GTA Trilogy Update Removes Dev From Splash Screen, CEO Responds

Perhaps Rockstar felt they didn't want to advertise a company that disappointed so many people

How entitled can this CEO ***** be after he accepted to take over such a massive project with a small and untalented team that managed to botch the classic GTA games over the last decade on mobile and PS360 and did the same thing with DE, but a whole lot worse! Their previous patches managed to fix one thing and break a few more, and they treated the Switch version the worst!
The latest patch is the merit of Brendan McNamara’s company, not of Dog ***** Games. They should have never laid their hands on such beloved games

@AnonyQ Perhaps, but it's still kind of a ***** thing to do. They worked on this game so it feels petty to remove them from the splash screens, even if they're still listed on the credits.

@KoopaTheGamer I have to disagree. It's like a CGI company doing a really bad job on a film, then having to call in someone else to fix it. If the original was really bad it's totally justified to remove the original company's name

@Flashlink99 It's not only the fault of Grove Street Games. Rockstar's QA really messed up here. They should've tested it properly and not rushed it out before it was finished. Bad quality assurance, too tight schedule and limited funds can break even the greatest developers. And the responsibility of those three is with the publisher.

@KoopaTheGamer I feel we'll never hear the whole story but yes, lots of blame to go around

Rockstar is the one to blame for allowing the collection in such a poor state to begin with, not Grove Street Games.

Really weird that Grove Street Games also did the excellent work on ARK for Switch. They basically turned an unplayable port into something really impressive. It's still ARK, but that's commendable.

so bad to read these and feeling not really cool seeing them on Chat fight.
Both doing a incredible good job

@HingryHuppo Vice City on iOS was also Grove Street Games

If the rumours are true that Rockstar pushed to get it released when they did to get a game out for the holiday season before it was finished then yeah that's a pretty crappy thing to do.

This psychotic. I can't imagine a reason they would remove them from the opening unless Rockstar was threatening a lawsuit.

It's too easy to think Rockstar 'fixed' the games when ultimately they decided to release their flagship games in the state they were in, for the price they did. Who knows what time or financial constraints Grove Street Games had placed on them.

As for the lastest update, it's looks a lot better even on Switch, the Atmosphere is much improved. Vice City sunset looks great and San Andreas even has the little clouds of mist that blow in during a rain storm as they did in the original, plus a better match for the original colour tinting. Still missing ambient occlusion under cars on Switch so they look like they are floating at times, and vehicles weirdly speed around in circles in Vice City airport for some reason. They also fixed the unfinished looking mismatched map screen in Vice City, that previously appeared as if someone had roughly cut and pasted two versions together.

They are certainly a lot better overall now than at launch, but would still have a way to go to be definitive in my opinion.

Performance hasn't been improved even a bit, and that's all anyone needs to know about this update. A mediocre game with stable performance is a 6, a great game with performance issues is a 2.

If I was a 21st century snowflake, I might think it a bit misandric that 'dick move' is used pejoratively.

I'm not, so I don't, fyi. It does indeed seem like a bit of a dick move, but I'm not sure that going public with that opinion is going to help GSG going forward.

The childish drama that seems to gravitate towards video games now a days...is it because of social media, the fact that all ages participate, advertising disguised as journalism?

It's pathetic and everyone falls for it.

"After all the controversy why would you even want your company’s name to be there?"

Because it's part of their portfolio and experience, warts and all? Sounds like a question from someone who's never done much in creative domains.

Fewer splash screens is a plus.

They ought to just combine the logos in a single screen or make them skippable. With a movie, you might only have to sit through it/them once. With games, I don't want to sit through a dozen splash screens every damn time I play, and especially so if the game itself isn't even loading in the background, forcing us to sit through splash screens plus loading screens! 😠

I'm always for less splash screens, unless they're covering a loading time, as they just make it longer for me to get to playing. I remember using a hack on Borderlands for PC cause the number of screens was so excessive.

@sevex Masahiro Sakurai agrees with you. He didn't include Dolby Surround in the latest Kirby game because it was one less splash screen to sit through when you boot it up.

@Andee hah, smart guy!

I remember for a while in the PS3 days every game was having to include a splash screen for a video codec. Imagine the amount of time the world has spent collectively viewing that stupid screen!

Regardless of the annoyance of splash screens, the thing that jumps out at me is the claim that GSG provided patches and that Rockstar sat on them this whole time.

I don’t see the issue. Grove is still in the credits. They just rightfully don’t have the “badge of honor” of appearing on the boot up because quite frankly, ton of GTA fans are still pissed at them.

Double standards, they plague the industry.

Everyone needs to remember that there is a symbiotic relationship between developers and publishers at this scale.

Rockstar Games sold over 200m copies of GTA V. It regularly tracks on the top 20 games sold in the US, and along side their parent company, Take Two, generates billions annually. GTA V and GTA Online being key components to that revenue.

Whether Grove Street Games (GSG) is responsible for the poor state of the ports is irrelevant considering the brand and market context. Rockstar should not have let it go out in that state. They’re accountable and need to accept that.

Unless the splash screen was causing performance issues, it should remain as is. If Rockstar is removing the splash screen, especially after the developers are working hard to fix issues, it sounds like double standards.

Critically, we need to understand if the removal was intentional and if so, why.

@JohnnyMind Agree. I’ve actually always been against splashcreens at the start of the game, because they just advertise themselves. And then kick out people who did like 70% of the work (just guessing).

@PROPS I mean the Tweet might not have been the most dignified thing to post but in my opinion it was pretty childish and petty for Rockstar to take the time to remove their name from the title screen in a patch in the first place...

I don't really feel comfortable with all the hating on Grove Street Games when it may well have the been the case of Rockstar not giving them a decent budget or timeframe, especially if they were having to use AI for so many of the assets. They seemed to give their own team who worked on the current patch a lot more time on it.

Dick move but on the other hand, remove all splash screens and just get to the game. Everyone button mashes past them anyway.

The audio is flat and the radio stations have been gutted. Still sticking to the original PS2 releases on any future replays even if they have fixed the lighting.

I was playing GTA 3 yesterday. It’s just like I remember it being from the PS2 so it must actually be better than it was as old games generally aren’t as good as I remember them being. You know load times and save points etc . It was noticeably a lot worse than I remembered when the remasters first came out but still playable.

Someone may have answered this already, but is it worth playing now on Switch? I love Grand Theft Auto 3. I think it's because it's the only game that doesn't give the protagonist a name. If it plays fine now, I'd love to buy this and get back into it.

@Flashlink99 Still though, they did make it. It is a jerk move for Rockstar to have allowed them credit in the first place, then later decide against it.

Eh, I'm not fond of a lot of logo in the beginning of the game, just put it on the credits screen in the final credits.

Well I cant say much either way as I don't care about thug simulators, but I know NOBODY is reading credits at the end of a game, especially 30+ hour games with thousands of names. So they have been effectively removed as far as any eyes that will see their name will be about 0.

@KingMike I agree that Rockstar has its sizeable share of fault. If they cared so much about the classic GTAs, those games should have been given to a more skilled staff, in terms of size and experience, from the very beginning, as well as enough time to get the games ready. Still, it doesn’t give an excuse to anyone involved in this disaster.
Seeing GSG gave me flashbacks of playing the mobile GTAs over the last decade and seeing the disaster that was San Andreas HD on PS3 (which basically was the mobile version but printed on a disc, with horrible performance and bugs). I had my doubts from the beginning, but when I saw the Trilogy on release I thought to myself that this was worse than the mobile ports which they used as a base for the “Definitive” Editions.
I will always have the GSG logo on my Switch case of the Trilogy, to remind me of who was originally responsible for developing this mess tho, so Williamson doesn’t have to worry that his company is cancelled (unless Rockstar decides to print new copies without their team on the back)