GTA Online will include micro-transactions, Pay to Win?

You'll be able to spend between £1.99 and £13.49 in Grand Theft Auto Online for individual packs of in-game money, people with early access to the mode have leaked.

The four GTA Online currency cards spotted yesterday in the code of Rockstar's own site are still to be officially announced, but we understand they will have UK prices of the following amounts:

$100,000 Red Shark Cash Card - £1.99
$200,000 Tiger Shark Cash Card - £3.49
$500,000 Bull Shark Cash Card - £6.99
$1,250,000 Great White Shark Cash Card - £13.49

These details originate from a source with early access to Grand Theft Auto 5's multiplayer mode. While details may still be tweaked prior to its final release, this is how things currently stand less than a week before it goes live.

Simply put, the more expensive the cash pack, the better the exchange rate you'll get. But it's also worth noting that while GTA Online uses the same world as GTA5, prices for in-game items do vary between the two.

A car that costs $1 million in the game's single-player mode can be bought for much less in Online - more like $150,000. Properties are also cheaper - the most expensive you can own is $400,000.

And you can only own a single property. When you trade houses you get a rebate on the place you've moved from, so you can re-use your in-game credit to some extent.

But while some things are cheaper, others are more expensive. You'll pay more for weapon and car mods, and most are initially out of normal financial reach. Yet any potential access to these items can only be unlocked when your character ranks up.

Kinda inevitable given that there is no online pass and R* (even though they have made a fortune so far from game sales) will still want some form of revenue stream if they are going to continue to support GTAO for a long time.

I just hope that this doesnt unbalance the game for anyone who chooses not to pay for microtransactions.

N1NJA FWG wrote:Kinda inevitable given that there is no online pass

I disagree, it wasn't inevitable at all - there are plenty of MP games that don't have online passes or microtransactions and still manage to release patches and support their games (the vast majority of which don't have anywhere near the amount of cash to spare that Rockstar has). Even CoD (prior to blops 2) was selling games with no online passes or microtransactions. They've made a very comfortable profit for themselves, they'll continue to do so over the next few weeks and when sales die down, if they want additional revenue then they can release DLC. This is a dick move and one that they in no way needed to make, they made a billion dollars and now they've decided to get some bad press in an effort to squeeze a little more money out of their fans.

CoD make millions from the map packs, R* can't realistically do that.

"But while some things are cheaper, others are more expensive. You'll pay more for weapon and car mods, and most are initially out of normal financial reach. Yet any potential access to these items can only be unlocked when your character ranks up."

So they can buy as much money as they want, but will still have to rank up to spend it. Is it beyond the realms of possibility that you could earn enough money to buy this stuff as you rank up. It still sounds like its Play to Win rather than Pay to Win.

While I do tend to agree that R* doesn't necessarily NEED to incorporate micro-transactions I can understand why they have...

R* intend GTAO to live on for quite a few years so it's going to need money to run it, now where will that revenue come from? It can't come from sales as those sales are for GTA V, GTA Online is actually a completely separate game that come free with GTA V. It's developed by a completely separate team of developers and really only shares the engine and world with GTA V.

The other thing to remember here is that R* still have no official word on micro-transactions so it could be that they may not be implemented right away and instead cone further down the line

from rockstars website and new updated online details:

Reputation and Cash Flow: Reputation is earned from all your online exploits in everything you do in GTA Online – and will help you rank up, providing access to new features, weapons and criminal contacts. Spend cash you’ve gained on cars, clothes, guns, properties and much more. You can either quickly accumulate cash through profitable activities like knocking over armored cars, winning street races, doing stick-ups or a host of other cash-making endeavors – or if you’re the completely instant gratification type, you can choose to buy denominations of GTA$. You will have the option to purchase GTA$ through the in-game Store. The game and its economy have been designed and balanced for the vast majority of players who will not buy extra cash. There is no in-game paywall and nothing that should disrupt the balance of the game. You don’t have to spend real money to attain the cars, guns, clothes, flash and style of a high-roller in Los Santos, but can if you wish to get them a little quicker. The economy is balanced differently from the single player economy, and cash earned in one cannot be taken over to the other. Most players will earn cash much faster Online than in Story Mode.

Still a dick move. Hate this sort of crap.

ill stick with UT I cant afford to micro transaction this as well lol

R* have also now confirmed that there is no paywall involved here, these packs are simply for those that are too lazy to play the game much like EA's "unlock everything now" packs