Despite having a vast amount of potential and being slated as the Next Big Thing in online gaming, GTA Online is now widely recognised as something of a failed experiment. First there was the connectivity issues, the server crashes and the deleted game saves, and following that was the huge influx of people taking advantage of an exploit in order to fill their wallets up with huge amounts of in-game cash.
But rather than throwing in the towel and simply giving up on Grand Theft Auto V‘s online component, Rockstar is instead looking to ban and punish those who have hacked the game during a maintenance period today.
In a post on the Rockstar Newswire, the developer stated that it would NOT punish those who had “innocently” accepted cash from other players, but would be looking to lay down the law on those who had “engaged in cheating”. However, the hacked in-game cash will be removed from ALL players’ wallets and banks.
Rockstar said that those who had cheated may be placed in isolated “cheater pools”, or they could be banned from GTA Online altogether.
The developer also apologised for the problems the cash exploit may have created for players, saying: “We’re grateful for the community’s continued support in dealing with these issues and once again apologize to anyone that has had their Grand Theft Auto Online experience sullied by these exploits that broke the game’s natural flow.”
