The Almighty (GTA) Dollar

For well over two years, I organised a weekly Ready Up GTA IV multiplayer night. Every Monday, 9pm, on Xbox 360 we were online, racing, fooling around in free mode and generally having a great time in Liberty City. The fact that this night persisted for over two years shows how much fun it was, but eventually, of course, interest waned in such an old game and we moved on.

Of course, as soon as GTA V was out, I was keen to retake Monday nights, and restore GTA back to its rightful place. With the massively expanded GTA Online, there’s far more to do than there ever was in GTA IV, and we’ve all leapt upon it and started having loads of fun once again. There’s not much funnier than the sight of 12 Learjets all smashing into each other on the first checkpoint of an air race, and the eruption of swear words that follows.

One of the small issues with GTA Online is that many of the events have a capped number of players, which means that when you have a large group, the amount of events you can do does tend to drop off. No big deal, we said, we’ll mostly do races, just like did in GTA IV. In our group, being “nudged off” is a euphemism that we’ve developed over years of playing GTA IV, meaning that someone has spun you out of a race, or knocked you off course somehow. Preferably off a cliff, or into another player. It was always funny, and good natured banter was exchanged whenever it happened to some poor sap.

In fact, it sometimes sounds like it’s coming from between gritted teeth.

I’ve noticed however, that it’s not quite the same in GTA Online. You see, in GTA IV you won a certain amount of money for each race you won, with descending amounts for each place you ranked lower. I don’t know exactly how much you got, because it was completely and utterly useless. There was nothing you could spend it on. They might as well have given you two hundred bananas per win, it made so little difference.

GTA Online is different though – it has an economy. You have a reason to want to win – it’ll help you buy a new car, or new add ons for your car, or even a new apartment. And I’ve noticed that this is leading to barely hidden tensions in the game. Spinning someone out right before the end (“nudging them off”, if you will) leads to swearing which no longer sounds so jovial. In fact, it sometimes sounds like it’s coming from between gritted teeth.

This permanence to cars and cash also means that, while it was hilarious to destroy a friend’s car in GTA IV, it’s now quite badly frowned upon, and even costs you cash for the insurance money. That is, of course, assuming that you have insurance. A friend of mine forgot to insure a car, spent about $200,000 upgrading it, and was predictably gutted when it was destroyed.

Fortunately, I feel a tipping point may soon be coming. With Rockstar giving everyone $500,000, and people playing the game for longer and accruing more money, hopefully this will lead to less tension in otherwise friendly races. And we can all go back to nudging each other off with big smiles on our face, without worrying about the almighty dollar.