Is today's Rockstar the same Rockstar back when GTA V released? Writters and game designers, are those all still there?
If you believe the info floating around the web - One guy from PS2 era Rockstar is still working at Rockstar.
... havnt been funny or edgy since Vice City/San Andreas
It's impossible to be objectively critical about any of Rockstar's PS2 games because of the massive aesthetic boost that the PS2 gives.
Playing GTA VC/SA in the dumbed down, unpatched GTA Definitive Edition games without all of the great music - it's possible to see the underlying flaws.
What you'll see is that both VC and SA are less good than GTA3 in a slew of different ways.
That said, GTA4 and GTA5 have a bunch of content and humor that feels out of place, like low grade filler to pad the game out.
It seems like GTA4 is hopeless but GTA5 could be every bit as edgy as any PS2 GTA just by cutting excess content that's not worthy of GTA and adding missing *elements back.
*Gore, Pay 'N' Spray, Transfender, etc.
Good luck with this one. GTA VI sales are going to be earth shatttering, no matter how many people cry woke.
This is a massive side effect of physical media - Steam customers can just return it if it sucks.
When Sony goes all-digital and overhauls the PSN return policy (same 2hr window as Steam, no questions asked.) each game's return ratio will become a key metric that can be used to weed out bad games.
The whole equation's skewed by the existence of current-gen physical media and the absence of meaningful data that can be gleamed from a return policy. Users who buy a physical game and hate it can only keep it or sell it to Gamestop, neither of which provide Sony with any useful data. All Sony sees is another sale which looks good until you factor in that it's caused a negative UX and the secondary sale of the game won't make Sony a dime.
Digital-only will make purchases risk free and allow every user to vote with their wallet.
