An open letter to Rockstar Games • Hacker News Board

Re: An open letter to Rockstar Games

#41

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 7:02 PM UTC

BashiBazouk wrote: post #29

MattBearman wrote: post #15

Author of the paste (and post) here: Wow, didn't expect this to reach the top of HN! To answer some points raised: Maybe I am taking a game a bit too seriously, but my friends and I have put a lot of time into GTA online, and had a load of fun. I just don't want RS to do something that could ruin that. I agree that in the GTA world $500k isn't really 'rich', maybe the title was a little link baity, but my point remai…

Buy expensive car. Don't buy insurance. Apply sticky bomb. Kiss $500K good by. I'm assuming this works. I have not bought a car yet so I don't know if they come with some sort of automatic/permanent insurance. If that doesn't work, steal car, pimp out LS customs. Apply sticky bomb. Rinse and repeat until $500K disappears. This does make all garages completely worthless unless Rockstar lets us own an apartment and a g…

[deleted]

Re: An open letter to Rockstar Games

#42

Post by georgemcbay » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 7:10 PM UTC

There's no way they are going to back off on this because they have been advertising it in the game via the MOTD status messages. If they suddenly decided not to do it, the backlash from entitled online gamers would be legendary.

Having said that, Rockstar giving everyone $500k GTA$ is pretty much a non-event in the face of the fact that they will be selling GTA$ for real money. The $500k of GTA$ money they are giving away will be purchasable for 10 bucks in as many $500k increments as you wish to buy. And while in the case of buying the money outright you can more easily choose to not participate, the fact that tons of other people will participate (I've seen people waste ridiculous amounts of money on COD Black Ops 2 "camos" for example, things that don't even give them an in-game advantage the way money does in GTA V Online) will already make the overall game economy incredibly loopy.

If you really don't want the free money, when it appears in your bank account just use it to put super high bounties on random people. You'll burn through the money nearly instantly with nothing personal to show for it and cause epic havoc on the server you're on at the same time, which is very much in the spirit of GTA.

Re: An open letter to Rockstar Games

#43

Post by kpapke » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 7:26 PM UTC

georgemcbay wrote: post #42

There's no way they are going to back off on this because they have been advertising it in the game via the MOTD status messages. If they suddenly decided not to do it, the backlash from entitled online gamers would be legendary. Having said that, Rockstar giving everyone $500k GTA$ is pretty much a non-event in the face of the fact that they will be selling GTA$ for real money. The $500k of GTA$ money they are givin…

Totally agree with your point about selling GTA$

One small correction - the max bounty you can place is $10k and the max you can gift is $5k

Re: An open letter to Rockstar Games

#44

Post by acjohnson55 » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 7:51 PM UTC

CrunchyJams wrote: post #33

It's funny how analogous this is to the underlying debate driving modern politics. Should the state (Rockstar in this case) offer direct monetary provisions to the citizens without requiring productivity in exchange? The tough part is that both sides of the argument make sense. It's not fair that some players have had an unduly difficult time getting started, but it would also be unfair to diminish the value of the a…

I think the analogy also breaks down with regard the opportunity gap that exists in the real world between those born into at least some level of affluence and those born into poverty.

In some ways, you could say being gifted $500k is more like inheriting money versus those who've had to earn it themselves.

Re: An open letter to Rockstar Games

#45

Post by junto » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 8:19 PM UTC

Completely off topic, but when I visit that page on an iOS device, once the advert loads it then automatically opens the iTunes store for "Game of War - Fire Age"?

Annoying. I've not seen that before.

Re: An open letter to Rockstar Games

#46

Post by tron_carter » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 8:25 PM UTC

This reminds me when I was playing Oblivion on Xbox 360 and there was a bug to get a ton of money from a specific NPC. It completely ruined the game for me by removing all motivations and rewards to participate in the economy through looting, stealing, and selling.

Re: An open letter to Rockstar Games

#47

Post by nfoz » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 8:27 PM UTC

junto wrote: post #45

Completely off topic, but when I visit that page on an iOS device, once the advert loads it then automatically opens the iTunes store for "Game of War - Fire Age"? Annoying. I've not seen that before.

Sounds like a good argument against the iOS user agent.

Re: An open letter to Rockstar Games

#48

Post by nkg » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 8:57 PM UTC

CrunchyJams wrote: post #33

It's funny how analogous this is to the underlying debate driving modern politics. Should the state (Rockstar in this case) offer direct monetary provisions to the citizens without requiring productivity in exchange? The tough part is that both sides of the argument make sense. It's not fair that some players have had an unduly difficult time getting started, but it would also be unfair to diminish the value of the a…

Yup, if every one of us had $500k, we wouldn't risk going to jail for a $10k job. Wouldn't that be cool, if we could negociate our salary in GTA?! My character is already day-trading, anyway.

Re: An open letter to Rockstar Games

#49

Post by cpdean » Sun, Oct 13, 2013, 3:41 AM UTC

Killswitch wrote: post #36

cpdean wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the other players are sitting on 500k as well, so the warm feelings of charity are a little lost.

Only to those who have been playing during the month of October... So by December there will be a new wave of users who didn't receive the nice charity of half a mil.

Ah... That's why I should read the entire article.

Bring on the Christmas.

Re: An open letter to Rockstar Games

#50

Post by Terretta » Sun, Oct 13, 2013, 10:24 AM UTC

selmnoo wrote: post #26

asdfologist wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its/it's for some reason seems the most annoying to me.

A lot of Hacker News superstars make that mistake. Rayiner makes it the most often. Of course he probably knows the difference, he's a really smart guy, but it's odd that he gets it wrong so often. I used to look down upon people who would make these common mistakes... I don't anymore, after recently having been called out on making them myself. The human mind just makes these mistakes, I imagine because the sound li…

These mistakes are viral. Expose yourself to a pattern often enough and you will reproduce it. I was immune until participating in online forums but by now have made virtually all of these mistakes. The way to improve is to expose yourself to more correct patterns; read more well edited material than forums.