The CEO of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition developer Grove Street Games has responded to online scrutiny over the launch of the title in a statement on social media, noting that he's "enjoying" players' scrutiny of the studio. The trio of remastered GTA games has been facing backlash regarding the quality of character models and the in-game worlds at large, with many criticizing the visuals and performance.
The quality of the remasters isn't the only controversy the GTA Trilogy has faced, with publisher Rockstar Games pulling the game from sale on PC within a day of launch, giving no explanation at the time. The company has since confirmed the removal was due to the PC version releasing with a slew of unintended files included, such as many of the songs Rockstar no longer has the license to use on its in-game radio stations. Surprisingly, the code for the infamous GTA "Hot Coffee" minigame, which became an enormous legal headache for Rockstar in 2005, was reportedly amongst the files erroneously included.
In a post on Twitter, Grove Street Games' CEO Thomas Williamson shared a statement on the collection's controversy that has angered some fans of the series. While many would expect the statement to reflect positively on the feedback and criticism from players, Williamson's comments have left many fans upset at what's perceived to be a lack of accountability. Williamson tweeted that he's "enjoying" the scrutiny from fans of the series, writing:
"It’s so fun to see players out there really enjoying what we’ve put together for them. I’m honestly enjoying this unparalleled level of scrutiny on our studio. Today we are celebrating our monumental project launch, while we work on updates. :-)"
Players were quick to respond with comments of disbelief. A top reply from user AmyrAhmady called the game "annoyingly painful", replying to Williamson: "you're either getting feedback from your inner circles or you just ignore fans."
See the statement on Twitter here.
The frustration from the GTA fanbase has grown to the point that social media has become inundated with demands for full GTA Trilogy refunds across all of the platforms the game has been released on. Along with issues over the appearance of characters in-game, players have complained of missing assets, glitches, and animations that have been mocked in viral posts across a host of different social media sites. Of all the platforms the collection is available on, it's believed that Nintendo Switch players are suffering the most, though more powerful hardware isn't helping many of the games' issues.
Grove Street Games has promised to continue to improve the collection post-release with regular patches, but it may already be too late to save the remasters' reputation. Every version of the game has been review-bombed on Metacritic, with user review scores for GTA Trilogy across the game's platforms all sitting below a 1.0 (the lowest being a 0.4 at the time of writing). It remains to be seen if Rockstar and Grove Street Games can somehow salvage the situation, but the uphill climb for Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition may be insurmountable at this point.
Source: Twitter/TSWilliamson, Twitter/AmyrAhmady