Many recently released AAA game titles, like Aliens: Colonial Marines or TOTAL WAR: Rome II, have been launched only for players to discover that some advertised features seem distorted, broken, or poorly implemented. GTA V proves to be no exception, with its online portion suffering from tremendous server overload.
Twitter was abuzz with retweets of Rockstar announcements and bitter consumers:
#GTAOnline should be live now, if you sign in to PSN then load up GTA V it will auto prompt for a software update. Demand is high!
— PlayStation Europe (@PlayStationEU) October 1, 2013
Rockstar promises it is "working around the clock" to resolve the reported issues with Grand Theft Auto Online: http://t.co/NksSOZyN5t
— GTAV Informer (@GTAV_Informer) October 2, 2013
#GTAOnline is so frustrating. Get it sorted ASAP @RockstarGames
— Tom Grubb (@TomTheGooner_) October 2, 2013
Me playing GTA online. pic.twitter.com/LgQsRRQXUb
— VengeanceFalls 14! (@VillainyThrives) October 2, 2013
Meanwhile in the rockstar headquarters #GTAOnline pic.twitter.com/j0IXUlbtcK
— S'M ✖ (@Smith_online) October 2, 2013
Rockstar Games was, of course, apologetic. “We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience while we work to resolve this,” the company posted along with a series of issues they are currently working on.
The BBC reported that on Monday morning, Rockstar North officially opened up the online multiplayer portion of their hottest shooter.
Of course, unlike many AAA publishers, Rockstar is a company that handles things differently. Interviews with the company have shown they rarely promote games at large entertainment expos or send out a plethora of review copies to journalists and bloggers.
Rockstar had written a blog detailing their awareness of the possibility of server issues for GTA Online: “One thing we are already aware of, and are trying to alleviate as fast as we can, is the unanticipated additional pressure on the servers due to a significantly higher number of players than we were anticipating at this point – we are working around the clock to buy and add more servers, but this increased scale is only going to make the first few days even more temperamental than such things usually are.”
The UK editor for IGN.com, Keza McDonald, conservatively estimated the player count of GTA Online’s first 24 hours at 2 million. “Rockstar has never done an online game of this scale before, so they are totally unproven in terms of their network infrastructure… even the highly successful World of Warcraft at its peak didn’t have as many people playing online at once as GTA is likely to have,” she said.
[Image via Rockstar Games]