Question: When do you know you've hit the so-called video game popularity-hump, when gaining any more publicity might actually hurt later on?
Answer: When the existence of a future installment of your flagship franchise hasn't even been confirmed yet, and people are already bloody tired of it.
If you see "GTA 6" title="">" or "GTA VI", it is pretty much guaranteed to be a sloppy, badly written collection of month-old baseless rumors and include several links to similar (read: identical) articles on other sites, which also incidentally link back to the starting point. The whole thing is one poorly concealed circle jerk of pathetic excuses for journalism.
Thing is, considering how much potential GTA Online has for expansion, save for further content updates, Rockstar should step away from new game in the GTA franchise for a decade or so, ideally.
Unfortunately, the AAA industry is stagnating. While the new generation and a recent shift in popular demand have shaken things up a bit, the fact that Call of Duty is still getting annual releases, and is also successful, is frankly saddening.
Note, this isn't a direct attack on the CoD franchise or its fanbase, rather a troubling trend in the industry. If any franchise with annual releases is still successful after 10 or more games, it would be an issue. While we've hardly been getting a whole new GTA every year, between the standalone releases and the ports, we're almost at an annual release scheme.
Rockstar has proven that they are among the top game developers out there, so it would be great to see what else they can do other than open-world crime simulators. Rockstar has demonstrated that their writers really know what they're doing, so if they'd dip their fingers in the story-driven action RPG pool, they'd probably produce another blockbuster. Again.
Do you think GTA should be left alone for a few years, or do you want the next installment yesterday?
