Gloomy omens are leading Red Dead Online players to protest for Rockstar paying more attention to the western.
We were wrong when we anticipated a big comeback for Red Dead Online after the announcement of the Blood Money update. Despite good beginnings, the content offered around bounty hunters and the criminal underworld did not satisfy a content-starved but passionate community for long. Especially in view of the sharp contrast to GTA Online, which was lavishly supplied with content.
Now the desperate players are starting a protest action on Twitter, trending the hashtag SaveRedDeadOnline. There are also concrete triggers for this: an in-game teaser that refers to a year full of adventures and at the same time the (announcement) of a (permanent?) switch from weekly to monthly bonus and update campaigns on the part of Rockstar.
This seems like sheer irony to many players: on the one hand, support seems to be reduced, on the other hand, they are supposed to be happy. Part of the problem is Rockstar’s nebulous communication, so players often don’t know where they stand.
Long-suffering community
From expectation comes disappointment: as many fans measure Red Dead Redemption 2’s multiplayer mode against GTA Online, Red Dead Online can hardly do well. GTA Online still enjoys huge popularity eight years after its release and generates corresponding revenues for the developer. One extensive update follows the next.
According to all available measurements, Red Dead Online seems to interest far fewer players, so the development of new content is probably less worthwhile. What is understandable from an economic point of view, however, can do little to reconcile a passionate community that sees above all the game’s abandoned potential.
Protest as a last resort
Should the monthly bonuses indeed represent the further roadmap of Red Dead Online, the signs are not good for the future of Red Dead Online.
Numerous players are now seeking Rockstar’s ear, sending the Twitter hashtag (SaveRedDeadOnline) into the ether, which has been tweeted 200 times within the last hour. Even these are not astronomical numbers that make the underlying problem recognisable.
Many users, for example in the 339,000-fan strong (Subreddit), have long been calling for the end of Red Dead Online and expressing disappointment, sadness and anger. One user on Twitter thinks that Red Dead Online has so few players precisely because Rockstar produces too little content:
Red Dead Online doesn’t get updated because it doesn’t make Rockstar any money. But it makes no money BECAUSE they don’t update it.
Fans made a list of great update ideas, here. https://t.co/nCV1t1RACZ
No updates, no gold bar purchases.SaveRedDeadOnline
– Combat Wombat (@WombatWasHere) January 6, 2022
What fans inspire
Red Dead Online now definitely has a lot of content that can keep you busy for hundreds of hours: You earn money by working as a bounty hunter, liquor distiller, treasure hunter, hunter and trader as well as a naturalist. Many horses, weapons and cosmetics can be earned or bought, there is a still incomplete main story and numerous side missions. With Blood Money, a storyline about the criminal underworld was even added in July 2021:
Hardcore gamers who have spent hundreds or thousands of hours in the game world, however, should have played through it all by now. And they want more depth and variety, similar to what is available in GTA Online.
Suggested features include:
- Housing, meaning properties and houses to own and manage
- Large-scale heists like those in GTA Online, such as bank robberies or train heists
- Single player elements from Red Dead Redemption 2
- A finale to the main story that has been open for years
The passionate work of the players is demonstrated by a particularly diligent fan: on a fan page, Yangy presents a complex, fully elaborated plan for a five-year (Update-Roadmap). Only time will tell whether something similar will happen now or whether the players’ fears will come to pass.
