The debate is older than the Oppressor MK II. For more than a decade, Grand Theft Auto Online has been Rockstar Games’ cash cow, a constantly updated multiplayer world that made billions. It has also, according to a vocal group of long-time fans, been a curse. The fear is simple: GTA 6 will ship with a tightly crafted single-player campaign, but then all support – including the eight story DLCs that were reportedly planned for GTA V – will be torchured in favor of a second Online mode built to sell Shark Cards.

A recent video from the YouTuber Kariyo, titled “Is GTA Online Destroying the GTA Franchise? A Nostalgia Trip to the Past,” has reignited the conversation. Reacting to it, the streamer and self-described OG (someone who has played 80% of the GTA games) laid out a raw, emotional case: the early days of GTA Online were magical precisely because they felt earned, and the shift toward a grind-heavy, money-driven ecosystem has hollowed out the franchise’s soul.

It’s a sentiment that cuts across generations, and it deserves a closer look as Rockstar prepares to return to Vice City.

The golden age of los santos: 2013 to 2016

The streamer’s recollections paint a vivid picture of GTA Online at launch in October 2013. “Back then, you really had the same status as in real life,” he said. “If you see a Lambo now and stare – you were staring in-game.” The early economy was brutal. Players scraped together cash from missions and the occasional money glitch, and owning a fully upgraded car – the Bugatti Adder – earned genuine respect. “People would give you the evil eye,” he recalled. “They didn’t even kill you out of respect, they just followed you around.”

That rarity gave every purchase weight. Apartments in Eclipse Tower, with their ten-car garages, were status symbols. There were no offices, no vehicle warehouses, no nightclubs. The selection at Los Santos Customs was limited, but the act of customizing felt meaningful. The first heists didn’t arrive until 2015, two years after launch, and players spent months grinding – or exploiting DNS servers and duplication glitches – just to afford the basics.

“I used to do money glitches,” the streamer admitted. “I’d drive into the garage, car fully tuned, no money, then drive out, park the car in the private garage, save, drive out of the garage with some more tuning, go to LSC, press ‘Sell’ on the car, and while it was selling, pull the cable in the back, plug the cable back in, money was there, car in the garage.” That kind of inventive cheese was part of the culture. Rockstar would eventually clamp down, taking the cash but leaving the cars – an in-game version of money laundering that the streamer jokingly praised Rockstar for teaching.

The eight canceled dlcs: a wound that won't heal

But the nostalgia comes with real bitterness. The streamer pointed to a fact that has been discussed in the community for years: Rockstar allegedly had eight story-mode DLCs planned for GTA V, all of which were canceled to keep the Online team focused.

“An older OG, someone over 40, of course you have to understand their anger and frustration when they say, ‘For the same old crap, we now have to forgo eight awesome DLCs,’” the streamer said. “Seriously, that’s just unacceptable.”

The cancellation of single-player expansions – especially after Rockstar had delivered stellar DLC for GTA IV (The Lost and Damned, The Ballad of Gay Tony) and Red Dead Redemption (Undead Nightmare) – is the root of the resentment. Players who grew up on story-driven games feel betrayed. “It hurts so much when someone says they don’t give a damn about the story,” the streamer said, rating his pain at 99.9 percent. “I grew up with story-driven games. Story – there was nothing else back then.”

The generational divide is stark. Younger players, many of whom discovered GTA through TikTok clips of Online shenanigans, openly say they don’t care about the single-player. “Screw the story, I just want GTA Online,” the streamer quoted, wincing. “It’s such an insult.”

From split-screen to shark cards: a brief history

The streamer walked through the evolution of GTA multiplayer, starting with San Andreas’ limited two-player split-screen mode. “There were two icons scattered around the map, and these allowed us to play Terror Mode or the Runaround Mode,” he said. It was charming but primitive. When GTA IV launched in 2008, it brought the first serious online mode: free roam for up to 32 players, standard deathmatch and team deathmatch, racing, and a progression system. The streamer wasn’t impressed. “It was a bit of everything, but nothing substantial,” he said.

GTA Online in 2013 fixed that. The open lobby system, persistent garages, apartments, and the promise of constant updates made it an immediate hit. But the pressure to keep the content pipeline flowing eventually led to bloated economies, aircraft with homing missiles, and a grind that felt more like a second job than a game. The 2013 dream – saving up for that one cool car – became a distant memory replaced by rotating weekly bonuses and the Oppenheimer-esque arms race of weaponized vehicles.

What this means for GTA 6 online

The streamer voiced a worry that echoes across the community: “I’m a little worried that they’ll just churn out a story that lasts like 30 hours or so. Sure, it’ll be awesome, but they’ll deliberately keep it short.” He suspects Rockstar will treat the single-player as a polished but brief prologue to the real money-maker: GTA 6 Online.

That fear is not unfounded. Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar’s parent company, has repeatedly highlighted the recurring consumer spending of GTA Online as a key revenue driver. The logical business move is to replicate that model. But the emotional cost, as the streamer argued, is the erosion of the franchise’s identity.

“What if it didn’t happen? What did we miss out on? What would it be like, just like the zombie mode in GTA 4?” he mused, referencing the canceled single-player possibilities. “It keeps me up at night.”

The question is not whether GTA 6 Online will be profitable. It will be. The question is whether Rockstar can recapture the sense of earned progression and community that made 2013 special, or whether it will lean even harder into pay-to-advance mechanics. The lesson of the early days is that scarcity and difficulty create memorable social dynamics. A server full of chrome Comets and stories about glitch money is more compelling than a lobby where everyone already owns everything.

As one viewer in the chat wrote: “Jailbroken PS3 – you could kill people online with that. Wow, crazy. Only criminals here.” The line between in-game criminality and real-world hustle has always been blurred. But if Rockstar turns GTA 6 Online into a frictionless consumption machine, it may lose the very thing that made the original so addictive: the struggle.

The bottom line

The debate over whether GTA Online destroyed the franchise is not going away. For every player who spent 14 hours a day leveling up in 2013, there is a teenager who bought a modded account and never touched the story. Both are valid users of the product, but Rockstar faces a choice about which audience to serve.

The streamer ended with a plea: “I respect both modes. It’s not like I’m saying I like one less than the other. But I also understand every OG who’s extremely angry.” That anger comes from love. And as GTA 6 approaches, the hope is that Rockstar remembers that the best memories of Los Santos were not bought with Shark Cards. They were earned.