My opinion about this game remains the same as it has since PS3 days. Back when I got the game on day 1 of launch my favorite online mission was "Pickup Sticks". Look it up, it was great. It was a very long contact mission that involved taking a buzzard to multiple locations with a small team of other online players, and there were 4 or 5 bases you had to go to, take out a wave of enemies, then fly to the next location (IE - heists without the dumbass cut scenes). It was by far my favorite online mission. A couple months after online started they deleted this mission altogether, and started trickling features of it into other mission, instead of keeping one great mission in the game, and then making like (to save money). And then I noticed they deleted even more missions that were A LOT OF FUN, but were ones in which you didn't need to purchase millions of dollars in game merchandise just to partake in them. Right from the deletion of the online mission "Pickup Sticks" I knew they were gearing this game towards the upselling of shark cards. Right then and there they started taking the best features of the game, and milking them for shark cards. They did this by deleting features, missions, and vehicles, from the game entirely, then slowly releasing them back into the game and calling it a different name, but they now cost in game money, or required merchandise which cost money to participate in them, and had 10 minutes of cut scenes attached to the use of them. It's the same concept that Apple uses when they throttle back the processor on your old phone to "save battery life". You're thinking you just downloaded a "software update". When in reality, they actually removed features or throttled back how good it was performing. Fast forward 6 months and they drop the feature they deleted back into the game and call it something different with 5 minutes of cut scenes as filler (word to the wise voice actors don't cost any money to hire compared to the profits they make of their work, you hire a voice actor for $10,000, your developers are all on salary and you're only using the C team part time. It makes their year, and you're on your yacht like thanks for the gas money whore. Literally, in real life).
This and the fact that MAGICALLY, for years, this forum, and all social media was flooded with accounts and posts that defended rockstar every time someone made a topic about how shark cards were unethical (The reason I left this forum and GTA online were the endless posts on here that would be pages long posts about why either "purchasing shark cards is actually worth it when you do the math and realize how much REAL LIFE TIME IT SAVES YOU. IF YOU WORK 4 HOURS AT YOUR JOB AND BUY A SHARK CARD ITS ACTUALLY SAVING YOU 30 HOURS OF PLAYING THE GAME". That is a direct quote I remember from a post on this forum from years ago, and whoever wrote it deserves a kick in the taint.
Fast forward to 4 years later when profits level off and this forum seems to be back to normal but the game is still fucked.
To anybody that has any doubt about the truth and validity of this post...this is coming from a full time programmer and graphic designer that had one too many drinks and wrote this post on a faithful holiday weekend evening. So clearly it is gospel and should never be questioned in any way whatsoever.
IM TELLIN' YAH...they have been manipulating this game AND all online forums and social media, since about 3 months into the launch of GTA online. I left back when you could still hack the PS3 version and move modded accounts over to PS4.
Frankly I saw this coming since they let modding run wild with GTA 4 just to see what would happen. They learned, they created the most psychotic profit model media history...and are now FUCKING BILLIONAIRES...which is why I'm still a fan.
I don't know how I had enough time on my hands to write this but I have real life goals to fulfill so have a good holiday weekend everybody. THANK YOU FOR THE UPVOTES LOL!
(PS - remember Lizzard Squad? Pretty sure they hacked the election too just saying.)