Though just a hobby, gaming is the biggest media industry on the planet, and GTA Online is one of the biggest single money makers in the industry. To the tune of billions of dollars, so it's not exactly a silly little niche, this change will likely shift the needle for them by millions of dollars, in which direction I don't know.
I have little interrest in real life cars.
Real cars pollute much more, cost a lot, you have to take care of them, pay attention not to crash them, and you can kill innocent families with them
I don't habe the budget for a Lambo and modding a street car is illegal. And even if I could, I wouldn't have the interrest to spend a decade to build a racing car that I could just crash at any time.
I don't want a miata because I have bicycles and friends.
The plot around driving your own car is terrible. At least video games have a scenario
I can see myself doing a heist to have fun with friends in GTA, but not in real life
>Why would anyone take their hard earned money and purchase the sprite of a car and drive it around a video game
More like why would anyone take their hard earned money and burn it at the petrol station, on sets of tires, and on endless mechaniscs.
A video game is 60$, a Miata is 20.000$
And I already cycle around, so I won't just pollute and waste money for the track day
It would take like 2 hours to walk across the GTA V map on foot north to south.
> and if you don’t need a car it’s doubly true you don’t need a virtual car even if it is cheaper
Wait, are you saying if I don't need a car in reality, I don't need a car in a game? I'm not the Hero of Time, so I guess I don't need any weapons when playing Zelda. I'm not a soldier, so I don't need guns in Battlefield.
how dare you ?
You're repeating Marx's "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"
that's socialism
> It’s not real they’re selling a fantasy.
and yes, that's capitalism
let me live in the 21st century of mass media and video games. I want that.
I want to fill my existential void with consumption and video games. They're fun.
You mean their virtual character becomes happy because of the virtual sports car they now drive?
Tricking people to confuse their selves, possessions and lives with a simulation is some genius marketing. How did they pull this off?
You don't need to understand it, you don't even need to accept it for it to happen. You're discussing in bad faith.
How did they pull it off? It’s human nature…
Which design elements can one add/remove to such game to make a difference? Asking because it feels like a stretch to make an argument and also just how all things naturally are (opposed to designed deliberately).
And most video games aren't like this. You'll see a contrast in how addictive games are monetized compared to others. The tactics have been well-known for a while (World of Warcraft pioneered many of them in 2004-06), and in the past decade it's become a lot more common. GTA Online isn't totally an addictive game, but it seems to have a bit of that with the ingame assets.
As a person who doesn't like to travel and drive I see virtually no utility in getting transported from one place to another in real world either.