Rockstar’s sublime GTA V released back in 2013 to critical acclaim on the PS3 and Xbox 360, all the while PC players sat and twiddled their thumbs, waiting anxiously for Rockstar to announce a release date for the growing platform.
Rockstar eventually confirmed a PC release and even set a date for the occasion – January 27th.
Today Rockstar announced that GTA V for the PC won’t be coming out on its intended release date, but will instead be releasing on March 24th. This comes just days after the developer stated that GTA V is still on track to release on time.
What the hell? Seriously. What is going on with Rockstar? Why the blatant deceit?
The reason given for the delay was to make sure that the game is up to snuff and that the coming weeks would see the game receive some extra polish to ensure all is well for PC players come release day.
Our question is: Why lie? Just three days ago the developer assured fans that there’s no delay, yet today we find out otherwise. Something smells fishy. Surely the developer would have known ahead of time that the game wouldn’t be releasing and they’ve carefully chosen their time to announce the delay – today would have been the deadline for Rockstar to announce the system requirements, as stipulated by consumer law.
Whilst they did hand out the system requirements, it’s still leaving a sour taste. Over a year to port a game to the PC is a bit of a shamble, especially when you consider they’ve managed to port it to not one, but two consoles in that same time period, both of which are consoles that share similar architecture to PC’s.
Of course, there is the argument that they could have released the game on January 27th with whatever bugs are still present, though the flak from the PC gaming community would have been severe, especially after the disastrous launch of GTA IV on the PC.
Is there an ulterior motive behind this delay? Is it to boost their end of year earnings? That’s not our place to speculate, but if the true reason is anything other than what they claim, players who pre-ordered the game with the understanding that they’d be running around Los Santos before the end of the month have every right to feel aggrieved.
It’s not just PC players who have a right to be annoyed with the veteran developers, console gamers have also been fed false promises. Remember online heists? Chances are you’ve lost interest and hope of them ever releasing as they’ve also taken well over a year come to fruition. Rockstar has since promised that online heists will be arriving in the “coming weeks” for console players whilst PC players will be able to participate from day one.
It’s a poor show from Rockstar, one of the most trusted developers in the industry. They’ll have to do a lot to win back the support of the fickle ‘Master Race.’
Annoyed at the delay? Will you cave in and buy it on console instead? Or has your interest in a game that’s been out for over a year waned a little thin? Let us know down below.
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