GTA Online: Rockstar's Aim - Misguided or Target Locked?

In recent events - as some of you may already be aware - there was an outbreak of exploits within the virtual world of Grand Theft Auto Online, the subsidiary of Rockstar Games' award-winning fifth instalment into the Grand Theft Auto series. One of these exploits included glitched farming, which allows players to continuously garner significant amounts of Reputation Points, which allowed them to level up their characters quickly, unlocking more weapons, clothes and abilities much earlier than the company anticipated. A more annoying exploit allowed players to make their characters invincible, rendering them unable to take damage, but well enough able to deliver it which enabled them to continuously 'grief' or 'troll' other players without remand. The larger issue at play here was the most famous (or infamous, depending on whom you ask) exploit in which innocent players were gifted exorbitant amounts of in-game currency, aptly titled 'GTA$.'

In the previous weeks, hackers managed to somehow exploit the online component and directly place vast amounts of funds into players' bank accounts as well as placing million and billion dollar bounties on individuals in the game's free mode. Bounties in Grand Theft Auto Online allow players to set bounties on others and upon their death, the person behind the gun collects the funds. Hackers placed exorbitant amounts of money on the heads of players anonymously and like feeding time at the zoo, it was every man for himself. Interestingly enough, Grand Theft Auto Online offers a survival feature which allows players with bounties on their heads to earn the money themselves if they can survive 24 in-game hours (approximately 24 minutes real-time.) Most players purchased apartments following the $500,000 stimulus package that Rockstar Games distributed to Grand Theft Auto Online players. To survive and keep the million and billion dollar bounties for themselves, they hid inside their apartments until the relieving notification popped up informing them that they've successfully survived the bounty placed upon them. Everyone else however was forced to play a high-octane game of Cat and Mouse whenever they logged into Grand Theft Auto Online.

In a few days, a large percentage of players had several-digit bank accounts significantly earlier than Rockstar's expectations and nearly everyone was the proud owner of a Truffade Adder, Overflod Entity, Dewbauchee JB700 and many other high-end vehicles available for purchase within the game. However, despite the gold and diamond encrusted lifestyles that everyone's characters were living, someone had to address the elephant in the room: what's the penalty for this? Almost all at once, players around the world began to panic and worry about whether or not they'd be banned from Grand Theft Auto Online for being gifted the funds or purchasing hardware (vehicles, weapons, etc.) with the ill-gotten funds.

Many began to speculate that Rockstar Games "wouldn't be foolish enough to penalise everyone for something that wasn't even their fault," and one user over at the GTA Forums had a valid point. To penalise everyone would be maddening and they would certainly lose a significant amount of players and customers. So what's Rockstar Games to do? As everyone awaited official word from the company, in the back of everyone's mind, they knew their exorbitant funds would be gone eventually, so they took advantage of it while it lasted and continued playing.

Rockstar Games issued an official statement regarding planned maintenance on Grand Theft Auto Online, stating "Grand Theft Auto Online will be down for maintenance beginning tonight [January 15th] at 9PM Eastern Time through tomorrow, Thursday January 16th. We expect to be back up within 24 hours. Apologies for the inconvenience." It wasn't a secret that the planned maintenance was to rid the servers of ill-gotten funds and check the seals for any leakage.

Following the maintenance that was finished much earlier than scheduled, Rockstar Games issued an official statement regarding the exploits, stating "In recent weeks, a small number of Grand Theft Auto Online players sought to exploit the game by generating and distributing game-breaking amounts of in-game cash, disrupting the experience for other players.

We will continue to issue title updates on an ongoing basis to counter the negative impact this has had on gameplay, and as part of today’s maintenance period, we are removing the counterfeit GTA$ from the game's economy. Anyone who innocently received GTA$ as a result of these exploits but did not engage in cheating to acquire it will not face any further action - the funds will just be removed, and you'll be able to keep any items you currently own.

Those who actively engaged in cheating and exploiting the game in this manner will, however, be subject to in-game penalties at our discretion. This may include being placed in isolated cheater pools or banned from GTA Online altogether.

Should you ever encounter someone in GTA Online that appears to be taking advantage of exploits in your session, we ask that you alert us directly via the in-game reporting functionality. In the Pause menu, under the Online tab, select Players and scroll to the offending player. From there, select Report and choose Exploits from the violation options.

We're grateful for the community's continued support in dealing with these issues and once again apologize to anyone that has had their Grand Theft Auto Online experience sullied by these exploits that broke the game's natural flow. Please stay tuned for lots more news about GTA Online in the weeks ahead."

Players will have noticed the funds removed from their accounts, but everything they'd purchased with them had remained in their possession. All's well that ends well, I'd say. However, there is something I'd like to address and that is Rockstar's outlook on the incident.

Rockstar Games themselves refers to the exploit as "game-breaking." I've scratched my head numerous times following my reading of the article and I am yet to determine how exactly the exploit was game-breaking. Players were still able to participate in everything the game had to offer, except now they had acquired the funds required to purchase more in the style of luxury: faster vehicles, helicopters, aeroplanes, boats, etc. I fail to see what's so game-breaking about it.

Microtransactions are available within Grand Theft Auto Online; for $50 USD, players may purchase $3.25 million in GTA$. Would Rockstar Games consider it game-breaking if players managed to get their bank account back up to the billion dollars as it was during the exploit that way, or would it be a completely different story because Rockstar is receiving compensation for it this time around? It sounds to me that they were more upset about players having exorbitant amounts of in-game currency that was not obtained through methodologies that earn the company legitimate currency by way of microtransactions. So was the GTA$ exploit game-breaking? Absolutely not. It just wasn't carried out in a way that the company would have preferred: where they get paid in the end.

That's something that most people have failed to notice. I've been keeping up with developments prior to Rockstar's scheduled maintenance on Grand Theft Auto Online and a large percentage of comments on their Newswire articles and the GTA Forums contained complaints that the exploit was ruining players' experiences, unfair, etc. because they were "supposed" to work for the money by playing the game, not obtain it in one-fell-swoop by way of exploits. Yet no one made any comments about the ability to purchase the same amount of funds for your character's bank account through the in-game store. Is it still considered unfair or an experience ruiner? I'm beginning to think that the people responsible for those comments were upset that they either weren't part of the players gifted the money, or they are unable to purchase or see the logic of the microtransactions within GTA Online.

Either way, this event certainly makes for an interesting discussion and will certainly be a strong historical piece of Grand Theft Auto V. What do you think about the exploit? Did you find it game-breaking as well, despite the counter-arguments I've made here today? Whatever your opinion, sound off in the comments below and touch base on what you think about this recent event.