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Forums - Sales - Why did Rockstar change the formula for expansions from GTA3 to GTA4?

-ku- on 03 June 2010
Killergran said:

It's very easy to understand why we haven't seen a Vice City like release from Rockstar. The amount of work creating a living, breathing city like Liberty City of GTA IV is many times that of creating Vice City or even San Andreas. The amount of detail in Liberty City is astounding, and that is the reason the developement team needed to be so huge and it took so long to make GTA IV. The voicework alone is many times bigger. So they really couldn't create a new city just like that. It would take a developement team of a hundred people several years to create. Making episodic content set in the same city is just so much easier.

And people, your picking on Slimebeast for the use of the word expansion is childish at best.


Rumour has it GTA: VC took 9 months. Merely a pitance of time. So it doesn't take that long to make a great city espicially since with VC they started from scratch.

I think the case was clear an simple monetary incentive.

 

On another note I highly doubt GTA4 cost 100 million to whoever suggested it. I think the most expensive game only cost 60-70 and that wasn't evenr MGS4 or GOW3.



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d21lewis said:
Honestly, do JRPG makers even realize how hard it is to save the world? That shit is impossible!

 

 

 

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Killergran on 03 June 2010
-ku- said:

Rumour has it GTA: VC took 9 months. Merely a pitance of time. So it doesn't take that long to make a great city espicially since with VC they started from scratch.


This is a silly counter-argument to make, since it takes the content I had in mine but completely leaves out the context I put it in (detail and how long it takes to create it). No wonder you arrive at such a different conclusion, you appear not to have thought this through, nor read my post.

You're comment about them starting from scratch with Vice City is also misplaced, since the same conditions would apply if they built a new city in GTA IV's engine.

-ku- said:

On another note I highly doubt GTA4 cost 100 million to whoever suggested it. I think the most expensive game only cost 60-70 and that wasn't evenr MGS4 or GOW3.

 

Yet again, you are wrong. $100 million was the figure repeatedly reported as the budget for GTA IV. It also had over 1 000 people working on it, and it took over four years to make (though I'm less certain about the time).



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themanwithnoname on 03 June 2010
Slimebeast said:

If they weren't expansions then why weren't they (Vice City and San Andreas) labeled as GTA 4 and GT 5?

Yes they're expansions, kind of.

  • GTA III
     - GTA: Vice city
     - GTA: San Andreas
  • GTA IV
     - GTA IV: The Lost and Damned *
     - GTA: The Ballad of Gay Tony

You get the picture?

(*Yes, The Lost and Damned is preceded by the number GTA IV, while Gay Tony is not.)

Ok...by that logic, Halo: Reach is a Halo expansion because it isn't a numbered title?



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Killergran on 03 June 2010
Slimebeast said:

Interesting. So basically, the GTA4 expansions being so "small", is a symptom of the ever rising costs of video game development, especially in the HD gen?

Precisely. GTA IV has been touted as the most detailed game of generation, at least around the time of its release, so it would suffer far more than most games would from this.



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hunter_alien on 03 June 2010

I dont consider VC and SA to eb expansions at all. Still, Im expecting a new GTA to be announced soon, but dev time on the HD consoles seems to be longer anyways. Also, it would seem that FPSs really took the crown as the best selling genre from sandbox games



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Slimebeast on 03 June 2010
themanwithnoname said:
Slimebeast said:

If they weren't expansions then why weren't they (Vice City and San Andreas) labeled as GTA 4 and GT 5?

Yes they're expansions, kind of.

  • GTA III
     - GTA: Vice city
     - GTA: San Andreas
  • GTA IV
     - GTA IV: The Lost and Damned *
     - GTA: The Ballad of Gay Tony

You get the picture?

(*Yes, The Lost and Damned is preceded by the number GTA IV, while Gay Tony is not.)

Ok...by that logic, Halo: Reach is a Halo expansion because it isn't a numbered title?

Oops...



Slimebeast on 03 June 2010

Okay, let's agree they (Vice City and SanAndreas) weren't expansions, they were full blown sequels, only in quick succession. I have no problems with that definition.

But that makes my topic even more valid - why didn't Rockstar choose the same strategy in this gen? Because we all know from history that expansions always sell terribly, or at least much less than the "main" game, while sequels can sell as much as any original game.



strunge on 03 June 2010
Slimebeast said:

If they weren't expansions then why weren't they (Vice City and San Andreas) labeled as GTA 4 and GT 5?

Yes they're expansions, kind of.

  • GTA III
     - GTA: Vice city
     - GTA: San Andreas
  • GTA IV
     - GTA IV: The Lost and Damned *
     - GTA: The Ballad of Gay Tony

You get the picture?

(*Yes, The Lost and Damned is preceded by the number GTA IV, while Gay Tony is not.)

a lack of a number on the title doesn't dictate whether something is an expansion.  an expansion is simply an addition to an existing game.  Vice City and San Andreas are completely new games.

the picture is clear to everyone else it seems.



djs on 03 June 2010

Should we call then Peace Walker an expansion since it's not called 5...



Chairman-Mao on 03 June 2010

Vice City and San Andreas are full games. Ballad of Gay Tony and the other GTA4 expansions are just expasions, they add like 10 hours each or something.