Rockstar Games Apologizes for GTA Re-Release Glitches, Promises Updates and PC Originals (rockstargames.com) 32
Friday Rockstar Games issued an update in the Announcements section of the company's web site "regarding the unexpected technical issues that came to light as part of the launch of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition." (See Slashdot's earlier coverage here and here.)
"Firstly, we want to sincerely apologize to everyone who has encountered issues playing these games..." the Rockstar Games Team wrote: The Grand Theft Auto series — and the games that make up this iconic trilogy — are as special to us as we know they are to fans around the world. The updated versions of these classic games did not launch in a state that meets our own standards of quality, or the standards our fans have come to expect.
We have ongoing plans to address the technical issues and to improve each game going forward. With each planned update, the games will reach the level of quality that they deserve to be.
A new Title Update is on the way in the coming days for all versions of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition that will address a number of issues. We will update everyone as soon as it is live.
In the meantime, it pains us to mention that we are hearing reports of members of the development teams being harassed on social media. We would kindly ask our community to please maintain a respectful and civil discourse around this release as we work through these issues.
While one of the goals of the Definitive Editions was to allow players to enjoy these games on modern platforms for many years to come, we also understand that some of you would still like to have the previous classic versions available for purchase.
We will be adding the classic PC versions of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas back to the Rockstar Store shortly as a bundle. Additionally, everyone who has purchased Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition for PC from the Rockstar Store through June 30, 2022, will receive these classic versions in their Rockstar Games Launcher library at no additional cost. We will update everyone as soon as these are back in the Rockstar Store.
Once again, we'd like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding while we work through these updates to ensure these games meet everyone's justifiably high standards.
"Firstly, we want to sincerely apologize to everyone who has encountered issues playing these games..." the Rockstar Games Team wrote: The Grand Theft Auto series — and the games that make up this iconic trilogy — are as special to us as we know they are to fans around the world. The updated versions of these classic games did not launch in a state that meets our own standards of quality, or the standards our fans have come to expect.
We have ongoing plans to address the technical issues and to improve each game going forward. With each planned update, the games will reach the level of quality that they deserve to be.
A new Title Update is on the way in the coming days for all versions of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition that will address a number of issues. We will update everyone as soon as it is live.
In the meantime, it pains us to mention that we are hearing reports of members of the development teams being harassed on social media. We would kindly ask our community to please maintain a respectful and civil discourse around this release as we work through these issues.
While one of the goals of the Definitive Editions was to allow players to enjoy these games on modern platforms for many years to come, we also understand that some of you would still like to have the previous classic versions available for purchase.
We will be adding the classic PC versions of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas back to the Rockstar Store shortly as a bundle. Additionally, everyone who has purchased Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition for PC from the Rockstar Store through June 30, 2022, will receive these classic versions in their Rockstar Games Launcher library at no additional cost. We will update everyone as soon as these are back in the Rockstar Store.
Once again, we'd like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding while we work through these updates to ensure these games meet everyone's justifiably high standards.
Unexpected? (Score:5, Insightful)
Definition of unexpected
: not expected : unforeseen
So they're either incompetent or utterly clueless. Neither is really a good look.
There's literally no way that anyone at Rockstar that looked at this could've said "This is fine, there will be no issues with this." as to make this "unexpected".
Anything being downgraded/Removed? (Score:2)
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Will there be downgrades, things removed? certain politically incorrect things removed? Truthful disclosure is needed.
Things have already been removed. For example the much of the music in the original games is not there due to the licenses expiring.
Re: Anything being downgraded/Removed? (Score:2)
If you're talking about Hot Coffee that was never a playable sequence without using mods.
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This was obviously a Black Friday cash grab since Rockstar doesn't have anything else new in the pipeline for the foreseeable future.
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We already know they're incompetent because they did the thing, so that's not something they could hide.
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We already knew R* had competence issues. They can't even keep hordes of cheaters off their servers when all the players are on consoles, let alone when there are PC players in the mix. Their games (and even game launchers!) are known for having only slightly fewer show stoppers at release than Bethesda. They are great at world building and story telling but not so great at making games that work properly.
You can put most of the blame on lack of QA, they simply do not budget enough time or money for this. T
How many times are they going to apologize? (Score:2)
Or is this just a dupe? Slashdot has covered this story in one form or another four times now.
Dropping the ball hard (Score:3)
It wasn't just the re-release being buggy, but the originals being made unavailable on their site to begin with.
Their attempt at steering people to the "remaster" in this way exploded right in their faces. I hope Rockstar and others learned a very powerful lesson here.
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They also C&D'd every GTA mod they could find, and filed lawsuits against the fan remaster attempts that decompiled the game. Delisting the originals was just one part of that.
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The powerful lesson will probably be "We can get away with it, they still buy our crap".
One of these statements is not like the other (Score:5, Interesting)
The updated versions of these classic games did not launch in a state that meets our own standards of quality, or the standards our fans have come to expect.
The standard you walk by is the standard you accept. What Rockstar really learned here is that *their* standards of quality are far too low and did not meet the fan's standard of quality. But make no mistake, they shipped it, their standards of quality are defined by the product they release.
Words to the contrary are irrelevant.
Tl;dr (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re... fund? I know remaster, reboot, relaunch and rehash, that's all things we'll gladly do and often, but what is that refund you talk about?
Rephrasing... (Score:2)
Quote: "The updated versions [...] did not launch in a state that meets our own standards of quality, or the standards our fans have come to expect."
Rephrasing: "The smashup versions we released were a quick-grab money and you, who have unrealistic quality standards (you expect something playable in return of your money), can also be blamed."
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[snip: GitHub shadow bans, incompatibility between latest Pale Moon and streaming sites such as YouTube, web hosts requiring state ID, broken registration on Fetster and Stack Overflow]
Does the Rockstar Store work better or worse than these other websites?
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OK, lets hear the argument against proving your identity before renting a server...
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It's an Occam's razor argument: eliminate what is superfluous. If you have Internet access and enough money to pay for a hosting plan, and you aren't operating a site commercially (directly taking payments or displaying ads) to where national commerce regulation requires an "imprint" page listing your primary address of business, I don't see how tying provision of web hosting to a real-world identity is necessary in the first place. Requiring only a method of payment and not government ID reduces the cost t
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So, you're not willing to say why. I get it; you want to use the service for things that would get you in trouble, and you don't want them to know your real identity.
And so you have no reason why the company would want to rent you a server without verification. You merely dislike the policy.
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you want to use the service for things that would get you in trouble
Some people living under a government implicated in a pattern of human rights violation "want to use the service for things that would get you in trouble", and they have very good reasons for wanting such.
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WTF are you even talking about? So you're saying not just that you think you'd get kicked off the service, and maybe sued, but that you'd be arrested if they knew it was you running the site? Do you fancy that a clever point? Did you win some backpats?
Bean counters rushed the release for holidays? (Score:2)
This has all the hallmarks of a rushed release for the holiday season, massive crunch time, disastrous decision to forge ahead despite surely everyone knowing it was a car crash waiting to happen?
Did Rockstar think they could get away with it? Maybe rush out patches?
I guess this is what happens when a company just gets too big, the bean counters call the shots and management is a fragmented mess.
Maybe a whole bunch of lies were spun "Yeah, everything is good to go!"
Heads will roll, that's for sure.
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Heads will roll, that's for sure.
Yeah, fire those useless programmers that didn't meet my absolutely reasonable deadline of 2 days!
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Oh, I wasn't referring to programmers, but managers.
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I know. But you know the old joke about the rowing competition between Siemens and Sony.
Stop supporting this company (Score:1)
re (Score:1)