Rockstar Games has announced a new holiday event for Red Dead Online that also offers triple rewards in three game modes. However, the majority of the feedback from the community was mainly about the long-awaited Grand Theft Auto 6 and airing the game support criticisms.
What exactly happened? Did Rockstar just give online cowboys a small present in Red Dead? Feast of the Overrun, Spoils of War, and Up in Smoke have been chosen as this week’s Featured Series, and they’re very Christmasy but with a hint of violence. And what they have planned for you is that they will give you a whopping twice the usual amount of RDO$, Gold, and XP. If someone is still wandering around in 1899 trying to reach that next bounty hunter license or buy a new coat with the gold, that’s a good reason for them to be there. The link in the tweet goes to the Rockstar Newswire, where all the details can be found, which is quite usual for these weekly bonus announcements. For the ones still very much in the online frontier, this is a nice little holiday boost. A user called Slarmi even said, ‘solid double rewards on festive rdo series,’ which is about how positive it got.
But the replies were something different. The replies paint a completely different picture. It’s almost as if Rockstar gave the audience a handful of candy canes and then got buried by a tsunami of coal in return. If you expected this to be a calm article about some in-game bonuses, better think again. The community’s reaction is a lesson in frustration and a shift of priorities.
Almost immediately, the discussion moved from the doubling rewards to the one major, urgent question: Where the heck is GTA 6? The comment of CaptBennyJ that simply reads ‘Ok, When GTA6?’ and the reply from Daz06 with ‘Yeah wheres GTA6?’ in a reply thread are just few of the many examples illustrating a much larger issue. Another user, Yung Hurricane, even started a countdown: ‘338 days until GTA Six.’ This has turned into a constant background noise every time Rockstar posts anything that is not the big announcement. Players are counting the days and their patience is getting thinner than that of a cheap cigarillo. One of the replies from GamingSinghBedi posted a meme of people desperately waiting for GTA VI while Rockstar is just busy… doing other stuff. The message is clear: a big portion of the audience feels that they are made to wait since the PS3 era for a real new GTA and the weekly free event bonuses in other games just don’t do it for them anymore.
And it was not just GTA 6. The Red Dead community itself seems to be on the verge of total disillusionment. There is a very strong sense that the game is virtually dead. The comments could be classified into two main groups, with some being quite simple like ‘give us real content updates’ from Jon Plum and others being pretty dramatic like ‘Rockstar Games, you killed RDR2 Online, shame on you!’ from naji naji. Some are asking for new features like a mission creator or a next-gen update for 60 fps. Unyimusic’s wish was very much to the point: ‘Update this game please, we need 60 fps.’ It portrays a dissatisfied player base where double rewards are perceived as a temporary remedy to a content famine, not a real gift.
Then, there are support issues. One user called Deathly has kept on trying to get his issue resolved by replying both to the main Rockstar Games account and the Rockstar Support account about his account getting lost and country messages whenever tickets were submitted. ‘I’ve lost my account and the lack of help is getting ridiculous!’ they declared, even sharing a picture of the error. Such technical problems contribute to dissatisfaction. When players are having a legitimate trouble accessing the game they have already paid for, the announcements regarding double XP may come across as a little tone-deaf, wouldn’t you agree?
A few miscellaneous requests also appeared, showcasing how varied the community’s needs are. One person wished for a PlayStation 5 version, another suggested a discount on GTA Online Shark Cards, and one even offered to let RockStar include the fighting style of GTA 4 in the next GTA game… along with a picture of their cat for emphasis! It’s a madhouse in there! But, amid the chaos, the user Glitchymagic shouted out a rare moment of concentrated positivity regarding the actual news: ‘Double RDO$, Gold and XP? Time to dig out my festive hat and come back to the Wild West. Up in Smoke sounds like a blast.’
What does all this point to? Rockstar’s tweet was merely a marketing message for in-game events. However, the avalanche of replies uncovers the state of the Rockstar playerbase: can’t wait, divided, and very loud about their real wishes. On one side, players are on Xbox and other platforms demanding more.
