After much hype and anticipation, Rockstar Games released the beta of Red Dead Redemption Online, the multiplayer version of the wildly popular Red Dead Redemption 2. With the story mode version of the game having shattered sales records and gained broad accolades from players, and the billion dollar success of Grand Theft Auto online, Rockstar is clearly hoping to have another solid moneymaker with RDR2 Online. Will gamers be on board?

Rockstar’s critically acclaimed and controversial Grand Theft Auto positioned the company to release an online version of the game at a time when in game micro-transactions for A title games was in it’s infancy. Despite being riddled with exploits and a steady stream of modders and hackers, Rockstar nonetheless managed to earn truckloads of cash from ‘Shark Cards’ which granted the purchasing player an amount of in game cash. So much cash, in fact, that the in-game purchases have now exceeded the sales of the actual game, ironic considering that to play the online version for free, you must first have purchased the base game.

Fast forward to today, and Rockstar has finally brought a new incarnation of it’s fantastically popular title set in the wild west, Red Dead Redemption, not so aptly titled Red Dead Redemption 2. Despite bearing the sequel 2 moniker, the game is actually the third in the famed Rockstar franchise, but unlike it’s predecessors, Rockstar decided that RDR2 would release exclusively to Sony Playstation 4 and Microsoft XBox One consoles. While this has left PC gamers wondering if a non-console version is in the works, from this writers perspective, the walled-garden nature of consoles combined with the past troubles with hacks and exploits in the PC version of GTA Online, it isn’t likely.

The online version of RDR2 was not released at ship time, instead the game shipped with ‘story mode’ only, the single player adventure that is captivating, breathtaking and frankly, a bit moving. With incredible graphics, outstanding voice and motion capture acting, Rockstar has set the bar pretty high in the role playing genre, putting players into a fictitious America in the late 1800′s. The beta version access was staggered, allowing tiers of players who had purchased collector editions and pre-orders in first, then day one players, day two, and finally on Friday November 31, everyone who owned a copy of the game could play online.

The launch of online and initial feedback from players? The launch was impressive in terms of stability and scale - however Rockstar clearly flubbed the launch for ‘ultimate edition’ players on Xbox One, promising them early morning access on launch day, only to have players on that platform left out to dry for most of the day while PS4 players made their forays into the new open world multiplayer adventure.

But let’s get to the heart of the matter shall we? Rockstar has been accused of many things by players of the the RDR2 beta, including the game not really being a beta at all. Articies in Forbes magazine have been quick to cry out that Rockstar stands to lose ‘billions’ on the online franchise and other complaints have been posted in droves, largely about the seemingly illogical in game economy.

As a sideline analyst in gaming for nearly 2 decades, I find Forbes to be highly irresponsible in making profit/loss claims about Rockstar, who is owned by Take-two games, a publicly traded company. I would argue that, just because players and some ‘so-called journalists’ think they understand what a beta means in the context of RDR2 Online, and what is truly at stake for Rockstar, doesn’t mean they do understand it. I myself have had some ‘really?’ moments while playing RDR2Online, no small amount of frustration, and have seen a lot of ways the game can improve. While I hate the idea that the in game economy makes such little sense to me, with the micro-transaction store still not open to players, and Rockstar being basically the inventor of this style of online multiplayer game - I actually do think they know what they are doing, and that they have a lot at risk, so they are taking no chances.

Let’s look at some of the critical assumptions and talking points.

Rockstar needs both a game that attracts and retains players and is profitable, but they must be successful at the latter for the former to matter at all.

In their position, they simply have to err on the side of the utmost caution because there are so many variables in play, I cannot stress this enough. Rockstar is a highly data driven company with probably petabyes of data related to the pros and cons of an in game economy, thanks to the experience they have with GTA0. For one thing, this explains the lack of a PC version.

While players might complain that many of the loved and highly enjoyable activities were removed from the story mode version, such as horse taming (and selling), stealing from shops and other profitable means of acquiring cash are simply too dangerous to allow, at least for now. Rockstar knows full well that players will seek, discover and publicize any means by which to earn money or experience fast, so it has literally had to create a ‘most restrictive’ scenario while they study the data and figure out the path ahead. For those wondering, yes, this is what it means to be in beta for a game like this. Remember the first part, ‘attracts and retains players’, in my opinion, is Rockstar’s single greatest risk, a balancing act where they must keep players ‘happy enough’ while they rapidly figure out how to balance the game.

They don’t have the luxury of getting it wrong, but there is a chance that their actions may seem to be ignorant or greedy by players, I myself have felt that Rockstar has been a bit blatant about showing it’s greed here. That said, it’s Rockstar, not Goodwill, and they are not here to make ‘some money’ or break even, they want to make tons of money and history has shown that when they get it, they will reward the players with new content on schedules that put most other publishers to shame.

One thing I can caution Rockstar about is this: Be careful to make the game fun for more than just 14 year old PVP players with 24 hours a day to play. With a lack of a feature like GTA Onlines ‘passive mode’ where a player uninterested or tired of the often meaningless player killing can become invisible to PVP, Rockstar is dangerously close to creating a scenario where like-minded idiots, I mean PVP “Greifers” could prevent peaceful players from engaging in the game at all. It would take very little for players of a more tormenting nature to grind up to the most powerful weapons in the game and simply camp the story and mission progress points located throughout the game.

I’d also caution Rockstar to be way more communicative with their intentions about the game, because I sense that players feel like their silence represents a lack of consideration, perhaps making players feel that Rockstar only cares about the money (which they do, but you have to care about players to get to the money).

Finally, I think Rockstar got it right in GTA Online when they made most clothing and cosmetic items fairly reasonable for players to purchase - customization equals desire to retain in these types of games. With so many ways to capitalize on micro-transaction type activities and items in RDR2 Online, this is one way I think Rockstar might be missing the boat.

Then again, and this foot to the question so many people ask (and so many claim to know), is RDR2 Online a ‘real beta’. Yeah, it sure is, but gamers are confused about the label because they see a lot of polish, things work well, the game scales fairly decently. Yeah there are super annoying game play issues, but what most players don’t realize is that this beta requires players to play the polished game, to engage in the activities that work well and still understand that, behind the scenes, Rockstar is analyzing massive amounts of game data and that the beta part is running simulations and predictions to see what will achieve the dream - an online game that players love and keep playing that makes Rockstar scads of money.

There are tons of ways to get this wrong, but probably only a few ways to get it exactly right. If anyone can, it’s Rockstar and I for one have some confidence and faith in these guys. I’ll see you out there on the lonesome range.





Nullsaurus, who wishes to remain anonymous, is a digital media and video game analyst, and a data scientist by trade. His first game was Pong, and his first computer was a TRS-80 with the super cool cassette tape drive and 900-baud modem