The Rockstar Games community is in a state of crisis.
Communitas is defined as "the sense of sharing and intimacy that develops among persons who experience liminality as a group." - Something which can very easily be applied to fans of Rockstar Games, where we build community and friendships between their elusive releases. Or at least, it could be applied to the Rockstar Community in the past. As of 2025, it feels like the Rockstar Games community has been fractured into a wide range of smaller cliques. It's hard to trace back to when this divide started showing it's head - perhaps as recent as the rampant GTA VI Trailer 2 theories such as the 27 Theory and the Moon theory, or events from a few years ago like the GTA VI leaks in 2022, #SaveRedDeadOnline, or the 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic which forced the community to grow and interact more frequently as we were all stuck inside.
Community Members appear to be at one another's throats, with constant snide remarks, jabs, and a strong "Us against them" attitude that would make the Chapter 6 Van Der Linde gang blush. No particular group is innocent of this attitude, either. It feels like every Rockstar sub-community has their own petty and juvenile beefs with other prominent members of the community.
While this is a feeling that can be seen in other fandoms, it feels particularly prominent within this one, and it kills me to see this.
This hurts all of us. Friendships are forced to end, people turn against eachother over arguments that ultimately don't matter, and content creators are framed as villains for simply enjoying speculation or speaking out about criticisms of existing videogames. This fracture opens the community to new, harmful voices like hate-grifters, or manipulative predatory people who further the divide to protect their influence over their impressionable followers.
The internet has always been a place that's struggled with calm, reasonable debate and notions such as nuance and constructive criticism - but it feels like as of recent, things have boiled over the brim. If you give an honest review of content with praise and criticism, you will be met with allegations of being a shill and a hateful grifter in the same comments section - that's ridiculous. We've gotten to a point where simply enjoying something is shameful, yet not enjoying something is seen as a personal attack on those who do. There used to be a day where we understood that just because something doesn't appeal to us specifically does not mean it's bad overall, but this understanding that we are not the main character of the world nor the primary audience for everything to ever release has withered in the age of abundant content.
"Who of You is With Me, and Who is Against Me?"
Expect the Worst, Don't Be Disappointed
It feels like we've gotten to a stage where we don't trust anybody on the internet, and everyone is assumed to have the worst intentions. When you see the abundance of clickbait, misleading AI, crypto rug-pulls, and hateful engagement grifting - it does make sense, but unfortunately for the people who consume this content, it's becoming harder to understand the perspective of the content creator. For some people who want to cover Rockstar Games, or any subject for that matter, as a passion project - it can feel like an uphill battle as they are constantly fighting not only against the tide of clickbait and false information online, but also these allegations being made against them when they get information wrong, speculate a little too wildly, or share an opinion that goes against the grain.
We all get things wrong, and expecting content creators to be impenetrable bastions of information is simply unrealistic. Ultimately, judgement should be based upon how they handle their mistakes in sources and news and learn from it.
The main group of people who face these allegations are YouTubers. I asked a few content creators who have faced backlash for speculation, be it in the past or ongoing, their takes on the current adversity and lack of trust in the community, and here's what they had to say:
TGG:
GTA 6 clickbait has been notorious for over a decade on social media. That, along with the long periods of silence from Rockstar has lead to a lot of frustration within the community.
With the lack of real information, people began to lose trust in any creator who shared info or speculated on the game, to the point that even REAL coverage of the 2022 leaks was declared clickbait by 1000s of viewers.
In terms of the theories, creators often get scrutinized for theorizing about the game, even by prominent actors in the community. Many people just want "news" from creators. However, that's not how content creation works in 2025. Creators build personal brands, and put their own personality into their content. Creators are people, we are fans, just like you. Many people fail to understand this.
If I have a theory (because I'm excited for the game), I will share it with my audience. Just like anyone else would when they're speculating about the game with their friends. And as long as they are honest, there's nothing wrong with that.
TGG's excitement for the game is very visibly real hype, and while he has been known to dive all-in with some wild theories whilst obviously parodying other ones with referential memes and clear satire - he has faced backlash and accusations for clickbaiting as if everything he posted was real with ill intent.
We can clearly see that TGG is a passionate fan and is sharing his theory because he has a love for discussion, speculation, and theorycrafting - and he raises a real issue with the community and the sweeping generalisations made against certain types of creators, though he doesn't seem to have any answer on how viewers can differentiate the authentic from the clickbait. Cyber Boi, another quickly-growing creator in the space did have some (unfortunate) answers to this question however.
Cyber Boi:
I think the biggest problem at the moment is the sheer amount of bad content in the market, and obviously bad content is subjective but there is a lot of content out there that relies purely on falsifying information or stealing and repurposing information, or the fact that YouTube allows people to take advantage of the algorithm with eight-plus minute videos with ads every minute if they want to - it's a really exploitative environment and with GTA VI being a trending topic, there's a lot of people coming into this market that don't care about the game, they've never had an interest in Grand Theft Auto, they never probably will have an interest in Grand Theft Auto - they just know it's an easier way to grow a channel. The thing is, it's a really good way to grow a channel but it's not a great way to sustain a channel which is why a lot of us GTA creators have started diversifying into other games.
There's also a barrier to entry issue where if you want to be a creator on camera with a nice little aesthetic setup - that costss a lot of money. Usually the barrier to entry is gameplay in the background and just talking. It was the same for me, I couldn't afford a full proper setup from day one so I had the same barrier to entry as the same channels that were creating rubbish so I was also using gameplay in the background and even though what I was saying was truthful; aesthetically speaking my content looked similar to other channels because they're using the same proven formula that's worked for a decade or so now. It's one of those things where the only way creators can break out of it is to differentiate their content, to create something different, to create a different format for their channel and that's not maintainable. That's not a sustainable way to grow as a beginning creator.
This is not a flex in any way, but for me to get the channel to where it is today - I've spent the last three months building a studio, spending more money than I have on equipment, lighting, and getting everything so my channel can be differentiated in my content and that is just another way to escape the comparisons to people like MrBossFTW or all these clickbait channels. It's a toxic part of the community that there is so many comparisons to unethical and clickbait content, but at the same time it's so hard for a lot of people to differentiate between what is ethical content and what isn't - especially with how advanced AI voices are getting now. Like, someone can sound like your mate down the pub, but in reality it's someone on the other side of the world in a content farm regurgitating absolute nonsense.
It's an unfortunate reality to admit that we all trust creators who appear to have a higher budget more. There's something about a perfectly lit pretty studio that is appealing to us and helps instil a degree of trust in the content we're watching - if they've put this much effort into it, they MUST know what they're speaking about after all?
It is a shame that this means it is more difficult for fresh faces from more unfortunate backgrounds will struggle to make a name for themselves in the community, or at least a positive one at that. Cyber Boi's studio is extremely impressive, and it matches the research and effort he puts into his content, but truthfully nobody should have to sink a ridiculous amount of funding into purely the aesthetics of their videos.
The tagline for YouTube was once "Broadcast Yourself" - it was a place where people made videos by themselves, where editing was a rare skill few people showcased, and where at the centre of every video was a real person with a real passion instead of someone trying to be a brand and create content. It's incredible that creators can now earn from the blood, sweat and tears that they've put into making informative and high quality videos - but it's taken away the underdog of the entertainment industry the site once had - where shows for the platform can now have production crews and budgets that rival your average television program.
On another note, Cyber Boi mentioned the infamous MrBossFTW, also known as Ross - a longstanding YouTuber in the GTA scene, who has been the butt of many jokes for over a decade now. I decided to also ask him on his opinions on the community and the general attitude of the members within it.
MrBossFTW:
A few years ago I had to stop engaging with the community because of unfortunately how toxic some parts of it had become to prioritize my mental health. I think this includes fans and some content creators as well.
So as a result of that I’m not up to speed with the latest as I’m not reading comments or responses on social media. In fact what you did by DMing me, email or those in my close circle is pretty much the only way I’ll know if someone is reaching out to me
Ross' content can absolutely leave a lot to be desired, and without a doubt it is some of the most famous examples of clickbait - but it begs me to wonder if the backlash to it should really be this intense? Don't get me wrong, back in 2017, it was a blast to watch RaggedyDan pull apart his Gunrunning Update videos early-days CinemaSins-style, but eight years later it just feels a little tragic. Surely by now, we could have had an honest discussion about the content he creates, or allowed him to grow into something more acceptable with and beloved within the community again.
It's unfortunate that the community has genuinely driven someone out of all types of engagement for this. Don't get me wrong, clickbait is wrong, but there are much more harmful community members than those who are manipulating the YouTube algorithm - and these are people who still have a following and engagement to this very day.
I think clickbait should be treated as a frustration, something lightly clowned upon - but the wishes of death and harm go several steps too far. Ultimately, Grand Theft Auto is a videogame, and nobody is really being harmed by a misleading title and thumbnail four times a day.
V VS I
We all have our opinions on the GTA series, and we could debate into the long hours which games have the superior driving mechanics, better world, more engaging stories, etc - but that's what makes community fun, and ultimately it showcases how incredible Rockstar are at developing these games that people can love each entry for completely different reasons. Unfortunately, however, some people take this too far - viewing the opinions of their peers as less valid based on that person's personal preference - or when they truly began playing GTA.
Long-time fans of the series who have stuck with Rockstar since the inception of GTA in the late 90s, or since it entered the 3D universe in the early 2000s have watched the franchise grow and change over the years, sticking with it through the good times and, well, there really weren't many bad times. Unfortunately for some, this can give them a feeling that they hold a more valid opinion on what truly defines a great GTA game or a fan of the series.
Because of the long time between entries to the Grand Theft Auto franchise, a fan could be experiencing their ten-year anniversary of their first time entering Rockstar's American parody but have still only played GTA V. In the eyes of some, this taints what other fandoms would consider their veteran status - even if that player has went and retroactively played other games in the series. This divide is mostly seen between champions of GTA V and GTA IV, where fans of GTA V are referred to as children and commonly told that they are everything wrong with the series, and those who prefer older entries to the series are spoken to like geriatric old men yelling at clowns.
Both of these caricatures of fanhood for the same series are obviously rooted in hyperbolic statements and sweeping generalisations, while most fans are relaxed and chill about their personal preferences - the vocal minorities on both side create an endless discourse where the rest of us can't enjoy the games we love in peace. We've all heard the "BLANK is a good game when you don't have someone shouting in your ear about it being terrible" memes, and I honestly can't explain the situation any better. Once again, this isn't a uniquely-GTA problem, and fandoms such as Halo, Star Wars and Fallout are positively rife with condescending gatekeeping which ultimately scares off new players from engaging with the community creating this feeling of division and lack of engagement from their relative studios.
Using Halo as an example, the debates on enhanced movement such as sprint truly belonging to the game and people's preference on the topic has gotten so out of hand that it's impossible for new players to get involved without veteran fans mocking them for it. This lack of community causes the game's player count to suffer, which has lead to a downfall in consistent players of the game. Grand Theft Auto thankfully hasn't seen the same loss of love that Halo has, but it's not immune to it. Halo once shattered the same records that the GTA franchise has, and was seen as a cultural phenomenon in the same way. I worry that if we continue to push away new people from the community, a decade from now we could be in the same ship as the Master Chief.
Undoubtedly, the worst aspect of this debate is how easily the term "shill" is thrown around, to the point it has become meaningless in online discussion. By definition, a 'shill' is someone who accepts payment to positively reinforce a product or service they may not actually like and for some reason, the more negative followers of Rockstar Games can't appear to comprehend the notion that someone may just enjoy something without any ulterior motive. Most frustratingly, even people who are vocally critical of the studio and strive to give unbiased opinions are labelled as shills when they have a more positive impression of a release. The lack of reason put on display by people who are less impressed with any relevant release becomes painfully apparent when they begin throwing round terms that they clearly do not understand. The truth is misery loves company. If someone isn't enjoying a product, and they don't have the vocabulary to express their personal gripes with it, they will instead just aim to bring down those who are having a good time in order to validate their own opinions.
To reiterate, we need to understand that each of us personally will not enjoy every aspect of every release ever - and that's okay. Sometimes certain features are targeted towards other gamers, and something else better suited to ourselves will come along. That doesn't mean that the feature is necessarily bad, and if the feature is bad - that shouldn't determine the verdict of the entire game, expansion or update.
An example of this would be the Blood Money update for Red Dead Online - ultimately this update was panned for being small in scope, lacking meaningful and planned robberies, and overly relying on a brand new "Capitale" currency. This lead to every feature of the release being widely mocked, even if they were solid ideas such as the 'Bluewater Man' line of missions which beautifully blended mystery, music and mission designs with fun cutscenes which added an interesting new perspective to the game in what was unfortunately it's final true content drop.
Video Killed The Radio Star: The Blocked By Ben Club
One of the most popular and recognised people within the Rockstar Games community is Ben, more frequently known as "VideoTech" - a friend of mine and GTABase as a whole. Ben has always created high quality and timely news and information, amplified other community voices, and shared insightful views of Rockstar Games. He has both been referenced by us at GTABase, and shared our content.
Yet, Ben has a very vocal group of critics who he has elected to block for his own reasons. These people proudly claim to be the "Blocked by Ben club". They criticise Ben for his opinions changing, and admittedly the frustrating habit of deleting his Tweets as his opinion changes or when he faces backlash, as well as how he generally tends to lean along the more optimistic side of the fanbase. For this, a select group of these people have sent him a tirade of harassment. Ben has been doxed, sent hate mail, had false accounts created in his image to put a stain on his reputation, and a variety of other - let's be honest, weird - attacks on him and his privacy. Over his opinions and coverage of something as trivial as a videogame.
Ben has never targeted someone with harassment, he hasn't committed any crimes, posted bigotry - yet he faces some of the most intense vitriol within the community for changing his mind. Ben is just an excitable fan of Rockstar Games with a talent for creating informative graphics, sharing his passion. I honestly encourage not giving these people their time of day. To Ben, should he be reading this, keep up the good work - don't worry about defending yourself, and if a Tweet faces backlash, just leave it up! Never be afraid to stand your ground, nor to grow and learn from feedback! Leaving previous mistakes up shows the progression you've made. I think this is generally good advice to everyone reading.
Forums, Friendly or Fascist?
We've all spent our time browsing the oldest home for the Rockstar Games community, the GTAForums. In the past years, however, the moderators of the site have come under fire for alleged censorship of posts. Threads and comments containing speculation, criticism, et cetera have been removed by moderators, which has lead to allegations of censorship.
GTAForums admins have previously mentioned that the deletion of posts is usually in order to prevent rampant speculation and misinformation getting out of hand, or to remove hate speech. Given they're a relatively small group of voluntary moderators, it does make sense for them to play it safe instead of carefully watch every conversation during the times of peak engagement on the site.
Having spoken about this general topic with Forums Moderator Spider-Vice in the past, he believes the community has always had smaller cliques like we're seeing today, and it's more amplified by the general attitude to online debate we see in the current era of the internet. I decided to ask him if he wanted to make any public statement about it for this article - but he said he would rather not get involved (I also had the same answer from VideoTech). Of course, this is because he has explained this position many of times, but the people who seem to have personal vendettas with the website due to feeling personally attacked by suspensions refuse to listen to his perspective. People can only explain something so many times before they run out of energy for it, which is what I imagine is happening here - but I can't help but wonder if taking this hands-off stance is perhaps contributing to the growing conspiracies against the website? The lack of communication we all have been criticising Rockstar for is seemingly spreading to a few fanpages, which is only fostering the hate and conspiracies against them.
The Cats and the Cowboys
One of the main arguments on the Rockstar Games side of Twitter that seems to be unavoidable is the long-standing beef between two groups. Team one is captained by the cat - InfinityBesk. People who actively play Grand Theft Auto and other Rockstar titles, and while are still generally critical of the games - seem to enjoy playing them regardless. Team two's figurehead is the infamous ItzJustDubz, who periodically leaves Twitter for other pastures. Dubz made his name for being highly critical of Rockstar, and used this reputation to mainly grow as a much more aggressive member of the #SaveRedDeadOnline movement - as well as being known for one of the loudest people throwing the aforementioned baseless "shill" allegations around.
Both of these people have their loyal followers, and neither groups will interact with eachother positively out of fear of being ostracised by their leaders. The seemingly never-ending hatred for eachother. While it's impossible to trace back to its origins, it has been backed by either side levying serious allegations at eachother, including racism, transphobia and grooming. There's plenty of threads from former friends, enemies and all sorts for both of these groups - and I honestly don't have the know-how, energy, or time to get into what is and isn't real. Personally, after having had both of these people talk to me about the problematic nature of the other, I honestly recommend not getting involved in this debate. The allegations are a little too serious, yet the motivations seem to not quite match what is being said of eachother.
As for their armies - I know people on both sides who are friendly with Dubz or Besk. From what it seems to me, it feels very much like a Grays and Braithewaites situation. The history behind the drama is so ancient that none of them really seem to know why they don't like the other anymore.
Comments sections in community posts from either group can erupt into a toxic battlefield of keyboard warfare, which paints a negative light on the whole community. The rest of us can only hope it eventually comes to an end, before more of us get caught in the crossfire.
The Dying Bleet: The Slow Death of Twitter
It's no secret that Twitter, or 'X' as it will never be widely known as, is no longer the place it once was. While the website has always been rife with toxicity and arguments, the policy changes introduced by Elon Musk over the past few years have caused it to fly off the handle. Thanks to the gutting of the support department and reinstatement of accounts posting hate speech, with accounts openly proclaiming to be Nazis, and a monetisation system which generates the user profit based on any type of engagement - good or bad, it is clear the website no longer fosters a healthy environment for people to discuss their hobbies. This has famously lead to corporate advertisers leaving en masse, including companies such as Apple, Chipotle and Disney, but it has also caused many users to abandon the site too - including some of the most passionate Rockstar Games fans who simply do not have the energy to deal with the bigotry they face on the website due to being anything the new majority on the website doesn't like. This has caused the community on the site to be unbalanced towards the vocally hateful loud minority of the Rockstar Community pushing an agenda of trying to gatekeep fandom to the category of people they deem acceptable.
Since I joined GTABase in 2020, every year I have created a post celebrating Pride Month - and while it has never been without expected backlash, the 2025 post has seen an unprecedented ratio of vile spite due to the uneven political split remaining on the platform. Of course, this will never deter me from speaking out about LGBTQ rights as it is a subject I am passionate about being queer myself, and admittedly I thrive in the chaos - but I would be lying if I said it wasn't disheartening to see such a large number of people who are seemingly so personally affronted by an innocent category of fellow human who are just trying to live their lives following a long history of oppression.
This level of hate has got to the point where there are people who actively check up on accounts that they don't like, even without following them, to reply with targeted harassment and false flagging Tweets to get the account suspended - it even happened to me on my now-banned main account. The phrase "Living in their head rent free" comes up a lot when talking about this, but it does raise a question as to how we got so deep into their heads in the first place? Moral panic, puritanical politics and religious fanaticism have combined to create a strong "Us vs Them" divide that makes me long for the seemingly forgotten days of apathy where nobody really cared about what anybody else was doing. The desperate almost main-character-like need for everyone to have an opinion and a statement about every social and political event in the world, even if it is something they do not understand, has caused a cold war of social trolls and a need to be the victor of fake internet battles. People have forgotten that it's okay to not know enough about a topic to have an opinion about it - and we should truly have more respect for those who admit that.
It's not just politics, however. The lack of legitimate discourse on Twitter has left even Rockstar's replies in disarray. We all know that for several years now, there has been a large number of people making low effort and usually inappropriate "GTA 6" comments on Rockstar's posts, including those which are made in memoriam of people they have worked with having passed away. This lack of ability to read the room has perhaps not grown in scale, but has certainly been made more clear by the people who once had something interesting (Or even remotely human) to say leaving for greener pastures - or Bluer Skies. Any replies which aren't simple begging for next year's GTA title are usually Premium-subscribed bots farming interactions for money, which further dilutes any shred of community we had left.
GTA VI Money Guide: Social Media Grifting
One of the true joys of the modern internet is the ability for hardworking creators to earn money from the work that they do to inform and entertain the rest of us - but this silver lining has a very dark cloud. In the current climate of online discourse, nothing earns more engagement than outrage - and engagement is the source of ad revenue. This has built a culture of content creators posting ingenuine negative content rife with paranoia, often referred to as "doomposting". While these creators usually don't believe what they're saying, they know it will stir up a reaction and arguments in the replies to their post or video, in turn recommending the content to more potential viewers on whichever platform it is on to bring in more engagement and revenue - creating a vicious cycle of false information, outrage, and attempted corrections, each contributing to the potential amount of revenue they can generate from what has been posted. Thankfully, websites like Twitter's "community notes" can help combat this trend as they disable any monetisation on a post that they are displayed on, but by that point the damage is usually done and thousands of people are angered by something which simply is not true.
One of these common grifts we see in the Rockstar community is that GTA has gone "woke" - and while we could debate on whether it always has been or never truly will be for months, a lot of the posts about this are based in false information, rage bait, and moral panic. One recent hot topic of discussion (Something I dissected in further, comical detail on YouTube which you can watch here) was the mention of "Pride Parades" in GTA VI, where various Right Wing pop culture and political accounts took to their various podcasts to speak their disgust about how they believe Grand Theft Auto is pandering to Queer people, and how they fully expect these parades to feature protected NPCs which cannot be harmed. The source of this information was an unverified leak from Reddit which got barely any traction, and is something any large team or individual in the core Rockstar Games space can confirm is unequivocally false, and has no supporting evidence to back it up but now, thanks to these creators, thousands of people believe. From this point, they begin harassing developers. One image they love to post is Rockstar's "International Women's Day" celebration from 2018, showcassing all of the women at the studio, but they claim that these are all the developers at the company left. From this, they find the profiles of these women and begin harassing them for "ruining" GTA with features which aren't even real. It's a depressingly embarrassing state of affairs and something we should all do more to combat.
Rockstar's photograph for International Women's Day
On the bright side of these grifters, they can inadvertently bring the community together at times. Take the discussion between Dan/KettlebellLife, Elon Musk and Ian Miles Chong for example - these are three popular voices on the Conservative side of the political spectrum. What started as Dan stating he has never played a GTA game became a laughing point for our entire community when Elon chimed in to say that he couldn't make it past the tutorial for GTA V as he just couldn't bring himself to kill the police at the bank heist. This was only worsened by Ian adding to the conversation to say he also never finished GTA V, and preferred police killing in Cyberpunk as it was mostly optional. The "GTA is ACAB" grift didn't end there, either, with popular Tweets in reply to GTA VI Trailer 2 saying that they will be boycotting the game as it looks "anti-cop" - a hilarious statement for anybody who has even played five minutes of any GTA game ever.
I honestly can't decide which screenshot is more pathetic.
It is interesting to note that all of these grifts are from right wingers, so I decided to take a look from any on the home team - but there were none that I could find, let alone any that took off. The best example I could think of was the Drag Queens being removed from GTA V Expanded and Enhanced due to being seen as transphobic - with articles I was even quoted in giving my opinion that they were simply not offensive, but people were using them in ways to create offensive content which is simply bad optics for Rockstar.
Unfortunately this consistent grift has everyone on edge, and satirical speculation and joke posts are now taken as serious propositions. I think that's why creators like TGG are no longer poking fun at the community with over-the-top moon and 27 theories - because people believe that they are really promoting these ideas, which spawns two vastly different reactions from those who "agree" with the speculation suddenly getting extremely vocally angry at Rockstar for not following up with something that was never real to begin with, and those who saw that the theories presented were ridiculously stupid, but thought they were being presented in a legitimate manner anyway getting extremely frustrated and hateful towards a creator for posting what is ultimately a joke.
And then there's the replies we all see, everywhere we go: “We will never forgive nor forget the betrayal of Rockstar Games” - A quote which could be about anything from the inclusion of Shark Cards to GTA Online, to the abandoning of Red Dead Online, or even the release state of the GTA Trilogy: The Definitive Edition. Hell, it could even be one of the people falling for the "GTA woke" grifts. You see someone post this in the comments of any sizeable Rockstar Games page on most social media platforms now, but you never really know what it means. It doesn't say anything, at most usually calling for a boycott. While they could say more, they never really do - which poses me to wonder, what actually is their point? What do they believe? How do they think things could be better? I've always been a vocal advocate for constructive criticism and saying how you think things could be better (After all, that is how I wrote 46,000 words on how I thought Red Dead Online could be a better game after 8 years of updates. Read that here.) so why aren't these people making any point about what is actually wrong? Or do they just want to spread more visual distain in hopes to bring others down with them?
Posse Up
One of the most depressing side effects from this lacking sense of having a strong community is that there are much fewer meetups and collaborative events. While we have the odd collaboration, like when I met up with Kyle from Rockstar Intel to see the Rockstar Games exhibit at the National Museum of Scotland, or smaller community gatherings at various Comic Cons, it's becoming a rarer and rarer event. There's nothing quite like seeing your mutuals in person, having some drinks together and attending events - but when nobody really seems to get along or trust eachother anymore, these can't happen. In a way, this only puts more restrictions on the friendships and bonds that can be built between community members.
The drop in community meetups can be traced back to Covid-19 as they had suddenly become illegal due to lockdowns, border closures and social isolation rules across the world. While all the meetups I have attended have been after the pandemic ended, it certainly feels like they are a much rarer occurrence compared to the before-times.
Other communities have lots of their own events, with even the studios getting involved and inviting content creators and influencers to their HQ to join in on livestreams or capture footage for their upcoming releases - but we don't see this from Rockstar. We used to have event streams where popular members among the GTA community would be flown out to their New York offices to join in on some multiplayer action which came to an end in 2019 after a chaotic stream featuring Danny Brown and JPEGMafia which faced attacks from GTA Online hackers, making their goal of tackling the Diamond Casino Heist live nigh on impossible..
Community Rockstars: Can the Studio Help?
Of course, a lot of the community's problems right now can be traced back to droughts in news around their games - when people don't have much to talk about, the desperation to create content can easily lead to clickbait, controversy, and general frustrations around the repetitive nature of a community built mostly on theory-crafting, ingame currency grinding, and the never-ending discourse on which games are superior. If you don't give people something good to talk about, they will find something bad to focus on instead.
Rockstar themselves can help rebuild the community, however - and this doesn't have to be with new ingame content. It does mean their current strategy of community interaction needs to be modernised. Even if they keep the current highly secretive methods of marketing games and revealing information at choice times, they could still positively engage the community in other manners. Bringing back livestreams on their live service games, reintroducing Snapmatic and Machinima competitions, perhaps bringing along fashion and car contests too - these could all get the community excited about their current games again, and drive the discourse in a more positive manner. Talking about their games in the same way they speak about CircoLoco Records would absolutely invigorate the playerbase again.
Make no mistake, this will not be easy. It is without a doubt that the studio would face a decent-sized pushback from casual fans at first, but as it becomes more normalised again, the core members of the community will begin working together and creating healthy discourse as they amplify the talent of their peers. We can't sit here and pretend there won't be an abundance of comments crying for GTA VI information - but if this return to having a strong community engagement happened in the time period shortly before the game's release to celebrate and send off GTA V, it would have the best positive reinforcement possible, and help bring GTA VI in on a fresh slate.
A fun new idea would be player bounties. Perhaps a group of Influencers every month could sign up to be "GTA Online Allies and Targets" - where if they're either helped or killed ingame, depending on their status, the game will offer players extra rewards for their interaction!
Reintroducing community livestreams with members of the community joining in on GTA Online minigames alongside devs will help build the sense of community again, showcasing the people behind the pages that keep the fanbase active and informed - as well as reminding people that Rockstar are a studio of real humans and faces. Right now, this is easily forgotten as we don't have a proper insight to Rockstar or their culture, unlike other studios. An ideal example of what I think they need in terms of community engagement is Dmg, or Dylan Gafner, from Bungie. Dmg is a highly active member of the Bungie community, who interacts with the playerbase in terms of clearing up information, sharing means, and taking in honest feedback from the community and sharing plans for changes to the Destiny 2 sandbox. Having Dmg there helps remind the Destiny community that Bungie is a studio of real people, and those people are there and listening to their feedback.
#SaySorryBeNice
Ultimately, what else is there to say? We're in a bad place, and we need to work together to sort it. Maybe it's time we put some of our differences and petty gripes with eachother aside - I mean, who has time for that anymore anyway? We should all just enjoy the games we enjoy, and try to have the most fun possible with them.
It's always hard to remember that criticism of something you like is not an attack on that thing, nor is it an insult to you personally. It isn't that deep, not everything is for everyone and that's okay. Franchises will grow, evolve and change over the years, elements will come and go, that's just how life is. Save your energy for the people who want to exclude you for who you are, not for the people who prefer GTA IV's driving to GTA V's, or think that pictures of the moon will reveal the next trailer for GTA VI.
I'm left with one of the slogans you can find on Rockstar's website: Say sorry, be nice.
You don't have to like everyone, or get along with them all - but that doesn't mean you need to insult them or demean them whenever they show up. It's okay to just not interact, and if you step over the line - be nice and say sorry. Try to maintain perspective and remember that we all have our own complex lives with context behind our actions that you may not know or understand. There's always a reason as to why someone likes or doesn't like something, and usually, that reason is nobody else's business.
Live and let live, peace and love, and happy gaming.
What did you think of this article? Do you agree with what has been said, or do you have any ideas on how to rebuild this community? Let us know on Twitter @GTABase and stay tuned for more articles and community events in the future!