A Grand Theft Auto Online player recently spotted a Swastika logo on an in-game custom vehicle, causing many to question the effectiveness of developer Rockstar Games' community management. The Rockstar Games Social Club was introduced in 2013 when Grand Theft Auto V launched worldwide with numerous single-player and online features that utilized the developer's new platform. Besides checking stats and saving in-game photos, players can create or join Crews with custom logos - which can then be added to in-game attire or vehicles.
While Rockstar Games' online counterpart to Grand Theft Auto V has evolved wildly, GTA Online's ongoing issues have plagued the title for just shy of a decade. Over the years, mod menus and cheats have bedeviled lobbies, allowing hackers and cheaters to instantly spawn items, harass other players, and even access IP addresses to permanently shut players off from the game. Earlier this month, hackers fully breached Grand Theft Auto Online on PC, crashing entire lobbies of players with little to no protection against such actions. Rockstar Games has yet to comment on the situation or bring forth a solution for players who want to maintain a clean online game.
Posted on Reddit, user hampypampie shared an image of a custom Grand Theft Auto Online armored vehicle sporting a Swastika logo and similarly colored paint job. While shocked to come across the vehicle, the user further questioned if Rockstar's "community guideline checks" are still intact in 2021. Though Rockstar Games permanently bans players for hate speech or symbols when reported, this GTA Online Crew and its logo seem to have flown under the developer's radar. One user in the post's comment section speculated automated systems might have missed the Swastika logo due to appearing unfinished or altered. That said, Rockstar has yet to confirm this theory.
Shocked to see this on GTA Online PS4 today…where are rockstar’s community guideline checks in 2021?? from GTA
See the original post on Reddit here.
Rockstar Games is set to discontinue the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of GTA Online in less than two weeks. The servers will shut down after years of frequent hacking on seventh-generation servers. After its final content update in 2015, the developers ceased the title's transfer feature in 2017; likely after hacking became a more prominent issue.
Rockstar's popular online game mode continues to see high attendance, and yet the studio doesn't appear to be aware of its biggest in-game and community-related issues. Without proper supervision and reinforced community guidelines, these problems will likely persist for years to come. Grand Theft Auto V officially comes out on next-gen consoles in 2022, so a similar migration for GTA Online could possibly happen again in the future. Hopefully, before then, Rockstar will direct its attention to the current state of Grand Theft Auto Online.
Grand Theft Auto Online is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC
Source: hampypampie/Reddit