It hasn't been a great week for GTA fans as the Definitive Edition Trilogy was released to widespread criticism and no news on GTA 6 has surfaced for some time. In some way, the disastrous launch of the trilogy may hold a much larger lesson that Rockstar can take forward.
The lesson is one that many developers can, and probably should learn from. Patience is a virtue and despite the hyper-competitive gaming market of the 21st century, players are becoming much less forgiving when a game is so unfinished yet they spend their hard-earned money on what is essentially a work in progress.
GTA 6 Will Have No Excuses
It needs to be made clear that Rockstar Games did not develop the GTA Definitive Edition Trilogy. It was handled by Grove Street Games whose portfolio consists mostly of iOS and Android ports of popular Rockstar games like Max Payne and Bully.
They also handled the mobile ports of all of the GTA games meaning they should have been more than familiar with the materials. Unfortunately, numerous oversights left the collection of games feeling like the upgrades had simply been done via an AI upscaling program rather than with the thought and care you would expect for such beloved titles.
What's not known is the timescales that they were working on. It could be that this project was done on an incredibly short turnaround but given how Rockstar usually treats their IP, it would be a surprise. There's also the question of why the numerous issues were not spotted sooner and release delayed.
This is where we run into a problem that has plagued the games industry for the last 18 months in particular. CyberPunk 2077 is still the highest-profile victim of releasing a half-finished product but it is by no means the only offender.
This is why, in the long term, impatience for GTA 6 will only harm the launch experience. Rockstar has since come out to apologise for the state of the Definitive Trilogy and you just know they won't want to have to do the same when GTA 6 releases.