GTA 6

Rockstar

The main story about Grand Theft Auto 6 at the moment is the reveal that the game will cost $80 for its standard edition, an extremely rare $10 jump above and beyond the industry-standard $70 price. However, while its Ultimate Edition costs $100, which is not quite as controversial of a price for an upgraded version, fans have discovered that the upgrade paywalls specific in-game shops. Those are:

• Rideout Customs – Special cosmetic car styling options
• Sara’s Unisex Salon – Hairstyles for Jason and Lucia, facial hair for Jason and makeup and nails for Lucia
• Stock 305 – Exclusive streetwear clothes for both characters
• Electric Fang Tattoo – 50 specific tattoos for both characters
• One-Eyed Willie’s – Off-road mods for vehicles and more cosmetic customization

The confusion is here is why Rockstar would put actual in-game shops behind an Ultimate paywall, something we essentially never see in open-world titles, much less GTA 6. However, there is at least a partial explanation for what’s going on here.

The store idea acts as a delivery system for the publicly announced GTA 6 Ultimate Edition items. It is a very, very long list, including cars, clothes, tattoos, hairstyles and everything mentioned (a full image gallery went up today), and those stores are simply how those items are delivered in game, rather than just showing up at a regular tattoo parlor, salon or clothing store. Instead, Rockstar made specific shops for this purpose (in a game with assuredly a few hundred stores).

What many believe is happening, however, is that the entire idea of giving your character haircuts or car mods is paywalled under this system, but there are no indications that is the case. Obviously, there will be multiple salons, tattoo parlors, car shops, and so on all over the map; it’s just that these will contain the Ultimate items. These are the cosmetics you would get with other games’ Ultimate editions, just delivered in a different way. I’ve reached out to Rockstar if they have any further clarification, but it seems pretty clear this is what’s happening.

None of this is to say this is a good idea, of course.

It’s easy to see how positioning the items this way and literally locking in-game shops with some sort of “buy the Ultimate Edition for $20 to enter!” pop-up is going to be ridiculous. Even just putting those items in a separate tab of normal shops would have been better, and this discourse could have been avoided. It was easy to see this blowback coming, and the narrative spiraling out of hand, as it is now.

It is a lot of stuff being paywalled in terms of total volume. That’s where Rockstar is trying to extract that $100 out of you, even above and beyond the expensive $80 version. And it will work, I’m guessing. Nothing will stop preorders from setting records tomorrow, but we’ll see if Rockstar has anything further to say on the topic.

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