Rockstar Games are considering letting GTA 6 players modify the game’s map by way of Roblox and Fortnite-style creation mechanics, according to a report. The idea is that people can make and sell their own “custom experiences”, as they do in those games – expanding upon the existing customisation opportunities in GTA Online. This might even extend to featuring real-world sponsors, rather than the parody versions of familiar brands we encounter in GTA 5.
All of that’s from a Digiday article that cites three anonymous industry sources “with knowledge” of meetings between Rockstar and certain popular Fortnite, Roblox and GTA Online creators. Apparently, they’ve been having “open-ended” discussions about “the potential to create custom experiences inside the upcoming game”. These experiences “would allow creators to modify the game’s environment and assets to bring their own intellectual property – and potentially their brand sponsors – into GTA’s virtual sandbox”, the article notes.
Why do all this, given Rockstar’s historically iffy relationship with those who attempt to mod their games? Because publishers always want to make more money, and because GTA 6 in particular is said to be mindbogglingly expensive. It’s rumoured to have cost two billion dollars to date. Hence the pressure to add monetisation features.
The Digiday article includes some third party comment that puts a spotlight on FiveM, the immensely popular mod framework from CFX.re that lets people host their own GTA role-playing servers, and supports subscription access models. Rockstar used to be at war with CFX.re as part of their larger policy towards piracy: they banned members of the modding team back in 2015 and reportedly sent private investigators to somebody’s home. Then, in August 2023, they announced that they’d bought the CFX.re team and “expanded our policy on mods to officially include those made by the roleplay creative community.”
Digiday offer the FiveM arc as evidence that Rockstar are getting more into user-generated content platforms and Ye Olde Metaversing with GTA 6. All of which makes sense to me, though the developers and publisher Take-Two Interactive have yet to comment on the report at the time of writing. Meanwhile, the wait for a GTA 6 PC release date continues.