Ever since GTA Online DLCs became something regular, their coverage by the mainstream gaming press sort of died off slowly. Players interested in the DLC would just check the Newswire anyway, right?
Well, Cunning Stunts seemingly impressed the right people with its trailer, since the major sites like Polygon and PC Gamer covered its impending release (only one of them had any word on Finance and Felony). With Cunning Stunts getting such wide coverage, obviously the number of random commenters also increases.
In a not at all surprising turn, not one article covering the new GTA Online DLC is free of comments calling for Story DLC. Not one. Apparently, getting a single player expansion to the game is still widely demanded, in spite of numerous signs pointing to the possibility that it will never come.
Why, you ask? Simple — there is very little, even no business case for it. Sure, there are tons of people very vocally asking for it. Even if only half of them put their money where their mouth is, the DLC would make back the development costs and then turn a profit.
But. Why should Rockstar spend a lot of cash — because a quality Story DLC would be a costly endeavor — and make a bit of money, when they could spend very little cash — even Finance and Felony probably cost a tiny fraction of what SP DLC would — and make absolute freaking tonnes and tonnes of money?
Shark Cards have already made over half a billion in profits for Rockstar. Guess what you can't use in single player? Yeah, Shark Cards. Rockstar sees no reason to put together a costly single player DLC which, let's face it, only a fraction of the community will buy. Once.
They can always just put together another Online DLC, which will spur massive droves of players to keep buying Shark Cards. Not even the $GTA 8 million card would cover all of the content in Finance and Felony, for example.
It comes down to business.
Single player DLC means a big investment with low one-time profit, while GTA Online DLC means a comparatively much smaller investment with continuous mid-to-high profit.
Which would you choose, honestly? Sure, you can argue that Rockstar "already has enough money" or somesuch, but especially as part of a larger company like Take-Two, in the AAA corporate world, there is no such thing as "enough" money. GTA Online should have taught you that!
Plus, you know, the lack of any official comment isn't encouraging either. There has been plenty of rumors though.
Are you still holding out hope for GTA 5 Story DLC?
