Rockstar recently dropped a very big hammer on GTA Online players who took advantage of an exploit that enabled them to get very rich, very quickly. As Polygon explains, the “apartment garage glitch” enabled players to purchase properties and then, through trickery (which was apparently a pretty simple process), quickly turn it into millions of in-game dollars.
Obviously this is against the rules of the game, and it’s not surprising that Rockstar took steps to shut it down. Instead of simply taking away the ill-gotten gains, though, Rockstar is resetting the accounts of cheaters entirely.
“Players found to be manipulating and abusing Property trade-ins to gain GTA$ illegitimately have had affected characters reset,” a Rockstar support entry added on August 26 explains. “As part of our ongoing efforts to maintain a healthy game environment for all players, anyone found to be abusing exploits and cheats to illegitimately gain GTA$ and in-game items may be subject to penalties including cash balance adjustments, character resets, suspensions and up to permanent bans as appropriate.”
Some players are taking the ban in stride.
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Fucked Around with that money glitch and got reset lolololololol.#PS4share #GTA #GTAONLINEhttps://t.co/f4YooEOH21 pic.twitter.com/ocoIJmyykAAugust 27, 2020
Others, not so much.
@RockstarGames could’ve money wiped but ya know they just said fuck it and COMPLETELY RESET THE ACCOUNT! Fuck #GTAOnline and fuck @RockstarGamesAugust 27, 2020
Fuck #Gta #GTAOnline all I ever did was take advantage of a shitty little apartment glitch which everyone did. I get banned with character profile all reset and nothing happens to my mates. Played this shit game for years with no real way to earn quick big money and I suddenly pic.twitter.com/bAPrpNSxyYAugust 27, 2020
FUCK @RockstarGames 4 years I’ve been on GTA and you can just banned me and wipe my game! You better be taking the piss I swear to god! #FUCKROCKSTAR #FUCKGTAAugust 28, 2020
The community doesn’t seem surprised that Rockstar took steps to punish players who availed themselves of the glitch—it’s the severity of the punishment that’s raised eyebrows, especially since Rockstar hasn’t traditionally gone for the jugular like this in the past.
Fucking taken all my progress off me wiped my charater everything gone 😂 played from 2013 remember the dns codes 702billion and all you did was take my cash off me 100million on a stupid garage glitch that you idiots fucked up on and you take the lot games snapped #cumstainsAugust 27, 2020
Rockstar hasn’t commented on why it went for full account resets rather than simply deleting money that wasn’t properly earned, but one might guess that it’s using the opportunity to make a point: Cheating carries consequences. And GTA Online, for as much fun as it is, does have an ongoing problem with cheating. We reported in May that the GTA 5 giveaway on the Epic Games Store led to a significant spike in mod use, but the net result was only that griefing became extra-rampant, as opposed to just rampant.
This glitch, at least, is now gone: A Rockstar rep confirmed that the glitch has been fixed.