GTA Online Concept DLC: The Network - Run Your Own Social Media Empire

In the modern world, social media is key to success. You probably even clicked on this article through one of our pages. If you want success, legitimate or nefarious, you've got to have the public image to go with it - That's why we came up with this brand new conceptual DLC for GTA Online - The Network, which has players buy-out their own new Social Media Platform and manage their own public appearance in order to benefit their growing Criminal Empire.

After all, if there's any currency more important in Los Santos, it's fame and influence.

Creating Your Platform

Bleeter, LifeInvader, Snapmatic - Sure, they're all great, but they have pesky terms of service and moderation teams which area totally out of your control. That's why with this update, players will be able to buy-out their own social media platform and take over the office in order to be the next big dataselling social media platform!

Offices

Lucky for you, six crashing social media websites have went up for sale on Maze Bank Foreclosures. You can purchase one of the following failures and rescue it from oblivion in order to turn a profit.

Pricing:

MyRoomOnline2: $1,250,000
- Peaked in 2007, before it was destroyed by LifeInvader - MyRoomOnline has made a resurgence out of a start-up in Mirror Park. MyRoomOnline2 has the perfect potential for nostalgia, name recognition, and an already existing userbase - If they can remember their passwords, that is.
Ivy: $1,560,000
- People were sad to see it die in the mid 2010s, but Ivy is making a return as the funniest short-clip video around. For a small investment, you can be the next monarch of memes. And there's nowhere better to do that, than out of Los Santos University.
Ambro: $1,910,000
- Nobody really knows what this is, or anybody that actually uses it. But it's logo is right there for anybody flying into Los Santos - So that must be good for something. If you buy this social media, you could finally turn it into a household name.
Rollr: $2,025,000
- After their controversial decision to ban "spicy" content, people left this platform for Bleeter on hordes. Nobody really knows why the Rollr staff decided to cut out the main reason people used their social media, but I'm sure you can turn this website run from Capital Blvd around for all of the poor emos stuck on it.
FastPound: $2,100,000
- There's nothing more important in Los Santos than how you look, that's why it's the capital of expensive, cheap-looking body modification and designer clothes. Investing in this picture-based social platform is the best idea, and based not-far from the beach on San Andreas Avenue makes it the perfect HQ for any budding model.
SeenIT: $2,450,000
- SeenIT was the king of video content on the internet for so long, until all of our attention spans were killed and the likes of Ivy and TokSik took over with videos under three minutes. It's time you turn that around by purchasing the website EyeFind forgot. Their Rockford Hills offices are truly beautiful, and will motivate you into turning this old gem into the king again.

Locations:

Once you've bought your office at one of the varied locations around Los Santos, you'll be able to customise it's interior with a variety of options:

Colour Scheme: ($150,000 each)

(DEFAULT) Monochromatic: Black, white
Cool Wave: Aqua, sand
Lustful and Intense: Deep red, black
Salt of the Earth: Forest green, pale brown
Energetic: Orange, yellow
Elite: Black, gold, silver

Artwork: ($50,000 each)

(Default) Memes and motivational posters
Pop art
Cash and money
Snapmatic Tops
Brands of the World

Comfort and Culture: (Each increases staff happiness, which helps with reputation)

Add arcade cabinets: $250,000
Add vending machines: $30,000
Add beanbags: $10,000
Add bar: $500,000

Personal Upgrades:

Add living quarters: $425,000
Add weapons locker: $65,000

Upon first entering your new Social Media office, players would be given a tour by your new Community Manager and mission contact, Davi McIntosh (Second cousin of Kerry). They will show you around your office, inform you of any upgrades, and be your point-of-contact for all DLC-related content.

Running Your Platform

You can't run a platform without having your own profile, so your actions and your profile represent how your business runs. Thankfully, there's a few things you can do to keep your social media as the most popular platform around:

The first thing you can do is promotion, which works similar to the Nightclub promotion missions. Players could select a type of promotion to run, with the game offering larger benefits for types of promotion which haven't been run in a longer period of time. Each category would offer a few variations too, in order to keep gameplay fresh:

Promotion:

Stunts
- Jump a motorbike over the Vinewood sign
- Crush cars with a Monster Truck
- Jump a flaming raft on a Speedboat
- Fly under bridges in a Stunt Plane
Fights
- Beat up troublemakers at a Nightclub
- Street Fight with low-reputation Influencers
- Clear out rich snobs from the University
- Crash the noisy, annoying partying neighbours
Skydives
- Mount Chiliad
- Maze Bank Tower
- Vinewood Sign
- Land Act Dam
Celebrity tie-in
- Poppy Mitchell: Drop fliers with QR-codes to her new promiscuous video on your platform.
- Jock Cranley: Retrieve his personal weaponised vehicle for the new season of Arena Wars.
- Love Fist: Knock out raging fans at the band's livestreamed concert in Tequi-La-La.
- Kwak: Surprise fans with visits from their favourite K-Pop artist.
Merch cannon
- Launch T-Shirts at tourists on Del Perro Pier
- Launch Enamel Pins at tourists on Vinewood Boulevard
- Launch Trainers at travellers at Los Santos International Airport
- Launch Hats at shoppers at Rockford Plaza
Flex
- Drive an expensive car around Rockford Hills
- Make it rain at the square on Strawberry Avenue
- Beach a speedboat at Paleto Bay
- (Yacht-owner exclusive) Host a party on your Galaxy Super Yacht
- (Casino Penthouse-owner exclusive) Host a party at your Casino Penthouse

Each promotion will give 25% reputation upon completion, but repeating promotion types will drop this to 15%.

Money/Reputation System:

Whilst running promotion will help you maintain your reputation, the way you balance your website and finances will determine how quickly your reputation may drain - With higher gains causing faster reputation drain.

Reputation will drain at default 10% per ingame day.
Profit will build at default $25,000 per ingame day.

There are two ways players could monetise their wbesite:

Advertisements: People don't like adverts, so the more frequently they show up on your site - The more frustrated your users will be.
- Frequency options:
  - 0%: $0 daily boost, 0% extra reputation decrease.
  - 20%: $7,500 daily boost, 10% extra reputation decrease.
    - ($32,500 / -20% rep per day)
  - 50%: $20,000 daily boost, 25% extra reputation decrease.
    - ($45,000 / -35% rep per day)
  - 75%: $50,000 daily boost, 40% extra reputation decrease.
    - ($75,000 / -50% rep per day)
Subscriptions: You can add a special subscription to your social media platform, locking certain content behind a paywall. Players can set a subscription fee for a penalty to reputation, and the payout bonus from the service will depend on where the platforms reputation is sitting at that moment.
- Fees:
  - $5 per month:
    - 2% extra reputation decrease
    - $2,500 boost for each 10% of reputation held
  - $8 per month:
    - 5% extra reputation decrease
    - $5,000 boost for each 10% of reputation held
  - $10 per month:
    - 10% extra reputation decrease
    - $8,000 boost for each 10% of reputation held

Damage Control Storyline:

No social media empire goes without its fair share of controversies, which must be handled quickly. This DLC would launch with seven brief "damage control" missions which would see the player complete different objectives to benefit their empire. Completing each mission would boost their site's max reputation rank by 15%.

The Bot Creator:
- A political troll has been creating bots to spread misinformation across your site. Hunt them down and kill them by tracing their IP to the abandoned hotel in Sandy Shores.
The Slanderous Politician:
- There's nothing better for business than fearmongering, unless that fearmongering is about you. A local politician running for Senate has been sharing slander about your site, so you must follow them to a discrete location and gather dirt on them in order to blackmail them into changing their tone.
Nudes Leaker:
- These degenerates are the scum of the Earth, and they bring a bad name to your website. Hunt down and kill this creep to stop him from sharing anybody else's private pictures.
DM Hacker:
- Privacy invasions are bad for business. The last thing you want is for people to be afraid to use your messaging service. Track the IP of this jerk, stick him in your car, and scare the life out of him by performing dangerous stunts in the Vinewood Hills.
The Budding Journalist:
- There's a Weezel News journo claiming to have footage of you scouting out some places before they were robbed. This isn't just explosive news for your site, but everything you do overall. Get to their office, kill the reporter, and burn the evidence.
The DDoSers:
- Your site is down, and the GECKO Crew are on Bleeter claiming they're the ones responsible. There's nothing worse than people who try to spoil the fun for others, so how about you go and spoil their fun by smashing up their equipment.
The Conspiracy Cult Leader:
- John Potter has been all over your site making ludicrous claims about evil AI, nuclear submarines, lizard people and alien gang wars on the streets of Los Santos. He keeps bypassing account bans, and is bringing a bad name to your website. Head over to his house, stick him in a van, and bring him to the IAA facility out in the desert to be debriefed.

Culture:

From your private computer in your Social Media Office, you can set some company and website policies which dictate the culture of your empire. These will make some adjustments to the impact of your other promotions, which make this the most customisable DLC business to date, with the highest possible potential for optimisation to the way you play.

Safety Policy:
- Loose: Let everyone on your site, it's chaos!
  - 2% reputation boost from stunts and fight promotion missions.
- Medium:
  - 5% cash boost from advertisers.
- Strict:
  - 5% reputation boost from celebrity tie-in promotion missions, but a 2% increased reputation drain.

Political standpoint:
- Apolitical:
  - 5% cash boost from advertisers.
- Right:
  - 5% increased subscription boost.
- Centrist:
  - 2.5% reputation boost from flex promotion missions.
- Left:
  - Lower subscription fees and ad frequency increase daily reputation by 5%

Target audience:
- Young and Youthful:
  - 5% increased reputation from all promotion missions.
- Artsy and Edgy:
  - 5% increased subscription boost.
- Technophobe Parents:
  - Doubles the effects of "Strict" safety policy and "Right" political alignment.
- Budding Business People:
  - 10% cash boost from advertisers.

Brand identity:
- Artsy:
  - 2% reputation increase, for each "Comfort and Culture" business upgrade owned. Doubles the effects of "Left" political alignment.
- Scrappy:
  - Doubles the effects of "Loose" safety policy and "Centrist" political alignment.
- Professional:
  - 15% cash boost from advertisers.
- Memer:
  - Decreases reputation drain by 20%.

Collaborate and Integrate:

When you own a Social Media empire, it only makes sense to use that to promote any other business ventures you run. Allowing players to run a promotion mission for each of their following businesses would help integrate this DLC with other existing content:

Business Promotions:

Nightclub promotion:
- Players who own a Nightclub can launch a special promotion mission in which they can deliver free drinks vouchers to the homes of random users on their social media platform. This will max out their Nightclub popularity.
Arcade promotion:
- Players who own a Retro Arcade can launch a special promotion mission in which they will play one of the games in their Arcade during a special event. The closer they are to the top of the game's leaderboard when they complete, the higher of a daily income boost they will gain for the next ingame week. (25% - 250%)
Agency promotion:
- Players who own a Celebrity Solutions Agency can run a special promotion in which they must gain a high score at a gun range. Their score will determine a boost to their next completed security contract:
  - Bronze: 15% boost
  - Silver: 30% boost
  - Gold: 75% boost.
Clear reputation:
- For a marketing fee of $5000, players can slow down their wanted level gain and police hunt determination for an hour.
Tank reputation:
- For a marketing fee of $5000, players can increase wanted level gain and police hunt determination for an hour.

Other Social Medias:

The player's social media platform isn't the only one around, the classics from Grand Theft Auto V have returned with new useful functionality in GTA Online.

Snapmatic:
- See other player's shared images from the Rockstar Social Club in Grand Theft Auto Online. This would display pictures from GTA V, GTA Online, RDR2 and Red Dead Online on all platforms.
Bleeter:
- This would function as an in-session chat and post feed available on all supported GTA Online platforms with LFG options so players could work together on their businesses without need of a microphone or platform-based messaging.
LifeInvader:
- This would function similarly to Bleeter, but would work with the player's friends list on whichever platform they were playing on. Posts on this would persist from gameplay session to gameplay session, and be shared with the player's feed on the Rockstar Social Club.
TokSik:
- This would allow players to stream their friends' Rockstar Editor created videos to their game in GTA Online.

Players will have a unified profile across their social media platforms. Their profile picture can be player's Social Club avatar, Snapmatic image, crew logo, or one of a few other presets. Players will also be able to display their Rockstar Social Club biography on their ingame profiles.

Conclusion:

Overall, The Network would be a perfect opportunity to expand our character's criminal empire whilst adding new methods of matchmaking and socialisation to the game. Not to mention it is the perfect opportunity to parody the vast ridiculousness we see on social media, and recent events such as Elon Musk purchasing Twitter.

It's too good for Rockstar to not try it out!

What did you think of this idea? If you liked it, be sure to share this concept article and tell us what kind of social media empire you would run! Tag us on Twitter @GTABase and be sure to stay tuned for more articles like this!