The gun locker in Grand Theft Auto Online’s Finance and Felony expansion allows players to stash unused or unwanted weapons, eliminating the annoyance of cycling through a needlessly large weapon list while playing the game. However, this gun locker is only available at one of four new offices that have been made available in the expansion, all of them starting at $1 million dollars of in-game money. But that million dollar price tag is just the entrance fee.
Making the gun locker so expensive to access will undoubtedly draw the ire of players who feel that the high price tag is Rockstar’s attempt to force players to spend real money on Shark Cards, Rockstar’s microtransaction system. Shark Cards can be purchased with real world money in exchange for in-game currency, and they have already generated over half a billion dollars in revenue for Rockstar.
With these microtransactions being so lucrative for Rockstar, it’s no surprise that accessing the new features in Finance and Felony comes with such a high price of admission, especially with the recent announcement from Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick that the Grand Theft Auto franchise and online component may soon go on hiatus. Rockstar is most likely trying to cash in on these microtransactions while they still can.
While “microtransaction” is often seen as an ugly word in the world of gaming, even creating an angry backlash for some companies, Rockstar seems to have struck a balance by allowing players to accelerate their character’s progress using real world money but never locking certain features behind a paywall. There is always the option to earn in-game currency by completing online missions.
Should Grand Theft Auto’s new gun locker be so expensive? Or has Rockstar managed to find a safe middle ground between fun and profit?
Grand Theft Auto is available on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, XboxOne, and PC.
Source - VG 24/7
