Flying Scotsman
Getting There
You do realize that most of what they made from sales goes to pay for the 5+ years of production it took to make the game?
Not to mention cash card payouts go straight to keeping servers online, creating content, and fixing glitches. They aren't greedy, if you're seriously upsetthat Rockstar gives players a way to fund the game and get rewards for it, then you should return your game and go play games made by EA
Their budget was $265 million. They made ~$3.5 Billion as of Feb 4th 2014. They have made around 12 times the money in profit and that number is ever growing. Basic problem solving will show they've earned their money back (and then some) already (quoted from a Rockstar Support thread).
Not decrying the use of cards (as many have quoted my post and decided that it was the case - they're like Apple products. There's always a better, and cheaper alternative but you'll always have someone with money falling out of their pockets, wanting something to spend it on and ignoring the alternative, and better products which sit beside it - or in this case, someone who wants to play 'clean') but I am decrying that it's at every turn and thrust into your face. Want to buy some ammo but spent all your money on insurance because of someone griefing with no money and blowing up your garage? Looks like the money you've grinded is coming out of your pocket! But wait....you're out of cash. Come on over to this shop and drop £64 if you please (of course, there are cheaper tiers but those will burn up a lot quicker).
Yes, you've got to have a method to pay the bills (which is perfectly fine) but when you shove a real world money solution into your face that's a step too far. I don't mind them when they're hiding in some obscure menu but I do dislike the fact that if you aren't holding cash and say, need to get some health back from a vending machine *pop* - here comes the prompt for me to drop money. Same can be said if a car gets destroyed and the offending player has no money to pay for the insurance claim. You drop real cash to recover virtual cars all because of someone griefing. Leave the match I suspect you'd say. That's nice and all but it isn't getting me my car back. Grind some missions I would also hear you say - You can only grind so much before it loses its edge and becomes a slog.
Of course, you may agree with some points, disagree with some (or most) or fly off the handle with assumptions but that's how I see things.
God I hate Rockstar, making us earn our money to buy upgrades and cool things. Why can't they just give everyone a billion dollars so we won't have to play the game they created for us and instead just sit around in our garages admiring cars we didn't earn.
Then once we have our billion dollars we can complain that there isn't even anything to do anymore cause Rockstar suck so much and made a bad game!
*sarcasm*
I don't think you entirely understood the paragraph you quoted. I was pointing out that if they made the game less of a slog (referring to grinding the same missions endlessly) and made Shark cards less obvious (tone down the prompts to buy one), I suspect players wouldn't have the everlasting (and nagging) feeling of "I'm not paying for virtual cash. I'll glitch it instead!" and thus, Rockstar wouldn't have as much of an issue with players duping cars and selling them etc.
If you didn't have the sarcastic and assuming attitude, you might have not completely missed the point I was trying to make and running with an assumption (which is completely wrong and based on what petty comments you would find on a Youtube video).