One would expect Grand Theft Auto 6 to resume the series' familiar crass lampooning of society, but GTA Online may have made that more difficult with some of its own practices. As difficult as it may be to believe, Rockstar's biggest property for the past ten years bears a striking resemblance to the trends that the studio so often makes fun of, and as a result, GTA 6 could be a case of throwing stones in glass houses.
One of the most defining characteristics of the Grand Theft Auto series is its brand of satire. The games are full of scathing, unrestrained mocking of various media tropes and trends. Whether or not one finds them funny, the games seem quite devoted to this theme. There are in-game advertisements, TV shows, and even entire characters on occasion dedicated to skewing pop culture. GTA 5 was when their lampooning of society hit its peak. Even GTA itself was parodied by Mass Effect in a joke about the series' controversial nature. However, at this point GTA could potentially be used as a punchline for some of its own jokes.
Microtransactions are one of the more prominent and most reviled practices in gaming. It's the perfect sort of topic one would expect the GTA series to make fun of. However, they cannot do that, at least not without looking incredibly hypocritical. GTA Online's shark cards have been pushed quite hard since the game's inception. Shark Cards award in-game currency at the cost of real money, which is as direct as microtransactions can possibly be. The situation became so bad that Shark Cards wrecked GTA Online's economy by triggering major in-game inflation. By diving straight into their own microtransactions, GTA lost the chance to poke fun at the trend through their own games.
GTA Online Feels Like A Game That GTA Would Satirize
Rereleases are another topic that can get controversial in the gaming world. On one hand, rereleasing hit games on new consoles gives new audiences a chance to play them. However, Grand Theft Auto 5 and GTA Online have now spanned three console generations with no new GTA titles in the meantime. In essence, the Grand Theft Auto franchise has been relying on those two games, especially Online, for almost a decade with the exception of GTA: The Trilogy's bug-laden release. While jokes and parodies were made about Star Wars' rereleases years ago, GTA seems a bit too close to that situation itself.
Even beyond GTA Online, other recent headlines for Rockstar make it harder for the team to poke fun at the rest of the industry. As previously mentioned, GTA: The Trilogy led to plenty of backlash from fans on social media. The attempts at apology and patch announcements effectively ended any chance they had of making jokes about companies on social media impossible without a heavy dose of irony. In fact, one doesn't even need to look at a Grand Theft Auto game to point out Rockstar's recent social media troubles. The #SaveRedDeadOnline hashtag overtaking a GTA Online update is still fresh in many people's minds, among other incidents.
Grand Theft Auto has made a reputation for constant riffing on society, but it seems dangerously close to its own punchlines. Rockstar has ended up in a position where a lot of the jokes it could make in GTA 6 would feel like it was making fun of itself. Thanks to GTA Online, the series may find itself on the other end of satire.