put it in at $200-$300m. That means it was about as expensive as Avatar too, assuming they both have similar marketing spends.

Re:Need more numbers

[FatLittleMonkey]

This is close to the highest grossing films (Avatar at 2.7 billion),

You are comparing Avatar's total earnings with GTAV's first 24 hours. Avatar made about $200m on its opening weekend.

The games industry makes Hollywood look stupid and small.

Re:Need more numbers

[MaWeiTao]

You mean a highly successful and popular game makes Hollywood look small. Most other games don't do nearly this well.

I would be curious to know the typical profit margin on a Hollywood blockbuster versus a big budget game like GTA V. We've got to be getting to a point where the difference isn't all that large.

Re:Need more numbers

[drinkypoo]

You mean a highly successful and popular game makes Hollywood look small. Most other games don't do nearly this well.

The games industry surpassed hollywood a year or two ago, right? Most games don't cost to make what it costs to make a hollywood movie, right? The actual profit might be better for the games industry. But...

I would be curious to know the typical profit margin on a Hollywood blockbuster versus a big budget game like GTA V. We've got to be getting to a point where the difference isn't all that large.

...we'll never know because of creative accounting.

Re:Need more numbers

[tompaulco]

Well the numbers are not pure profit either. It made $800 million and cost, say, $250 million. But how much of that $800 million does Rockstar get? I'm sure it is a pretty good cut, but Wal-mart has to make their cut too.

Re:Need more numbers

[Xest]

It works both ways though, cinemas aren't charities either and take their share also.

Blargh

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll wait for it to go second hand, 70 bux is too much for a videogame.

(plus one Informative)

[Anonymous Coward]

bought the farm... most people into a may be hurting the bAlance is struck,

Yeah, but you have good qualities too.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would expect, anyway.

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy GTA games once in a while, but you mostly walk around between one crappy mini-game and the next with a so-so story gluing it all together. The mini-games aren't any better than random flash games online.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

I do get you wrong.

Re:Meh

[jones_supa]

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy GTA games once in a while, but you mostly walk around between one crappy mini-game and the next with a so-so story gluing it all together. The mini-games aren't any better than random flash games online.

I skipped a lot of those mini-games too in GTA4. Weren't my cup of tea either. The missions were lots of fun though.

Is it really surprising ?

[Thanatiel]

Here at least, I've heard about the game in the "News" again and again. (Belgium)

Such or such shop exceptionnaly opened at 22:00 so people could queue and buy the game at 00:00 (here shops are usually closed at 18:30).
Such or such "expert" speaking about the influence on the children of such "an incredibely well done game, so realistic and with such an incredible level of freedom ...".

Is it so amazing that, with so much coverage, people not knowing anything about games would have an incentive, an urge, to put their hands on that "phenomenon" ?

I only remember that GTA IV was so boring, so repetitive and so identical to the previous ones that I put it aside for some other game.
Still, GTA IV was also highly rated and heavily advertised/covered by "journalists".

History repeats itself. Deal with it.

Re:Is it really surprising ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are mistaken; GTAIV was heavily criticized for being so different to the previous games (toned-down humor, more serious and gritty feel, less things to do, less arcade-y car physics, more realistic weapons, etc)

Too bad..

[Anonymous Coward]

the PC release is so far away. Why anyone would want to experience this in sub 720p at 24 fps is beyond me.

But there will always be people willing to get suckered into buying locked down PCs at the premise of being more retard friendly and exclusives which are nothing more than a way to extort you into buying a shitty system.

But whatever

Re:Too bad..

[Lumpy]

The same people that dont want to play it on a little kids Screen, 70" screen or go home.

Re:Too bad..

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you even referring to?

Re:Too bad..

[Sockatume]

Maybe because they can walk out of the store with the console for less than it costs to buy the worst PC in the electronics store? Are you the kind of guy who sneers at people buying the ordinary toilet paper and not your preferred $10 super-quilted variety?

Re:Too bad..

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Try full 720p at 30fps. It looks great, it runs great, the controls are very responsive and the gameplay is excellent.

It's not ~AMAZING PC GAMING OMG GRAFIX XXXTREME!~ snobby PC elitist approved, but the game looks awesome and runs ridiculously well on what is 7-8 year old hardware by now.

What does "locked down" even mean in this context? I buy a game, I put it in the drive, I play the game and I have fun with it. Isn't that what gaming is about? Fun? Is it because it's harder to pirate console games? Is it because it's too easy and not nearly elitist enough? I know I can't play the game on the next generation console (which I'm unlikely to buy, at least until GTA VI comes out), but at that point, I'll probably have upgraded my PC enough that "old" games such as GTA V will run fine on it. So that's my take on it. Consoles for new games, not-top-of-the-line PC for older games that I want to replay. Seems to work fine and it saves me thousands and thousands in endless PC hardware upgrades.

What do I care if a game has dynamic texture vertigon flip-flopping 3000 times/second? All I care is that it's fun, immersive and a nice break from reality. Not how big its framerate theoretically makes my e-penis seem.

Re:Too bad..

[PIBM]

At least is your 70" 4k ? Because I certainly favor playing on my triple 30" @ 2560x1600 each than my 70" full hd. Perhaps if it was 4K I'd favor the 70", but I am not even sure of that.

Re:Too bad..

[drinkypoo]

XGA DLP that will do 80" on your wall is around $400 now, maybe less. Spend more or less and get more or less. Anyone can have a reasonable-quality picture on their wall, if they have a wall, instead of a big screen TV. That is, if they don't need a tuner in their display. Who does?

Re:Too bad..

[DrGamez]

6 months. Just have to hold out for 6 months if GTA4's release cycle is anything to go by.

The Onion's take on 'GTA V'

[SternisheFan]

'GTA V’ A Sophisticated Gaming Experience, Says Man Who Spent 3 Hours Running Over Homeless People With Fire Truck

http://www.theonion.com/articles/gta-v-a-sophisticated-gaming-experience-says-man-w,33893/

Re:The Onion's take on 'GTA V'

[mynamestolen]

I'd vote you up on this one but don't want to use my mod points. Sorry, but I want to make a comment or two about how broken slashdot has become. 1. I filter my page to give me high rating comments. Unfortunately I have to pick ALL because if I pick INTERESTING, or INFORMATIVE, or INSIGHTFUL I can't get FUNNY or any other category. So /. Why not combine at least three of these and allow me to filter on more than one category. 2. Too many mod points are given out if the system is going to continue to function the way it does. Almost everything is modded up. So /. Why stop at 5 for modding up. The highest should then be moved to the top of the page (I can click on stuff to give me a threaded view if I want) Anyway it's late and I'm going to bed.

Re:The Onion's take on 'GTA V'

[upto0013]

This isn't Reddit.

Re:The Onion's take on 'GTA V'

[DrGamez]

Yeah I agree GTAV seems like a lot of fun :-)

two weeks before, you mean.

[Anonymous Coward]

And without the DRM bullshit getting in the way of playing.

And really, you think it's 100% piracy rates on the PC????

Young men impersonate cops to buy GTA V, arrested

[argStyopa]

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/young-men-impersonate-cops-buy-gta-4-article-1.1459299

"Young Staten Island men impersonate police officers to skip line to buy Grand Theft Auto V
Kirolos Abdel Sayed, 19, Matthew Kirshen, 20, and Frank Santanastoso, 19, drove to the Staten Island Mall in what appeared to be an unmarked car complete with lights and sirens only to have their fun ended by real police officers."

Gah-bage!

[Anarchy24]

GTA has to be one of the most boring games I've ever played. Boring!!!! I'd rather play the card game 'war' - sure the outcome is already decided from the moment you stop shufflng the deck, but at least you don't know what's going to happen next. GTA? Cops and robbers - pacman with a car and guns.

I want them to continue developing Half Life ! And I miss the simulation games of yore - Age of Empires, Civilization, Roller Coaster Tycoon, etc. They don't make many sim games any more :-( Sim City 4 is nice, but they are going to be selling "upgrades" so that we can... have the same features we had in the last version like 10 years ago. Want to build a bigger city? Pay us and we'll make your border bigger! Subways?! Gotta pay extra for that too I'm gonna guess.

It is also crap that most games these days *need* to be played online because of DRM. I like the Steam/Origin model because I don't have to worry about losing the media, but if I ain't online I can't play Sim City (without a workaround - which would probably screw up my cities online anyways),

Game developers complain about how expensive it is to create a new game - I'd much prefer something challenging and stimulating than a boring game cloned from 15 years ago because they haven't bothered to come up with anything new and just want to jazz it up with eye-candy, give it a new name, and sell if for $60 when the original was like, $20 (I'm looking at you, Microsoft)

I guess I'll just be stuck with Age of Empires 2 and Civ 4 and Roller Coaster Tycoon - but at least they're still fun and challenging after all these years!

GTA is for 'brogrammers' and frat boys.

Re:Gah-bage!

[drinkypoo]

GTA has to be one of the most boring games I've ever played.

GTA was one of the best DOS games ever. How could you not enjoy it? Oh, wait, you're talking about the series? It's not one game, hence my confusion.

I want them to continue developing Half Life !

So just to be clear, because you don't like endlessly doing driving and stealing missions, you want to promote endlessly doing mine-dodging or bug-killing missions. Got it.

So, I own both HL2 and GTA4, and you're just full of shit. GTA4 has an order of magnitude more replay value. This shouldn't have been true, but all the HL2 mods are lame at best; either they're very short or they're very shit.

I guess I'll just be stuck with Age of Empires 2 and Civ 4 and Roller Coaster Tycoon - but at least they're still fun and challenging after all these years!

Oh, right, PC gaming is the best! That's why you're playing games which by computer standards are fucking antiques. Because all the best games come out on PC. Now, I play PC games too, but like you I'm playing the games of yesteryear. Hell, I just dusted off Civ II. Civ IV is just too crashy. Alpha Centauri, likewise, in all versions. Simcity IV just pissed me off for the last time recently. I guess I'll have to build a new desk, so that I can attach my yoke, so I can play flight simulators. But I won't be playing Flight Simulator, even though I own it. It comes with too much PITA factor.

Re:Gah-bage!

[Anonymous Coward]

GTA was one of the best DOS games ever. How could you not enjoy it? Oh, wait, you're talking about the series? It's not one game, hence my confusion.

I see what you did there. You did the old, "I'm going to be a pedantic jackass by feigning confusion for a second" routine.

Re:Gah-bage!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

What's wrong with a game that's easily-accessible, but contains some depth and focuses on telling a compelling story of crime, redemption and struggle, while giving you an immersive living open world where you can go as hog wild as you like? Who cares if it's "casual" or "for brogrammers"? It's fun, goddammit, that's what counts. If you'd step down from your elitist "PC gaming is best gaming I'm not listening lalalalalala" throne, you'd be able to see that.

GTA V doesn't need to be online to play, you can play it 100% off line, even on a 360 that has never ever been connected to the internet. I don't know about the PS3, but I assume it's the same there.

However, being online does net you certain rewards. There's a stock market that fluctuates based on other players' actions ingame (crash certain brand of car a lot and the stock drops etc.), there are various real-life websites where you can get small bonuses in game, early access to certain guns and so on, there's an iPhone/Android app where you can customize your cars and teach your dog new tricks and of course there are online leaderboards for missions, tennis, golf and everything else in game. Not mandatory at all, but fun.

October 1st, GTA Online launches, which is the full-on multiplayer, cop-dodging, bank-heisting, guns-blazing online GTA semi-persistent experience. Online (and a Rockstar Games Social Club account) is mandatory for obvious reasons.

Re:Gah-bage!

[Hatta]

GTA? Cops and robbers - pacman with a car and guns.

You say that like it's a bad thing. Pacman is still one of the best games ever. This is like saying "Nine Inch Nails? It's just Bach with a sampler and clinical depression". That's actually high praise.

Re:Gah-bage!

[Anarchy24]

Pacman is boring and repetative. I was tired of it 20 years ago, and even the nostalgia of playing it on a full-sized console wears off after feeding it quarters. It's boring. Ladybug was cool though. And at least Donkey Kong and Frogger took skill. I'd take the old Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat over any GTA, any day.

Re:Gah-bage!

[drinkypoo]

I see what you did there. You did the old, "I'm going to be a pedantic jackass by feigning confusion for a second" routine.

Which is still better than calling a series a game. It isn't, and no amount of calling it that will make it so. Instead of whining about how you don't like the device I used, why don't you do something useful, like masturbation?

Re:Gah-bage!

[Emetophobe]

I want them to continue developing Half Life ! And I miss the simulation games of yore - Age of Empires, Civilization, Roller Coaster Tycoon, etc..

Age of Empires was an RTS, not a Simulation game.

I'd much prefer something challenging and stimulating than a boring game cloned from 15 years ago because they haven't bothered to come up with anything new and just want to jazz it up with eye-candy, give it a new name, and sell if for $60...

Geez, make up your mind. First you say you want more sequels to a bunch of 10-20 year old games, and then the next paragraph you say you don't want rehashed versions of 15 year old games. Which one is it?

Re:Gah-bage!

[drinkypoo]

Pacman is boring and repetative. I was tired of it 20 years ago, and even the nostalgia of playing it on a full-sized console wears off after feeding it quarters. It's boring. Ladybug was cool though.

Speaking as someone who formerly owned a Ladybug cocktail cab, you're just name dropping. Ladybug was cool, but it wasn't so much cooler than Pacman that you can really throw rocks at Pacman if you're playing Ladybug.

Re:Gah-bage!

[Anarchy24]

More skill. Bigger levels. More options for gameplay.

Ladybug > Pacman

GTA *

Re:Gah-bage!

[CronoCloud]

However, being online does net you certain rewards. There's a stock market that fluctuates based on other players' actions ingame (crash certain brand of car a lot and the stock drops etc.), there are various real-life websites where you can get small bonuses in game, early access to certain guns and so on, there's an iPhone/Android app where you can customize your cars and teach your dog new tricks and of course there are online leaderboards for missions, tennis, golf and everything else in game. Not mandatory at all, but fun.

October 1st, GTA Online launches, which is the full-on multiplayer, cop-dodging, bank-heisting, guns-blazing online GTA semi-persistent experience. Online (and a Rockstar Games Social Club account) is mandatory for obvious reasons.

Oh great, now you're making me want to try the game out and I never finished any of the other GTA games I have. I found them interesting and enjoyable, but not really my sort of game.

And...

[Anonymous Coward]

Some idiots still think this industry is in the brink of collapse becuse games cost $200+ million to make.

Go, indies, go...

Re:And...

[Sockatume]

One successful $200m+ game does not mean you can ignore dozens of $100m+ failures.

Re:And...

[Lumpy]

If your company paid $100Mill on a failure game, you deserve to be out of business.

Re:And...

[Sockatume]

That's my point. Many large, previously successful games companies released high-profile, expensive disasters and went broke in the past decade. The games industry has a blockbuster problem.

Re:And...

[Anonymous Coward]

EA blew $130M on SWTOR, which is a failure by all accounts, but their stock is up 90% in 2013.

Go figure, naysayers.

not anywhere near CLOSE to $800 Million

[dnaumov]

Revenues are not profits. Article title is an embarrassment.

Re:not anywhere near CLOSE to $800 Million

[asylumx]

The title doesn't say anything about profits. What's your problem with it?

Re:not anywhere near CLOSE to $800 Million

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, their costs are:

- Rental of basement flat (apartment) for 3 years @ 500GBP per month: 18,000GBP
- Feeding three software developers for 3 years @ approximately 5GBP per person per day (Cheetos, cornflakes, fish and chips): 15,000GBP
- 1,000GBP per programmer piecework reward: 3,000GBP

I make that under 40,000GBP. In other words, pretty much the entire 800 million is profit.

Re:not anywhere near CLOSE to $800 Million

[dnaumov]

The whole "MAKES" part. "Makes" assumes profit.

Re:not anywhere near CLOSE to $800 Million

[Anonymous Coward]

No. A person "makes" a certain amount of money a month - only a percentage of that is profit.

But but but, the PIRACY!!!!

[Lumpy]

Wait, so this means they also lost $2.2Billion to piracy then? I keep forgetting their fake numbers they keep trotting out on how much the companies lose to piracy.

Re:But but but, the PIRACY!!!!

[Sockatume]

I don't think Rockstar games has ever quoted piracy numbers for its products. They've expressed disappointment every time the game has leaked but they don't seem to be in the BS numbers game.

Re:But but but, the PIRACY!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just in the "we don't understand the untapped potential of piracy" game then?

Re:But but but, the PIRACY!!!!

[Anachragnome]

"Wait, so this means they also lost $2.2Billion to piracy then?"

I think it's safe to say they can blame themselves for this--after all, their fan-base has had abundant exposure to the idea that stealing can actually be Fun and Entertaining!.

C'mon, nowhere else would I have come up with stealing a Cessna from the local airport with the sole purpose of crashing it into ground-troops in an effort to steal a military attack-chopper right off their base helipad...and be successful.

Prism Disclosure: It's a game, guys. Not makin' any suggestions.

Lamely replying to myself.

[FatLittleMonkey]

The highest grossing opening day for any film was $91m in the first 24 hours for the last Harry Potter movie.

Re:Lamely replying to myself.

[Anonymous Coward]

But AAA games cost 5-6 times a movie ticket, so they are in the same ballpark if you factor that in.

Re:Lamely replying to myself.

[Somebody Is Using My]

And I would not be surprised if those "first day" sales also included all the pre-orders that people have been laying out for months ahead of time in anticipation.

It's impressive numbers to be sure, and certain to impress the beancounters, but don't read more into it than that. Just going by the dollar signs isn't enough to gauge the overall impact or popularity of a blockbuster game versus a blockbuster movie, for instance.

Still, well-deserved and kudos to Rockstar. While I haven't liked everything about the previous GTA games, overall I found them to be quite enjoyable products and I have little doubt that GTA5 will as much fun. And as soon as it comes out on PC, I'll gladly buy this iteration of the franchise too.

Remember the target market

[rmdingler]

is primarily tweens and teens who worship Bieber, Swift, and company... not you /. eggheads. When you are young, there is something deliciously bad about running amok through a world with no rules.

Re:Remember the target market

[PopeRatzo]

When you are young, there is something deliciously bad about running amok through a world with no rules.

I know, right?

Just ask Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris.

Re:Remember the target market

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a 56-year-old male, raised on rock music (now called classic rock). Taylor Swift, and Brad Paisley, are two of the reasons why I've opened up to the country music genre. If you've ever watched the videos of live shows you know I'm not alone in this demographic.

Re:Remember the target market

[Anonymous Coward]

When you are young, there is something deliciously bad about running amok through a world with no rules.

I know, right?

Just ask Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris.

Seriously? Shut the fuck up. My wife actually knew Dylan and Eric and they were two nerdy kids who would have likely fit in well here. They got tortured by a bunch of douche bag jocks and 'bros' and whenever they tried to report it to school authorities, they did nothing but sweep it under the rug or punish the victims because they didn't want to hurt their football team. Stop believing everything you get spoon fed in the media, use your brain, and ask yourself "What would make two upper middle income, fairly privileged kids do something like this?"

Re:Remember the target market

[Algae_94]

is primarily tweens and teens who worship Bieber, Swift, and company... not you /. eggheads.

Sorry, wrong. GTA V is rated M, so it's not supposed to be for tweens and teens. Although I'm positive a lot of them will play the game, I would wager the target market is 20 something and 30 something males.

Re:Remember the target market

[Anonymous Coward]

"No rules?" The entire game is a construct of rules, almost by definition.

Re:Remember the target market

[rmdingler]

Or, it's rated (M)ature to give the kids the same illicit thrill that we got attending an R rated film with forged permission notes from our parents. Admittedly a small sampling, my kids (and their friends and relatives) played the shit out of GTA right up until they were legally able to. Varying to some degree from boy to boy, the game lost it's luster shortly thereafter.

Re:Remember the target market

[PopeRatzo]

"What would make two upper middle income, fairly privileged kids do something like this?"

A sense of entitlement and complete lack of empathy for anyone else?

Sorry pal. The fact that your wife new "Dylan and Eric" doesn't make them any less sociopaths. There are lots of people in the world who get bullied worse than those two losers and don't decide to shoot up a bunch of people who never did anything to them.

Man mugged and copy of GTA stolen

[Shimbo]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24127999

A man was hit with a brick and stabbed before being robbed of the much awaited Grand Theft Auto V video game in north London.

Re:Man mugged and copy of GTA stolen

[Anonymous Coward]

That guy really knows knows how to get into the game!

24h

[Anonymous Coward]

And Slashdot is always 24h late compared to other news site with the same news.

It's amazing...

[Anonymous Coward]

How people clamor for a video game that lets them murder, rape, pimp, sell drugs, steal cars, run over people, etc...

Re:It's amazing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least we are not doing it in real life.

Re:It's amazing...

[Anonymous Coward]

More amazing that watching movies and television shows, or reading books and comics about doing all that?

Re:It's amazing...

[DrGamez]

How can people not stand behind their words, coward?

Re:Young men impersonate cops to buy GTA V, arrest

[tippe]

Amateurs. They obviously couldn't make it out of the police search area before being caught or finding a pay&spray. They really should have replayed GTA4 to polish up their police dodging skills...

FTFY

[Anonymous Coward]

And most people are both stupid and arrogant. Citation: The internet.

Re:Young men impersonate cops to buy GTA V, arrest

[HnT]

I am sure the important question here is... how many stars did they get for that???

8 hours is on the short end of the norm.

[Anonymous Coward]

But, yes, 8-10 hours is considered a full-sized game now. A game with 6 hours or less is considered short and not a full title. A title lasting 12+ hours is now considered "immersive" or "boring" depending on whether it's a good game or not.

But 8 hours for a AAA title is not unusual.

Consoles tend to have shorter games too, so the console ports tend to be at the bottom end of that 8-10 normal length scale.

Re:8 hours is on the short end of the norm.

[StarFace]

Jesus, I don't even consider buying a game unless I know I can get at least 100 hours out of it. Some of my favorites probably have more like 500 to 1,000. What does a six hour game even look like? That sounds like watching commercials instead of films, to me.

Re:8 hours is on the short end of the norm.

[CronoCloud]

8 -10 hours, I don't know what console games you're playing or thinking of, but most are closer to 80 - 100. Even the character platformers are huge now.

Now if you're thinking of the singleplayer modes in "Call of the Medal of the Gears of The Battlefield of War Sergeant Shooty Master Chief Extreme Edition"... well no one buys those games for the single-player.... they spend hundreds of hours in the multiplayer and ignore the single-player.

Re:8 hours is on the short end of the norm.

[Anonymous Coward]

'Now'? Long games have always been the exception, not the rule. There are many older games you can beat in an hour if you know what you're doing, and were more expensive than games nowadays.

Re:8 hours is on the short end of the norm.

[DrGamez]

What a strange way to quantify your fun.

Do you not have sex unless it lasts for 10+ hours?

You can have fun, enjoyable, fulfilling experiences in any number of minutes. Arbitrarily passing a game off as "not worth your time" just because it can be finished in a day (hell maybe even a full long sitting!!!!) is... strange.

Re:8 hours is on the short end of the norm.

[StarFace]

I don't follow your comparison. What does sexual congress have to do with playing a video game? I suppose in some strange eclipse of the two, one might find an intersection, but I was not thinking of any of those hypothetical examples.

I'm sure you have a point somewhere in there, but perhaps a more meaningful example would serve it better. Perhaps you are not even responding to me though, as I never used the phrase, "not worth your time" (and doing so would be odd as I can only speak for myself, not yourself).

To come back to what I actually did ask: what is a game like, that only has six hours of content in it?

Re:8 hours is on the short end of the norm.

[DrGamez]

You've never, in your life, seen or experienced a game that has only 6 hours of content in it?

Ever? No Portal? No NES games? No Tetris? No Poker? No Counter-Strike? No HL2? No Uncharted? Nothing under 6 hours ever?

Wow. Are you here just to shake a stick at people who are having fun where you are not?

Re:8 hours is on the short end of the norm.

[StarFace]

Again, who said I was not having fun? You sure do love to leap and bound to conclusions. Perhaps you are just using a different definition for six hours of content than I would. Out of that list, I think only Uncharted and HL2 would qualify would they not? I don't know what those types of games are like though, except in theory. I've never owned a large console, nor found point-at-monster-and-click stuff to be very fun. But for instance, I'm sure we clocked in more than six hours of Tetris, Gameboys tethered together back when Gameboy only meant one thing, on a single road trip. How would one even rate Tetris on an "hours of content" scale, since it is an escalating puzzle game?

Hence, I think we are speaking a different language.

Full Story

[Gladiator]

Read the full story here:
http://www.thecivilian.co.nz/grand-theft-auto-v-contains-no-disc-just-a-blunt-object-and-a-screwdriver/

Actually you can have both

[Sycraft-fu]

Battlefield 3 would be an example. Launched the same day on all platforms and worked well on all of them.

It really isn't a big deal to simultaneously develop for multiple platforms and when you get down to it the PC is likely more similar to the Xbox 360 than the 360 is to the PS3 in terms of development tools and style.

The problem is Rockstar are console heads, for various reasons, and relegate the PC release to second class status.

You can also see it with shit like GTA 4. Not only did it come out way after the consoles, but it performed for crap. They can't argue "Oh well the PC just isn't powerful enough," as PCs dominate consoles in every respect at the moment. It was just poorly implemented and optimized.

Re:Actually you can have both

[gstoddart]

The problem is Rockstar are console heads, for various reasons, and relegate the PC release to second class status.

I would call $800m worth of sales in 24 hours after launch a large number of really good reasons.

Would they have sold that much if they'd released PC only? Would the product have been as well tested if they released for both?

PC gamers might not be happy they don't get the title on release day -- but in terms of maximizing their sales/product release schedule, I'd say from a corporate perspective that seems to be a pretty damned good strategy.

Re:Actually you can have both

[cawpin]

Launched the same day on all platforms and worked well on all of them.

You're joking, right? It STILL doesn't work WELL on XBox 360. At launch it was one of, if not THE, buggiest games I've ever played on a console.

Re:Actually you can have both

[Anonymous Coward]

It really isn't a big deal to simultaneously develop for multiple platforms

Oh, look, random slashdot poster says it's "No Big Deal". Meanwhile, industry heavyweights with proven track records in devleoping many cross-platform blockbuster titles say the EXACT OPPOSITE.
Yes, it IS a big deal, in fact it's often a REALLY big fucking deal. This isn't "Angry Birds" or some other simple little program that you can just recompile with some minor platform tweaks. This shit has to be built from the ground up on each platform. Coding for the PS3 and XBox360 are vastly different beasts, and neither one is a simple port over to a PC platform when you're dealing with this kind of complexity in a game.

They can't argue "Oh well the PC just isn't powerful enough," as PCs dominate consoles in every respect at the moment.

Bullshit. PC's range from being so horribly outdated they could barely even play a Youtube clip of the game all the way up to powerhouse systems that the game won't be able to drive to the max. Guess what? The bulk of the PC market is using systems which are not high-end gaming rigs, so YES there are serious performance issues they have to consider. If you set the resource requirements too high, the numbers of copies sold just won't make up for development costs. Waiting it out for 6 months to a year gives the PC market more time to catch up, especially if they wait for the Christmas shopping season when a lot of gamers will be out purchasing new gaming rigs.

But the fact of the matter is that they're on track for having a bank account in excess of 1 BILLION dollars after less than a week of sales. It's pretty goddamn hard to argue with those kinds of numbers and keep a straight face.

Re:Actually you can have both

[hairyfeet]

Sorry Miss AC, that argument would have held water 5 years ago but it does NOT when consoles are so long in the tooth. hell my youngest boy's bargain basement quad (hell the whole system cost less than $400 after MIR) would curbstomp the X360 and PS3 and his HD7750 (which cost a whole $80) would run rings around the GPUs of the consoles. Hell my HD4850 would run rings around the consoles and its nearly 6 years old!

You look at the hardware listed on the Steam hardware survey, which is where any dev frankly should be looking to find out what PC gamers are packing? A good 70%+ of the PC gamers out there are running hardware that would just slaughter either current gen console by a pretty large margin. This is what happens when you keep a console in circulation a lot longer than it should be, even those low end Athlon quads and Core i3s would just pimpslap the shit out of your average console.

Of course this is ignoring the rotting elephant in the room, which is Rockstar can't code for shit. the most infamous being GTA IV of course but frankly when you look at the quality of the graphics and the number of NPCs and vehicles on screen and how much power it is using? Rockstar is just shitty at coding, simple as that. With so many to choose from in the sandbox genre it makes it all the more obvious, just load up something like Just Cause II where you have this huge scenic island and compare the huge landscapes and heavily populated areas to the GTA games and you'll see the problem is NOT the PC, its the fact that Rockstar is just shitty coders.

Re:Actually you can have both

[Anonymous Coward]

Random unqualified butthurt Asshat makes stupid technical assertions and claims that one of the most successful studios with a billion dollar game cannot code.
News at 11.

Re:Actually you can have both

[squiggleslash]

You look at the hardware listed on the Steam hardware survey, which is where any dev frankly should be looking to find out what PC gamers are packing? A good 70%+ of the PC gamers out there are running hardware that would just slaughter either current gen console by a pretty large margin

Well, yeah, but that's filtered by the fact that most PC gamers who use Steam have had to upgrade their PCs or choose PCs that aren't ordinary by a long stretch of the imagination.

Most PCs out there are using Intel integrated graphics and have 2-4G of RAM and an i3 or even an Atom. They're usually hooked up to laptop-standard 1360x768 screens. They frequently don't have a proper mouse or trackpoint, using the suprememly gamer-unfriendly trackpad instead, and frequently don't even have numeric keypads.

And it's not that these configurations can't play games. Hell, I'm still blown away by what Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 looked like on my 800MHz (or was it 600?) Mac with a Radeon 7500. I held off putting a decent graphics card in what became my "games PC" for a long time (it has one now) and found that while UT4 looked like crap with the default settings, with the right settings it was smooth and had high quality video... on the default IIG system.

But at the same time, it's a hell of a lot easier to produce quality games for two game-optimized platforms than to deal with the above. Sure, Steam users have good graphics. But nobody else does. And as I said, Steam has the users who decided they had to upgrade their PCs or choose "the right" laptop; the users who decided it wasn't worth it left Steam because they couldn't get games to run decently without a lot of work.

All of which said: I'm looking forward to GTA V coming out for PCs, preferably on Steam, preferably at a decent price. I'm just wary of yelling at developers for not considering my wants first. Hey, they might surprise us, and produce the first 201x generation sandbox 3D FPS/etc game that runs well on an Atom with a 1360x768 screen and an Intel graphics chip...

Re:Actually you can have both

[hairyfeet]

And those people DON'T BUY AAA TITLES and thus aren't the audience...your point? Grandma won't buy a copy of GTA V, News At 11.

That doesn't change the fact you have piles of money being left on the table (or in reality given to saints 4 instead) because they haven't released it for PC and by the time they do? Most won't give a fuck. and again look at the Steam hardware survey, they cover everything from IGP to i7 and you'll see the vast majority while having relatively modest specs (most GPUs are around the HD7750 lvl) still curbstomp anything on the console so PCs needing more hardware is bullshit...unless the devs can't code for shit, just ask PS3 owners about GTA IV about how great Rockstar codes.

for the record my PC cost less than $500 and even spending that little and having an HD4850 which is nearly 6 years old even i curbstomp the consoles because honestly? The consoles weren't even cutting edge when they were released, much less 7 years on. frankly I slap a whole $100 into mine for an HD7790 and I'll be curbstomping the PS4 and Xbox N as they went with the crazy weak jaguar (based on bobcat, a chip built for netbooks and NOT even Celeron levels) so this next gen is gonna be blown away that much faster, in fact I'd say a good half or better using Steam now could beat the new systems when it comes to FLOPS.

Re:Actually you can have both

[drsquare]

Rockstar can't code for shit? They made a game with the scale and spectacle of GTAV run on a console with half a gig of total memory. A PC can't even boot Windows in that much memory.

How many PC games with recommended specs of eight gigs and discrete graphics cards don't even have a fraction of the details of GTAV? How many thousand dollar PCs are running the latest $180/year MMOs where all the NPCs just stand still, where there's no day-night cycle, where your characters don't get wet when they go in the water, where you get loading screens every zone, where clothes don't animate properly, where NPCs don't react to what the character does etc.

If Rockstar can't code for shit, then PC coders must be all fucking worthless. Btw the Steam survey has serious selection problems. It won't count the majority of PC gamers playing WoW or League of Legends or Runescape or Sim City.

I think Amazon needs to do some ad campaigns

[Sycraft-fu]

"You can get your game without waiting in line!"

Seriously it never ceases to amaze me the morons that go and do something stupid like this to get a copy of a game without waiting in line. You don't have to do that anymore. You go and order on Amazon, and they'll have it sent to your house, on release day. No waiting in line, no BS, it just gets delivered to you.

While the irrational need to have a new game RIGHT NAO is stupid enough (and I say this as a huge gamer) you don't have to wait in line, there's just no reason, in this day and age services will happily deliver to you.

Re:I think Amazon needs to do some ad campaigns

[CronoCloud]

Or you can get the game day-1 digital on PSN (and I assume the 360's Marketplace as well), though I have no plans on doing so...I'm focused on Diablo 3 now.

Fuck that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck that, tell me how he manages to be so crap at a game that it takes him 30+ hours to finish!

Re:Fuck that.

[tompaulco]

Fuck that, tell me how he manages to be so crap at a game that it takes him 30+ hours to finish!

Well, I know a lot of people in the modern generation tend to play the game like a movie. Find out all the cheats and fly through so they can buy the next $60 title. However, some of us prefer to solve the puzzles, get the hidden items and explore the whole game. This takes hundreds of hours, but I always find it more entertaining and stimulating to work it out than to cheat my way through.
Also, I have played GTA from I think GTA 3, and I have always played it from the perspective of doing the least harm possible. When I first started, I didn't even run red lights, until I learned that the cops won't chase you for that. I still am disappointed when I am in the middle of a mission and I accidentally hit a pedestrian while being chased or even worse is when the story requires you to kill a bystander. Heck, even when they give me a choice about killing a criminal, I choose to let them go.
Frankly, I think that most of the assumptions that people make about the GTA series comes from people who haven't actually played it. Just like most any other topic, most people who talk about it are talking out of their rear end.

Re:Fuck that.

[moogaloonie]

Also, I have played GTA from I think GTA 3, and I have always played it from the perspective of doing the least harm possible. When I first started, I didn't even run red lights, until I learned that the cops won't chase you for that. I still am disappointed when I am in the middle of a mission and I accidentally hit a pedestrian while being chased or even worse is when the story requires you to kill a bystander. Heck, even when they give me a choice about killing a criminal, I choose to let them go. Frankly, I think that most of the assumptions that people make about the GTA series comes from people who haven't actually played it. Just like most any other topic, most people who talk about it are talking out of their rear end.

I have always been the same way. The thing I like about sandbox games is that they are the most immersive for me. I like the feeling of being in the place as a tourist trying to learn my way around, and I find that trying to obey (assumed even if unenforced) rules and respecting the rights and dignity of NPCs is more fun for me than just running around as an unstoppable force of chaos. Gameloft's Gangstar games have a tendency to ask players to engage in wanton destruction and targeting of innocents, and I really do hate when the game forces that upon my character. Then again, I think wrecks in Nascar prolong the race and can disrupt hours of planning mileage/tire wear etc.

Big screen PC

[tepples]

Since when does PC necessarily mean small screen? A second PC in the living room can output HDMI to any TV made in the past six years. So can a laptop. Put a mouse and keyboard on a tray table and start gaming.

Statistical Noise?

[rmdingler]

Interesting. There is a subset of gamers who will kill prolifically enough for a media smorgasbord. It may well be the violence in the game translates to/fosters violence in real life. There is also a correlation between those who play FPS games and those who drink milk. There are too many milk drinkers in the world anyway.~

How do you like that movies?

[stewsters]

For income comparison. Keep in mind that GTA5 made that 800 million in one day.

http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross
1. Avatar (2009) $760,505,847
2. Titanic (1997) $658,672,302
3. The Avengers (2012) $623,279,547
4. The Dark Knight (2008) $533,316,061

Re:How do you like that movies?

[JMan1865]

Actually, looking at http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm - they put the average 2013 ticket price at $8.16 - this means that if you want to compare apples to apples, then the $800mm in sales is equal to $108.8mm - which doesn't even get to HALF the #200 all time box office movie, adjusted for inflation.

For comparison, the last Twilight movie made $292mm. Just under triple what GTA V pulled in, if you want to compare apples to apples.

If you want a worldwide comparison, and ignore controlling for cost of ticket/cost of game, GTA V is in 39th place overall (http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/) - not bad, but if you adjust for ticket price, it's not even in the top 500 worldwide overall.

Re:How do you like that movies?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not sure if I agree with the adjustment argument. We should focus on how much they actually made rather than an imaginary number. If we are allowing arbitrary adjustments, lets just say I pirated those movies.

Lets calculate out Avatar:

$760,505,847 * $0 (pirate) = $0

Re:How do you like that movies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't adjusting the prices completely defeat the purpose of comparing how much money each made? If you were to compare money made by iPhone sales vs money made by Android sales, would you first scale down the former or scale up the latter? Sure, you can compare the number of sales, but that is not the same as amount of money made.

Being able to choose your fun

[tepples]

What does "locked down" even mean in this context? I buy a game, I put it in the drive, I play the game and I have fun with it. Isn't that what gaming is about? Fun?

To some people, gaming is about being able to choose your fun. This can involve downloading and installing a mod once you tire of the vanilla game. Or it can involve installing an indie game whose developer is still seeking a publisher to bring it to the consoles. It can even involve helping to make a mod or an indie game, if that's how you swing. PC gamers can become the ruler of the fun kingdom.

Re:Being able to choose your fun

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I can choose my fun just fine, in fact I choose to play GTA V on my console because it's super fun. Perhaps after a couple of hours with GTA V, I'll choose to turn on my PC and play one of the interesting indie games I've supported on kickstarter. Or perhaps I'll choose play that 5-6 year old blockbuster game that I didn't play when it first came out, but now it was on sale. Or perhaps I'll choose to fire up Doom again and play around with some mods.

Does everything really have to be "us vs. them"? I swing all kinds of way, there are way too many great games to limit yourself to just one particular subset. I also deliberately choose not to play the latest greatest PC AAA+ blockbuster games as soon as they're released, because I simply can't be bothered to constantly upgrade my PC any more. It's way too expensive and way too time-consuming. I'd rather spend that time and money on more games, rather than just the implement to play one or two particularly hardware-demanding games.

RE: Dwarf Fortress, I simply cannot see how that game is any fun. Sure, the end results are funny and I enjoy reading playthroughs of it, but playing it feels like hard work and endless grinding. I play games to have fun, not to endlessly slave over the needlessly-hypercomplicated creation creamt up by some crazy autistic borderline-insane aspergers-afflicted programmer. I get enough of that with our applications at work.

Re:Being able to choose your fun

[KozmoStevnNaut]

And honestly? Most days I choose not to play games at all, because I'd rather ride my motorcycle. Shocking, I know.

Re:Being able to choose your fun

[CronoCloud]

Does everything really have to be "us vs. them"? I swing all kinds of way, there are way too many great games to limit yourself to just one particular subset.

I'm primarily a console gamer, but I have played a PC game now and then...at least until a console port is available. So yeah, I'm with you in not being fond of the PC partisan mindset.

RE: Dwarf Fortress, I simply cannot see how that game is any fun. Sure, the end results are funny and I enjoy reading playthroughs of it, but playing it feels like hard work and endless grinding.

Yep. I agree.

 

I play games to have fun, not to endlessly slave over the needlessly-hypercomplicated creation creamt up by some crazy autistic borderline-insane aspergers-afflicted programmer. I get enough of that with our applications at work.

Tepples is an aspergers-afflicted programmer, that's why he keeps grinding his edge case axes.

No PC yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those numbers would be even higher if they stopped shunning their roots by delaying PC releases and turning PC into a shitty port from consoles.

Re:No PC yet?

[sjwt]

Or the numbers would be much lower if they used the real definition of "Makes" is has taken 800 million, but a lot of that money has gone on paying staff in stores to sell, shipping costs, packaging costs, staff costs etc..

Why no PC ver same day as other systems?

[Joe_Dragon]

Xbox 360 and PS3 are very under powered next to days pc.

Re:Why no PC ver same day as other systems?

[drinkypoo]

Most of the money comes from console sales now. GTA games were always console-style, even the originals which were done on the PC originally, so it makes good sense. They got a lot of flak from people who couldn't run GTA4 properly on PC for one reason or another (not enough cores, crappy video drivers, whatever) and they want to be sure it will work this time around.

Movies versus games: active versus passive

[luiscolorado]

There must be something really special about any phenomenon (in this case a video game) that compels people in the world to spend almost $1,000 million dollars in less than 2 weeks. I'm not a video game fan anymore, but I think I can understand the frenzy. In any case, although I prefer cinema to video games as a form of art, I recognize that at least video games like this forces you to be an active participant, and don't let you be just a passive viewer.

Interesting 4, wtf?

[Anonymous Coward]

How the fuck is that interesting?

The parent replies to a statement in a way that has no bearing at all to the general discussion, does not open anything else. He just states "I do not care about that game" and then rambles about something unrelated.

Unless that Dunbal is someone totally important this is "redundant -1" at best.

Black Ops release date

[Anonymous Coward]

To the writer: Black Ops was released in 2010, not 2009.

Data point here

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok. High iq here, phd, director at a major fortune 50 company, mid 30s. I haven't bought the game yet but I damn well will. If its discounted by then, so be it. If not, that's ok

You have forgotten a demographic; high functioning professionals who have been playing these games since college. It's not worth waiting months to save the $10.

Also, your original point is filled with false dilemmas. I'm pretty sure I've gone hiking, dining, and played gta3 in the same day.

Right

[justthinkit]

I prefer jigsaw puzzles: 1000 piece puzzle for $2 @ Goodwill, takes 12 hours (on average) to assemble - $0.16/hour
...and while doing that I can listen to an audio book, the news or "watch" a movie. Honey, does my gray beard need trimming?

Re:Right

[Richy_T]

If you turn the all the pieces over, it takes even longer which improves the value proposition ;)

Openmoko GTA05

[Anonymous Coward]

Saw the headline and thought a new Openmoko board was available.

News for nerds? Give me a break.

Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Misogynic game is popular with gamers...

Citizen GTA

[epine]

It was delayed a year and performed like shit on PC when it was released. GTA was originally a PC game and they have been treating PC as a second class revenue stream lately.

FTFY.

The gaming industry has sensation seekers over a barrel. You're only satisfied with the latest and greatest, and you probably value being there and part of the crowd when it happens.

The primacy of first class revenue streams is not going to change until movies earn more revenue not on the opening weekend, but the weekend after—supposing it doesn't suck.

The new shiny! Ready, set, go ...

That group experience is what they are really selling here.

GTA was originally a PC game

I imagine you originally fed yourself by sucking on your mother's tit. What changed your mind?

Keyboard?

[phorm]

I'd have to respectfully agree on the mouse angle, but disagree about keyboards.
The only advantage I see for keyboards is that they have lots of keys (and are somewhat customizable for which ones you use in most games). Otherwise they're inconsistent (flat keyboard, "extra gaming keys" version, split keyboard, tilted keyboard, etc) and rather clunky for games.
Now a controller with a d-pad/joystick and a few buttons coupled with a mouse-type input device, I could dig for sure. Possibly allowing standard USB keyboards an an input device would be cool too, but I don't know that it would be great for most games/users.

One question would be... where would you map the keyboard? In-game mapping would be one option, but perhaps just allowing a "global" keyboard configuration for the console (keyboard W=d-pad-up) would probably work, with possible overrides for running individual games...

Re:Keyboard?

[ddegirmenci]

On the PC, you have options like the Logitech G13 for maximum customization. That might be overkill for some cases, yes, but it does offset the drawbacks of a standard keyboard whose purpose is to type in and navigate through text.

Also, I use a G700 mouse and it has enough keys for most games. Say, I can easily set one of the buttons to "End Turn" and never touch the keyboard. For Paradox games I set the forward-back buttons to speed control and the couple above them to Pause/Play and Esc (to close windows). I rarely ever touch any other key on the keyboard than Return. For DotA, I set one key to space (focus on hero), two for quick buy and "list buy" and one for "get courier". I only use the keyboard for skills and the occasional B (open store). Not enough buttons? There's the Razer Naga and its Hex version, but that's too much for my taste.

The keyword here is "option". For some reason I'm very bad at using my middle fingers (L2-R2 on PS) while concentrated on coordinating thumb and index fingers, so I'm never very proficient at FIFA. Yes, it's not a matter of life and death, but I'm sad that my lack of skill is due to a physical disagreement with the controller's shape. Oddly, I never have this problem with the mouse, even though it's the same fingers.

Rewards

[phorm]

I've always found that the "movie" is essentially your reward for playing the game. Storified games used to mostly be the domain of RPG's. Frankly pure "Final Fantasy" style, JPRG's have gone downhill these days, with story-lined games taking over. Shooter-RPG's are on the rise, and GTA5 in many ways follows this, but also adds a simulation angle etc.

You progress the game, and your reward is the unfolding of a story. In bigger games (such as GTA5), you get not only a main arc but also side-stories that are somewhat optional and various cute side-games that have somewhat less impact on the overall storyline. It's a nice balance, and IMHO good value for your $

Slashdot fanbois. I am seriously dissapoint.

[flayzernax]

You cannot take any criticism of your stupid GTA games.

Seriously. Those of you fanboing this franchise please step outside of your basements and take a look around. Re-evaluate your priorities. And stop marking -5 troll people who tell you your shit stinks.

I really genuinely think this is most likely the most genuine EMO response I have ever gotten on the web. You all are nerd cred revoked.

Hipster status enabled.

Re:Slashdot fanbois. I am seriously dissapoint.

[DrGamez]

You all are nerd cred revoked.

Mmhm.

cheap jordan shoes,Air max shoes,Jeans sale

[hongtuda]

Hello, everybody, the good shoping place, the new season approaching, click in. ( http://www.sheptrade.com/ ) (Discount Air jordan shoes) $36, (Air Max shoes) $35, (Nike shox shoes) $36, (Handbags) $39, (Sunglasses) $16, (wallet) $18, (Belt) $17, (T-shirts) $20, (Jeans) $37, (NFL/MLB/NBA)Jerseys $25, ( http://www.sheptrade.com/ )