Rockstar knows that with the extremely wide popularity of the GTA franchise, especially outside of the hardcore gaming community, they have plenty of chances to cater to their fans with new content. Considering that in the past few years, the mobile gaming industry has far outperformed the regular gaming industry in terms of revenue, it would have been unsound from a business point of view for Rockstar not to jump in.
Over the span of a few years, Rockstar has gradually remastered various 3D era GTA games and released them on mobile devices with updated graphics (who would have thought that phones are more powerful than consoles, even old ones?), new controls and in some cases some new content as well.
The first game to get the mobile treatment was GTA III, celebrating its 10 year anniversary. Every year since, Rockstar has released the games of the 3D era in consecutive order. Liberty City Stories was the latest release. It made its way to iOS, Android and Kindle devices with a staggered release.
Chinatown Wars, which by virtue of its release date technically is part of the HD era despite being a top-down game with graphics evocative of the cartoon style seen in cover-art and promotional media typical of GTA has also seen a mobile release. Rockstar even experimented with their other franchises. They have breathed new life into Max Payne and releasing the first game of the shooter franchise on mobiles as well.
Rockstar is holding a sale on these mobile games which will be ending on the 18th of May, Wednesday. GTA III, Vice City, Liberty City Stories and Chinatown Wars are available for merely $2.99, San Andreas for $3.99 and Max Payne Mobile for just $1.99.
All of these games are complete and uncut ports of the originals. Considering how much content was crammed into each GTA game with all the easter eggs, side missions, customization, mini-games, exploration and on and on, these prices are a steal. San Andreas is understandably the most expensive, as it has the largest map with three major cities and four continents included instead of the standard of one — and a lengthy story to match.
Chances are that Rockstar will continue this trend of re-releasing GTA games on mobile, meaning that Vice City Stories is next in line. Of course, we'll probably also see Max Payne 2 on mobile soon as well, possibly accompanied by Bully.
Will you guys be picking up any GTA games on mobile?
