While Grand Theft Auto Online has helped tide players over from Grand Theft Auto 5 to an inevitable Grand Theft Auto 6, the next version of the online multiplayer should make sure to capitalize on one of capitalism's greatest innovations: online shopping. Even after a decade since its launch, Grand Theft Auto Online is still delivering new content for players with yearly updates ranging from new vehicles, weapons, missions, and more. But while these updates showcase the developer's creative ambition and expand the gameplay experience for players, GTA Online hasn't optimized its in-universe shopping experience.
As a series, GTA has developed its satire in order to balance action-packed albeit surreal gameplay with its real-world emulation. Though its parodies of existing brands and companies likely only began as a way of sidestepping copyright law, GTA 5 demonstrates that these cheap imitations can be more than just a stand-in for the real deal. So just as GTA 5's Lifeinvader parodies the pervasiveness and creep of social media as seen with Facebook, GTA Online has the ideal opportunity to tap into the resurgence of online shopping where it can take a satirical deep-dive into e-commerce, consumerism, and mega-corporations insatiable need for more.
There's Never Been A Better Time To Parody Online Shopping
Despite not being a "new" concept, online shopping has become a hot-button issue for many mainly due to the companies calling the shots. Whether it's the inhuman treatment of their employees the union-busting preventing those same employees from improving their working conditions, or the power they wield by dominating the online marketplace, there are plenty of things GTA Online could take aim at and satirize. Arguably, since Covid-19 caused a global lockdown and increased people's dependence on online shopping, GTA Online could parody companies like Amazon, Walmart, and others by using the pandemic as the inroad to bigger issues.
But while a parody of Amazon would generate many anti-capitalist messages such as the dangers of corporate monopolies and the disregard for human welfare for the sake of profits, GTA Online could balance criticism for the CEOs and these companies alongside the consumers who continue to buy from them. After all, these companies only exist thanks to their customers, and with the inherent consumerism that goes hand-in-hand with capitalism, people are all too willing to keep shopping online. Similar to how people feed into Lifeinvader's social media in GTA 5, so too could GTA Online reflect the flaws of e-commerce from both sides.
Online Shopping Has A Lot To Offer GTA Online
Beyond just evoking real-life brands through surface-level names, color palettes, and slogans, online shopping via players' phones creates an immediate and convenient means of acquiring all sorts of items, weapons, and more without the need to travel to individual places like GTA Online's auto shops. Not only could this take a passive shot at consumers' desire for same- or next-day delivery and even criticize the worrying simplicity of obtaining firearms in modern-day America, but it could reflect current "innovations" e-commerce companies are attempting. For example, Amazon's dystopian delivery-drone blimp is so absurd that it's just begging to be added to GTA Online.
Moreover, while a satirical counterpart to a company like Amazon or Walmart would help figuratively and literally economize how players bought things in GTA Online, this same company could become an integral part of GTA 6, GTA Online, and beyond. If GTA does continue to reflect the real world, then sooner or later e-commerce will have to be addressed, not only because it's a mainstay of modern living but because it offers in-game potential. Characters or missions could connect to this company, such as the employed protagonist wanting a better life or a heist to steal a delivery-drone blimp, and maybe with a megalomaniacal CEO-inspired antagonist to boot.
Grand Theft Auto Online is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.