Now that the city of Los Santos has officially been in our lives for five years, I wanted to remind myself of some of the reasons why Grand Theft Auto V has managed to surpass every possible expectation, remaining in the top sales charts seemingly every month since launch, making it the most successful entertainment product of all time.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Grand Theft Auto V has surpassed Avatar, Gone With The Wind, and each individual Star Wars and Marvel movie in revenue, from game sales alone. 90 million units have been estimated as a total game sales figure, meaning it is also the best-selling console game of all time. But beyond the numbers and the money, and the records that were broken, that’s where the fun lies. The reason for the sales, and the constant surges in player-count. Rockstar has consistently revived their game, bringing players back who had previously left the game and keeping current players actively engaged with regular, often significant, free content updates.
So let’s look back at where it all began.
A splash screen familiar to any player of Grand Theft Auto V. Source: Rockstar Games/online
When it launched on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Grand Theft Auto V was purely an offline, single-player experience. I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, but this allowed anyone who played the game at launch to experience the huge map and its amazing details at their own pace before venturing into any possible online experience.
The story was classic Grand Theft Auto — Hilarious, larger-than-life characters, betrayals, murders, crime sprees, Hollywood-level storyline, world-class voice acting, and a licensed soundtrack with more tracks than previous Grand Theft Auto entries. Factor in the unique three-player storyline and the ability to switch between all three characters at any stage and the base game was more than enough to satisfy any early adopters.
A few weeks later, GTA Online launched, and everything changed. The world of San Andreas that we knew through the eyes of Franklin, Trevor, and Michael was now our own huge playground. We designed our characters and set out to cause havoc in the same world as Franklin, Trevor, and Michael.
Grand Theft Auto V’s main protagonists (L-R): Michael, Trevor and Franklin. Source: Rockstar Games/online
At first, however, there wasn’t really that much to do besides petty crime, so for players who had finished the single player story, the demand for actual content updates grew. Rumors of expansion packs, similar to previous editions of Grand Theft Auto, began to spread. Content slowly began to be introduced in the form of various mission types, given by characters seen in the single-player story. This began the process of integrating the online world with the offline world, linking the timelines of these characters, offline with your online avatar.
Properties were introduced, which at first only needed as a storage facility for your various vehicles. They also proved a great meeting place and reason to show off to your friends when you finally purchased the penthouse apartment in Vinewood Hills. The world was beautiful, but it began to grow a little stale as the lack of any significant content updates really cost their player base.
The update that changed it all. Source: Rockstar Games/online
But then the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions were released, and with the next generation of consoles came the next generation of updates to GTA Online, the Heists update. A long-promised content update, the heists transformed certain properties from expensive garages into planning-rooms for elaborate heists. These required multiple players performing various roles from driving to flying to hijacking a prison bus which spanned over a series of set-up missions which ultimately lead to the “high stakes, high rewards” heist, rewarded successful players handsomely and introduced new cutscenes and non-playable characters you could interact with both in and out of the heist.
Each heist had the potential to add multiple hours of gameplay for one playthrough, also warranting multiple playthroughs as the various roles required often meant vastly different experiences. We didn’t know it at the time, but Rockstar Games would never introduce any offline content, but what they did was give us hours and hours of free content in the form of the heists.
From your first heist which involves simply robbing a local bank, to breaking a Russian prisoner out of prison, robbing a weapons-research facility, and ultimately stopping armageddon in flying Deloreans with heat-seeking missiles, every heist provided hours of some of the most fun I’ve had online with my friends.
A strong contender for my favorite vehicles in video game history. Source: Rockstar Games/online
On top of the heists, various characters both from the single-player story and newly introduced to the offline world began popping up, offering you the opportunity to own a multitude of illicit businesses. Counterfeit money factories, weapons manufacturing bunkers, drug labs, aircraft hangars for processing illegal air freight, and high-end offices were some of the options open to anyone with enough capital to buy in. These businesses introduced more missions to set up and restock your business, and various challenging scenarios to sell your illicit product at the end of it all with the possibility of a large payday for your troubles.
But all of this happened in a shared online world, so every other player online with you could decide to disrupt your business missions. This did lead to major frustration when players would only log in to sabotage other players’ fun, but it also led to some amazing scenes of teamwork defending your product during the sale.
Besides all of the content, all of the missions, side missions and mini-games, and there are LOTS, the city of Los Santos became a beautiful sandbox. You can log in just to have wild races on user-created stunt tracks using flying cars. Or meet your friends at your yacht and run around murdering strangers on the beachfront, seeing who can survive the longest. There were also various game modes and match types you can play such as deathmatches, survival modes similar to Horde Mode, battle royale modes, limited-time modes of all types and varieties that could easily be a game on their own but are all included in this amazing product for free.
And for their fifth birthday, Rockstar Games have recently introduced their After Hours update, adding a nightclub to the list of businesses you can own, bringing with it multiple vehicle storage, another way to make online money, customisable nightclubs all over the city, a way to manage product from all of your other businesses, an appearance from a long-time fan favourite GTA characters, Gay Tony, and a crossover masterclass where world-famous DJ’s can become resident performers at your nightclub. Recently shared on multiple EDM platforms, German house artist, DJ Dixon became the latest option for your club, showcasing his latest set via his in-game avatar in After Hours.
Yet another avenue for illicit income, the recently-introduced Nightclub. Screenshot: YouTube
It’s this level of forward-thinking and evolution that will see GTA Online remain as one of the legends of online gaming. I highly doubt anyone present during the development and at the launch of the game could’ve imagined where it would be today, and how much it has achieved, but Rockstar Games have slowly turned what started as a single-player offline game, into one of the most popular multiplayer games in the world, and has never charged for any content it has added, instead allowing users the option to purchase in-game currency if they want. Every single thing in this game can be earned for free. Every vehicle, weapon, property and clothing item in the game can be earned through simply playing the game.
From the random murder-sprees between missions, to the hours spent driving chrome sportscars up Mount Chilliad to get a selfie on top, to every AI-controlled citizen that hilariously died for the sole purpose of my amusement, to the feeling of awe when I took off and flew the Delorean-inspired car in the Doomsday heist for the first time, to the hours spent doing missions for my counterfeit cash factory on my rocket-powered Oppressor listening to Rebel Radio’s country tunes, to the times where I would do nothing but drive as fast as I could or try land a motorbike on a train, to the times spent online with great friends, every moment was made possible thanks to a little video game island called Los Santos.
And for that, I thank you.
