We’re just mere hours away from the launch of Grand Theft Auto Online (and the expected launch issues). You can read all about the online portion of Grand Theft Auto V right here, but when it comes to the decision of delaying GTA Online for two weeks, Dan Houser explained Rockstar’s reasoning to Polygon:
I think we were concerned that some of our previous games, while they still had a very fun multiplayer component to them, it was almost like it was being cannibalized by the enormity of the single player game. People were just not focusing on it. So by moving it, we really wanted to go all in and make this much bigger, much more encompassing, a stand-alone product essentially.
By making it separate you give people a reason to look at it as a different thing.
He further added:
You can play single player. You can really learn how the game works, learn the mechanics. You can start multiplayer after two weeks and it will really give them a real focus on where to look at the thing. I think that separating it out will just help people look at it as different products in their own mind a bit more and really give it a good chance to try and play it and enjoy it.
Otherwise, you try it for two minutes, it’s hard to connect because it’s day one, and back you go to the single player, play that and never go back into playing online.
With a lot of Grand Theft Auto Online set to be influenced by user feedback, Houser said, “GTA Online could evolve in many crazy directions. We have lots of really neat ideas of how that might evolve and we will work with the audience to see what directions they want to go.”
When do you plan on first playing GTA Online? Let us know in the comments below.
