Rockstar Launcher downtime - GTA Trilogy now back on PC

[Kirsty]

A baffling response to obviously some kind of massive oversight in relation the files. Seems like it was a knee-jerk reaction to just take it all down to prevent any further distribution as soon as they realised they weren't happy with what it contained. I'm not sure why they couldn't communicate this sooner, however, it'd barely have taken a few extra tweets to clarify. I don't think we'll ever understand it lol.

[Quinn_flower]

Lol get fked r* 

 

i still have the files dl to the hdd.

 

if you try to delete them from my hdd I’m pressing charges. Invasion of privacy.

[TheGodDamnMaster]

13 minutes ago, arno_cat said:

"No Digital Game or bundle purchases will be refunded if there is more than two hours of playtime collectively associated with the games in the transaction"

 

Yeah so f*ck me now I can't get a refund because I decided to try your stupid game yesterday. I should have waited for the steam release, at least they would have given back the money for sure.

 

I can't believe I'm about to say this but Rockstar you just lost an unconditional fan.

 

They're a bunch of scum.

[pablodc]

I just make my refund. Will buy it on steam cheaper. thats not the rockstar games i was fanboy.

[Quinn_flower]

I’m sure this violates consumer protection laws.

 

 

some one who is a lawyer can look into this?

[beatlemnkyhuman]

yeah I can't play. I apologize for calling y'all broke. Some of you did buy it too

[arno_cat]

Someone on reddit says you can easily refund it using the transaction provider website but I'm not sure how would that work.

 

https://help.xsolla.com/i-have-a-problem-with-the-purchase#forms

 

 

[Zapper]

30 minutes ago, Ser_Salty said:

I really hope it's downhill from here and Rockstars profits start going down prompting them to finally change sh*t.

Prepare to be disappointed then. As long as GTAO is here Rockstar will keep printing money and the next gen version (and it's exclusive content) has yet to come. However bad this situation is, it's just a remaster of 3 games that came out 17-20 years ago that was outsourced to a 3rd party studio with patchy track record, not a brand new, insanely hyped game like Cyberpunk 2077. They pulled it from sale just to avert potential lawsuits, only time will tell how that'll go down.

And if everything goes south they still hold the trump card that is GTAVI, people will forget about everything after that thing is announced. Now I don't see VI turning out to be like CP2077 or Trilogy DE solely because Rockstar knows what's at stake here, they have a solid formula and they're taking their sweet ass time build on it properly. At worst it might be a safe game but that'll be enough for the mainstream.

[NTxC]

4 hours ago, TomilovSenya said:

 

What.

 

These "discoveries" are already dumped by many players, there be no way to remove it from everywhere.

 

The funniest thing is that once they put the trilogy up on RGL again, it will be EVEN MORE butchered than before. Hence the definitive versions of the definitive editions are going to be the PIRATED ones, because they have all the music and data intact.  

[arno_cat]

1 minute ago, Zapper said:

 However bad this situation is, it's just a remaster of 3 games that came out 17-20 years ago that was outsourced to a 3rd party studio with patchy track record, not a brand new, insanely hyped game like Cyberpunk 2077. 

The thing is, this outsourced to a 3rd party studio with bad track remaster costs exactly the same as a brand new insanely hyped game like Cyberpunk.

 

I wouldn't be as mad if it didn't cost this much, but paying 59.99 euro for the product we got is really bad

[Doublepulse]

This confirms my suspicions that Rockstar Games has always hated PC players, and were looking for a way to punish them.

[UncleJoey]

41 minutes ago, Comrade-1981 said:

Yeah, definitely just put in a refund request. The $60 bucks isn't sh*t to me but I'm doing so as a matter of principle. Installed GTA:SA via Steam, slap it with DEP and pretend the last two weeks on this forum was all a fever dream.

 

None of you are real. You're all in my head.

I enjoyed what I played very much so no way I'd do that lol. 

[TheGodDamnMaster]

14 minutes ago, arno_cat said:

The thing is, this outsourced to a 3rd party studio with bad track remaster costs exactly the same as a brand new insanely hyped game like Cyberpunk.

 

I wouldn't be as mad if it didn't cost this much, but paying 59.99 euro for the product we got is really bad

They had to outsource it to another studio because they were too busy burning their billions made from GTA Online on not fixing it or giving RDO anything.

 

10 studios and over 2000 employees around the world and they can't even be bothered to remaster the games that made them themselves. Unbelievable. 

Edited November 13, 2021 by TheGodDamnMaster

[BroomstickFanatic]

I'm still collecting hidden packages on VC right now... Will the save structure change?

[UncleJoey]

16 minutes ago, TheGodDamnMaster said:

They had to outsource it to another studio because they were too busy burning their billions made from GTA Online on not fixing it or giving RDO anything.

 

10 studios and over 2000 employees around the world and they can't even be bothered to remaster the games that made them themselves. Unbelievable. 

I enjoyed what I played but I cannot defend this sh*t. Literally pulled the plug on people who actually wanted to play. 

[Alastair Smyth]

I own disc versions of absolutely everything, but the issue is that old consoles and games first stop being produced and then become increasingly difficult to find used later on. All while many, if not most modern PCs/OS cannot run said games at all anymore. Add this to the hundreds of reasons why everything digital should always be copied and hoarded. "Pirating" is really just archiving/preserving. Really sad when the only way to play a game that has been lost in time, removed by publishers (as is the case for the original releases) or broken by the developers (like this Definitive Edition) is one that does not pay the creators for their efforts. Not saying I would want to pay Grove Street Games (AKA Wardrum Studios) for their efforts though, lol. This is a general statement about the death of art. It's dandy the crack is being distributed, but considering the state of the games, I honestly don't think this remaster is even worth being cracked.

 

Having to run after a refund is the sh*t cherry on this sh*t cake and I am so sorry to see how many of you have blown your money and hopes on this release. I'm sure we all just wanted a nice weekend with our favorite games.

[TheGodDamnMaster]

 

[beatlemnkyhuman]

Someone must've been on the forums from Michael Jacksons estate or tupacs or rage against the machine and they read the post saying the songs were still in the game so they threatened to sue and here we are.

 

That's my guess. Anyway, what the f*ck am I supposed to do now?

Edited November 13, 2021 by beatlemnkyhuman

[Zapper]

16 minutes ago, TheGodDamnMaster said:

10 studios and over 2000 employees around the world and they can't even be bothered to remaster the games that made them themselves. Unbelievable. 

Those studios are balls deep in VI's production by now. I'm pretty sure they didn't really want to do anything but since VI is taking so long and it was the 20th anniversary of GTAIII this October they did it anyway to bridge the gap, but instead of doing themselves they outsourced it. Rockstar never really was much of a remaster company (only real exception was GTAV on PS4/XOne but that had many other reasons behind it). If they do RDR1 and IV it'll be just filler content on the way to VI in their eyes.

[Matt_STS]

6 minutes ago, Zapper said:

Those studios are balls deep in VI's production by now. I'm pretty sure they didn't really want to do anything but since VI is taking so long and it was the 20th anniversary of GTAIII this October they did it anyway to bridge the gap, but instead of doing themselves they outsourced it. Rockstar never really was much of a remaster company (only real exception was GTAV on PS4/XOne but that had many other reasons behind it). If they do RDR1 and IV it'll be just filler content on the way to VI in their eyes.

Maybe they should have focused only on GTA III remaster, or even a Remake, since it's its 20th anniversary. 

And yeah, I don't think GSG should have been the ones to do it, after what happened with SA mobile/PS3

[Original Light]

As of 1 hour ago, I was still able to play GTA Trilogy games by going directly to the .exe launcher for each game in its install directory, and launching it from there. As of now, this no longer works. Clicking on the .exe leads me to my Rockstar Games Launcher, and my Game Library, where the games I bought have been removed. As if I never even bought them... insane. 

Edited November 13, 2021 by Original Light

[Alastair Smyth]

5 minutes ago, beatlemnkyhuman said:

Someone must've been on the forums from Michael Jacksons estate or tupacs or rage against the machine and they read the post saying the songs were still in the game so they threatened to sue and here we are.

 

That's my guess. Anyway, what the f*ck am I supposed to do now?

 

That's a bit naive. R* is doing this... Pre-emptively is not the right term anymore when they have already illegally distributed music they don't have the rights to. But you know what I mean. Whether it was an intentional shortcut to save time and resources again and still feel clever about it. Or really just a gross oversight that they themselves are shocked to find out about now. It's completely irrelevant, too. They don't need to wait until they hear anyone's estate knocking on their door to start panicking. They have been in full panic mode already. The admins are right when they called this is piracy. Not the piracy that is a person illegally downloading a game for private consumption. This is illegal re-distribution en masse and, frankly, quite hilarious. We are talking millions, if not billions in "damages" here when someone, anyone, sues. It could be a band or their management or their label or their producer or a widow of someone or or or or. However expensive biting the bullet and overpaying to acquire the rights to put some original songs back into the radio stations would have been, this has the potential to be a thousand times more expensive. The embarrassment about the accessible script/code is almost forgotten in contrast to this.

 

It's going to be interesting to see if they will recall/destroy all physical copies too now and reprint and ship. Surely we would be expecting a delayed release in that case. Another thing I am curious about is whether removing said content is going to mess with the functioning of the game further. Maybe that's also why the songs were left hidden and disabled to begin with. Everything you fix in a game's code breaks another thing or two.

[BS_BlackScout]

I believe it's no longer possible to say GSG isn't a mess of a studio. What kind of... I don't even know where to begin with.

Why leave DOC files inside folders that are for game content, what the actual f*ck?

Game script with source, understandable as well, Rockstar ideally don't want us to see it, the game isn't open source.

Regardless, how do you screw this up? I am beginning to feel they (R*) just called GSG:
"Excuso me GSG, coughio up el GTA-o before I blow your brains all over the patio"
 

Giving barely any help and well, leaving this brown streak behind. What, a, mess. I really, really hope they provide compensation for anyone who feels ripped off.

This is their worst release to date and one of the silliest things I have ever seen after years of gaming. No argument can change my mind and I don't even care.

How? How does that happen? What kind of decisions were taken when developing these titles?

It makes the issues I saw and some of the design decisions much, much worse.
Dubious character design, added bugs, weird ugly upscaled textures [lazy], no fog, you name it. It's like a sh*tshow of horrors.

One thing is very clear to me though, they wanted to rush this release (why would you use AI if you know it sucks for typeface and other textures). Who? I don't know man. 

 

 

This thing has such a potential to be a good title, they have a nice platform and base for that to happen, but they just threw it out the window and together came all of the feces as well. Absolutely disgusting.

 

 

This comes from someone who paid full price a mere hours AFTER Cyberpunk's broken release. (I didn't pre-order)

I had fun despite the bugs but not even CDPR made such a mess. Wow...

Edited November 13, 2021 by BS_BlackScout

[beatlemnkyhuman]

Im trusting you guys to tell me when we're back up. I'll tell you if I find out first too so let's see who post it first

[Alastair Smyth]

Can one of you confirm or deny this? Someone on Reddit claimed earlier today that the songs that have re-appeared in the Definitive Edition's code have actually been present in the 10th anniversary versions all along. If that were to be true, R* has been illegally distributing contents they do not own the rights to all these years. I'm sorry if this has already been mentioned here before, I didn't see it.

Edited November 13, 2021 by Alastair Smyth

[Americana]

Rockstar Games, company associated with bunch of new Grand Theft Auto: Online vehicles and a weird remasters of Grand Theft Auto games.

 

Yeah, and Red Dead Redemption 2 is somewhere there, too.

[Spider-Vice]

24 minutes ago, Alastair Smyth said:

R* has been illegally distributing contents they do not own the rights to all these years.

I don't think it's that. At the time they still had the rights, not anymore, is what I assume that means. GSG just shipped the exact same audio scripts with the 10th anniversary songs I guess, along with other songs from the OG version in the files that weren't supposed to be there.

[jamesos]

My disappointment is immeasurable but this is also one of the most hilarious blunders I've ever seen from a triple A game company, and it also essentially confirms that GSG practically farted out this remaster. 

 

"2 years" my ass. How did they not f*cking catch this before shipping the game? Along with a plethora of other glaring issues I've seen just from playing the Vice City remaster. 
 

[BroomstickFanatic]

I gave my blood, sweat and tears for this. Rockstar better not change the way saves work.

[shinsta312]

2 hours ago, Spider-Vice said:

That does make me wonder if the soundtrack lists sent to the media were actually always correct, GSG just shipped the game with the songs anyway as an oversight, which would be literal piracy. This would mean R* NYC didn't verify the contents either though.

I was wondering about that too. According to this article from VGC, they claimed that Rockstar had sent them an updated tracklist with all of the newly missing songs now intact. But I don't know if that's legit or if VGC is trying to save face after posting what was essentially inaccurate information.

 

My morbid guess is that the original list R* had sent to the media is probably a sign of things to come when Vice City and San Andreas hit their 20th anniversaries (if not sooner).

 

3 hours ago, Spider-Vice said:

I wonder if it's because they could still get sued if they let current players play the games with the unlicenced soundtrack in the files. But the music isn't actually active and it's already been distributed so... It's literally the only reason I can think of.

If the unlicensed tracks are only disabled via script, that wouldn't conceivably stop someone from enabling it via a mod later on. It would be the Hot Coffee situation all over again. And there's no doubt that Rockstar would get sued to oblivion. The record industry as a whole are incredibly obtrusive (and anal) when it comes to copyright protection.

 

Overall, Rockstar should have done a better job overseeing GSG's development of the GTA trilogy. Even better, they should have just paid licensing rights for the cut tracks to begin with.

 

Edited November 13, 2021 by shinsta312