Why Red Dead Online Died

How did Red Dead Online go from one of the most hyped online multiplayer games of all time to a disappointing, abandoned shell of a game?
This video is a deep dive into the tragedy of Red Dead Online, telling the story of it's beautiful rise and quick fall.
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[@robokast]

subscribe to my new channel that brings back the old style of youtube: www.youtube.com/@solacespeaks

[@Techistgaming]

Hell yeah man, thanks dawg. Appreciated❤❤

[@tylersays-]

No

[@muhammadamaar7936]

ooo

[@echotrash466]

R* dropped the ball on making private servers for people who didn't want to play in public servers riddled with modders (not all are bad, but a lot are). The game is beautiful, and long slow trail rides are nice. But there are plenty of things that should've been added to help with replayability. I like doing missions, but I don't ever play in the mini games with people, not even the races. I don't touch the mini games. But my friends are different and want more excitement, but I don't always know what we should do other than try and do bounties and sorta Blood missions. I know that my friends probably wouldn't really want to just do a nature walk with the horses. There is a lot to do in the game, but there are some things they could add to kinda scratch my itch just right. Owning a house is a big one. We kinda get that with the Moonshiner's shack. You "customize" it by adding things to it. But it's just not the same. I think adding gardening would be fun. You could maybe get a garden bed from Harriet, since she's the nature freak. Then you could grow food and feed your horse for free. :3

[@rasheednathagamingchannel]

I WAS BANNED FROM BOTH GRAND THEF AUTO ONLINE AND RED DEAD ONLINE WAS ON BOTH TUESDAY 7 DECEMBER 2021 AND MONDAY 13 DECEMBER 2021 AND SATURDAY 19 FEBRUARY 2022 AND SUNDAY 20 FEBRUARY 2022 FROM RASHEED NATHA SOUTH AFRICA GAMING CHANNEL ONLYS

[@animebro14]

It died because rockstar acts like it doesn't exist

[@thomasquwack9503]

Wizards fly around giving gifts and curses to those who it pleases while the devs sit and let their creation fester

[@Techistgaming]

or maybe because Rockstar didn't know what to do and be lazy, not following what players wanted in the actual game. They could've added heist like GTA Online but in a more fun way, but they added boring missions and more ways to be bored by playing a useless game.

[@IMeanMachine101]

😢😢 cry more

[@oxydayz]

@@IMeanMachine101 u clicked on this vid just to cry about it

[@DingaLingu]

I read this in arthurs voice

[@hellyesitsjoe]

Would love if they added cabins/properties, Imagine having your own cabin, being able to display ledgendary animals you hunted, maybe having the ability to grow food in a garden, A very simple update that would add so much to the game

[@genetic2202]

Unfortunately that would require rockstar actually putting effort into fixing rdo 😔

[@tylersays-]

Rockstar cares about money and only money. I support the use of mod menu's. #FKsharkcards

[@theforgeryttv6449]

@@genetic2202 You would think Rockstar would contract another company to maintain RDO given the vast amount of money they have but they chose to not care at all. I won't be surprised if they shut down the servers in the near future to stop paying for the servers.

[@michaelschneider4701]

You can do all that on pc with mods

[@Johngottisentme]

@@michaelschneider4701 it not everyone has pc lol

[@bluwolf9357]

Rockstar took this project as an experiment to see how much money they could make by doing the bare minimum. They failed and the game died.

[@darksamiri4304]

YUP they wanted to make the most money with little to no effort expecting it to perform as well as GTA V, forgetting of how simple and boring GTA V Online started from.

[@mr.eternal4439]

Could it be that they need to prioritize GTA 6 , it may be more complex

[@TheSurlySoutherner]

They won't learn their lesson either. GTAO has so many ways of making good money now without needing to buy Sharkcards I guess their revenue stream from that has probably slowed up now and they wanted another revenue stream, but they fucked it up.

[@ninochaosdrache3189]

And GTA 6 online will be the same.

[@SL4PSH0CK]

They figured the 1800's western setting centered in a wilderness has less materialism for shark cards to use in contrast to GTA online 😭

[@baguettysheppy1740]

It's sad that in a cowboy outlaw game you can't even rob trains, rob banks or anything else that would make this game better. I would love to spend all the money I have grinded for on a property but we don't even get that either. It's sad to say but I love to fish and hunt more than do anything else in that game because what is there really to do other than do the same missions for the hundredth time

[@IllIlNIllII]

You can rob a train But its not really fun to grind for it And clearly not pay enough

[@dorokaiyinvil5705]

​@@IllIlNIllIIno you can't Only in story mode You cannot rob trains for money online stop lying,besides, everyone who's ever played it already knows that

[@IllIlNIllII]

@@dorokaiyinvil5705 Covington Emerald. I think i played more rdr o than you then You probably didn't have enough capital to play that robbery

[@ElCaracortada]

​@@dorokaiyinvil5705And what is the Covington emerald train robbery? you really don't know anything about this game

[@ElCaracortada]

​​@@IllIlNIllIIHaha Exaclty He must have 3 poor randomly looted Captial in his pocket Clearly not a Legend of this game Let him enjoy his vegan Naturalist rôle

[@buttergolem8584]

While GTA Online started small and build up on Microtransactions over time, Red Dead Online overwhelmed you with Microtransactions right from the start but with not much to offer.

[@crispcoffee7958]

Yes and they thought they could get away with it, if not for these meddling KZbinrs

[@A1stardan]

All those microtransactions, nothing to spend the currency on. No properties to buy

[@ryanlopez1050]

@@A1stardanthe moonshine shack and camp but that’s literally it, I really wanted house properties

[@christinesulyvahn6043]

Exactly

[@SL4PSH0CK]

Yea GTA has that illusion of role play when you can afford things due to materialism, and guessing it had interiors that require loading screens to fill the world with businesses and owned establishments. compare to RD2 seamless interiors and limited stuff to own set in the wilderness.

[@Techistgaming]

This guy just explained the whole thing so truthfully, I played RDR Online and it was SO boring, nothing to do, so many hours into killing people and not even gaining anything. This video tells it all.

[@TheRastafarianStuff]

tbh making gold bars and money was a skill issue in rdo before they ultimately nerfed all the ways people that really played knew (around summer 2020). I always had at least 50-60 gold bars ready just to be ready in case they added new content. also, the game was supposed to be played in crew - or multiple crews, where each member have a sale of shine or hunting wagon and each call each other when they sell the stuff so everybody eats. i remember doing 5-6k in a hour and half of switching posse and doing sales with people

[@blobama]

i tried playing it after competing the story twice but i got bored after literally like 45 mins

[@piotr78]

​@@blobamayea I got bored very fast. But they got me to try it, something that's never happened with gta online

[@nimrod5469]

Bro I have like over 20,000 pedestrian kills. An entire cities population worth of people dead cause there ain’t nothing to do lmao

[@mariobadia4553]

​@@TheRastafarianStuffthen the games of failure because most people weren't playing in a posse they were playing alone.

[@eimiooka5]

It was killed by R* in a most brutal way.

[@stuarthough8440]

yup the reason it died was laziness

[@SL4PSH0CK]

When the figured there's least shark card to use in-game.

[@Cam-jy7jh]

the only thing i wanted was undead nightmare man, they hinted towards it and everything

[@BennyMagz]

I remember the random zombies popping up online

[@hammywoods]

I played rdo way back in the day and did a bounty mission with friends. We rode up to the jail house with our bounty and instead of turning him in, they all just stood there. I was so confused I thought my game froze. I asked my friend what happened and they said, were waiting for the timmer to run out. That's when I realized wasting time = more money

[@sosweetbaby4]

Yup I did that all the time...that part really sucks...that's when I use the bathroom, smoked a cigarette and roll a blunt 😂

[@hammywoods]

@@sosweetbaby4 Haha the amount of times my friends asked me cover them while they took a smoke break or took care of their kid was crazy 😂 this game was really just another chore to keep up with, not a game to play

[@blancodiablo8788]

The building in Valentine that we all seen being built and never gets finished is RDO in a nutshell

[@shahnoorahmed1462]

It does get finished by the second epilogue but so wasn't the case with RDO

[@Temtatork]

Instead of wasting time and resources on the online mode, they should have made DLCs for the single game mode

[@Comment66]

Online still had so much Potential just ignoring it and just update story mode sounds kinda stupid imo.

[@deepism]

@@Comment66 I mean you're both correct.. They should've went full send with RDR Online. They made their bed. If they didn't wanna do it, they should've just made DLC for campaign. They failed at both. Brutally.

[@trustworthydan]

Literally no one I know has played the single player tho. We were all excited for a cowboy gta online.

[@alphaevolution]

I was surprised that people had so much expectation of RDR2 online. If anyone played the original red dead online then you'd know it was just as empty.

[@deepism]

@@alphaevolution Yeah so was GTA IV's. So was GTA V's when it launched.

[@michaelderkacz5526]

I logged into read dead online 4 times total then gave up The entire multiplayer experience is either griefing people or doing gtav contact missions adapted into rdr

[@CJ2808]

Idk what it is but lately when Ive tried to get on the lobbies have been friendlier. Rode by multiple groups while delivering a full wagon of supplies and each time I was left alone or escorted and helped

[@arcticrebel581]

​@@CJ2808I don't know about that my friends and I recently logged in a few days ago and has soon as we entered valentine we were shot at by 3 griefers that were using the cards that made it impossible to lock on to them that's not even the worst part after a few minutes another player joined them using the same tactics we weren't using anything like that after about 15 minutes it became 3 v 16 all 16 were griefers doing the same thing unless Rockstar does something to stop griefers or make it a more even playing field I doubt we'll be back on it For context we are only rank 18 39 108 All of the others against us were above 400 basically they have no life

[@devinpledger2251]

You guys never experienced it. It takes time but game opens up around level 100

[@Zaleoritov]

If the gold reward for missions could be fixed by adding a single "-" to the code, just reverse how the timer works

[@pfm57]

07:23 One misconception in the video script: "more content" does not add depth to a game. More content just adds "width". New mechanics are what adds depth to a game.

[@CJ2808]

Exactly. Im seeing some of these comments saying they wish they added houses to buy and while I agree, we cant act like that in and of itself wouldnt just be 5 minutes of "ooohh, ahhhh" before realizing you still have nothing to do. You have to actually add stuff to do

[@ZetsuboNoShima]

I wish they added the mechanic to rob pedestrians/trains/coaches and shops, just like how you do in single player, being an outlaw with a bounty in RDO is all I wanna do but it’s impossible to make money being an outlaw with a bounty as it stands

[@Kacper42PL]

'If it doesn't bring it millions with no effort then it ain't worth not abandoning' is probably a motto at moden R*

[@chiefbalupa5256]

I played Red Dead Online, i LOVED it, until i ran out of things to do, and didn't want to grind spend money to access more activities. So that was it. My favorite memory of the game was when my brother and I loaded up a cart full of animal pelts, and i had to guard him and the haul as we traversed an extremely treacherous snowy mountain plateau to sell them at the nearest town. That was awesome, but it was unfortunately the peak.

[@christinesulyvahn6043]

Welp, GTA online is basically that

[@chiefbalupa5256]

@@christinesulyvahn6043 It is, but there's way more to do in GTA outside of the ridiculously expensive shit, not to mention, GTA online has no premium currency, you can acquire everything just through cash.

[@stuarthough8440]

chiefbalupa they didnt care about this after the blood garbage update came out the reason the abandoned it was laziness and they didnt care about the game and if u still play it now it proves that u still care about it

[@chiefbalupa5256]

@@stuarthough8440 no, I haven't played it in years, and I only spent 39 hours in it.

[@Dragonaut111]

I was exactly the same, you're meant to entice me to play your game and make me want to spend money out of enjoyment, not bore me into spending money. Never spent a dime on the game and feel bad for people that still play it, god forbid you still actually spend money on this.

[@ghillie2626]

its sad dude i loved this game but they gave us nothing to do at a point

[@stuarthough8440]

eventually they wanted to make content that took very little effort

[@paulbryan2611]

Their biggest mistake was nerfing the reward mechanics. This killed the game, in my humble opinion.

[@HAcoreRD]

Rockstar f'ed up hard. I loved RDO because it was laid back and chill. I could have a long day at work and just come home and hunt NPCs, farm maps, or mess with other players. Heck, sitting in the taverns and starting a war with the cops was fun, especially when players came to end your spree. Rockstar failed the players

[@jani1905]

whenever rockstar tried to get me to grind so much its insane, i just used free tool to give myself millions

[@John-mn9rp]

You must be so proud of yourself.

[@keithmontgomery9741]

@@John-mn9rpBlame rockstar for their greed and shitty economy in their games

[@John-mn9rp]

@keithmontgomery9741 Sure, it's Rockstars fault you suck.

[@Havox-]

I think a humongous step in the right path would be giving the players the opportunities to buy properties such as cattle farms, normal crop farms, Tobacco businesses, private dwellings, maybe your own hotel but I think we all really just want to own properties. Further in the path or at the very start I really want to see an fps update for consoles especially next gen, we need more things to spend money on as you've said, there's maybe 5/6 things to spend your money on and it's just terrible. They can add like I said properties, wagons, boats, (Hot air balloon?) , a merry weather like service (bodyguards), pets which might come with homes, furniture (properties), features in the properties, more open world missions like stage coach robberies, very populated trains carrying wealthy people with high security, etc. Without a doubt the time period the game is set in limits what the player can really do or buy to be completely fair.

[@robokast]

great ideas!

[@Havox-]

Thank you, I just noticed I put "Tabasco " instead of tabaco lmao@@robokast

[@John-mn9rp]

​@robokast That aren't going to happen.

[@PineappleElephant68]

they should make the game playable first. dozens of game breaking bugs every time i play and i get disconnected after

[@scottneil1187]

​@@Havox-Still not right, it's tobacco.

[@andyetheridge]

Train robberies, bank heists, a lawman role, there’s an indian reservation in the north for some good old cowboys and indians. The possibilities for this game were endless and yet R⭐️ preferred the flying car!

[@mattsmustang65]

That's a great point, think about getting paid to do jailbreaks from the prison too. That could be awesome

[@LolCat361]

Red Dead Online is very fun when I play it. The only time I get bored of it is when I can't find any players to interact with or can't play the game due to hackers.

[@PineappleElephant68]

i cant play the game because missions break and i get disconnected from the servers after

[@Nobody.exe50]

love your new channel man

[@lenkink8636]

Great video but where did the hardcore island go? I loved that series

[@TheRastafarianStuff]

end 2019 and begin of 2020 were gold era for rdo. then it died, forever

[@hammywoods]

100% game died after the naturalist update

[@myoak108]

It's crazy to think rdr2 is over 5 years old

[@alexmichaluk6247]

i really think that if they had just added more "stuff" that people could actually use more people would have stayed. not just businesses but i suppose it would take more creativity to make more content for a game set in 1899 rather than just making another flying shit car for their gta behemoth.

[@alexmichaluk6247]

i mean they could have added some sort of steam boat for god sake, could have ventured deeper into the oceans or guarma as somewhere you could go

[@TheRastafarianStuff]

also, the players of rdo were alot more mature than gtao players. in 240ish levels i always played with people over the age of 24 while in gtao its very common to meet literally toddlers. now, who have the money to spend ? off course not toddlers. but who will think twice before spending money on a online game currency? off course not toddlers.

[@SilverGeFer]

The 1899 setting can easily be bypassed seeing as how GTA Online literally has flying cars. Did that exist in the year 2013? Absolutely not. Still doesn’t. Also, they don’t have to look very far to make content for Red Dead Online. Rockstar’s problem is they only focused on monetizing the mode as opposed to make it fun. I’ve got a ton of ideas myself on more content they could have added: -Imagine they added 1911 cars in Red Dead Online which you could customize and drive around the open world. It would be like horses except it’s a single purchasable vehicle. They could even coexist alongside the Horse Race game mode, instead being a Car Race game mode you could play against other players. -Improve the hot air balloon from story mode so that it can be fully controlled in Online without having to worry about wind direction. It would be a slow vehicle to kick off but could travel extremely fast eventually once it took off. Also, it would be a lot of fun if you were able to get one or two other posse members sitting inside with you. -Add a purchasable maxim gun chariot. Plain and simple. We already see a few in single player and adds to the criminal fantasy. This would also be incredibly useful to have if you’re a player that does the long distance trader deliveries. Two of your buddies could back you up by following you with a maxim gun. -Train and bank robbery missions. This would be very similar to GTA Online’s version where you have to complete setup missions before finally being able to launch the final heist with a crew and would have served as the best way to earn money. -Add a Rancher role where you can buy your own property, grow your own crop and cattle which could either be planted for yourself (like collecting carrots or any other type of plants) or be used alongside the Trader role as an additional way to increase the Materials bar by selling off chicken eggs or milk to a nearby town. -Make an Undead Nightmare Online Event for Halloween where hordes of zombies have taken over random parts of the map which players can get rid of for experience and a special currency exclusive to that event that can be used to purchase unique clothing fitting the theme of the event. -Finish Mexico and add the RDR1 map of Mexico as a fully explorable area with brand new story missions, random events and free roam missions. -Add new types of telegram missions and free roam events. There’s so many things Rockstar could have done before dropping support on the game, but they focused on greed instead of pure fun which ruined the experience for everyone.

[@SilverGeFer]

@@alexmichaluk6247Also yeah, they could easily have added purchasable boats and even a Fisherman addition to the Naturalist role to go alongside their fishing mechanics (which aren’t even used for anything in Online)

[@hunterironside9969]

for me the best time in the game was just after the new frontiers update. having those three jobs added as well as the camp. that was the peak. my friends and i played the game until 3 am some nights. that was the best time i had in online games.

[@averagechadlegionary5824]

I’d argue the grind was WAY better in RDO than it was in GTAO BC while it was harder to earn large amounts of money, all the items in game were actually affordable and realistically achievable without going through pure misery as is the case with GTAO.

[@trustworthydan]

Yeah... I'm gonna say GTA is easier to earn money. Plus anything cool in rdo cost gold anyway. The gold grind is stupid time consuming, which wouldn't be bad if you didn't have to do the same 3 missions for 6 hours.

[@averagechadlegionary5824]

@@trustworthydan I disagree BC everything is realistically cheaper while a dumpster fire car in GTAO cost millions. Gold I can’t argue against but I earned a lot early on in the Beta before the nerfs so it was never an issue for me. Missions were more entertaining IMO BC the AI wasn’t godly unlike GTAO’s AI who could shoot you through cover. Also unlike GTAO there were more passive ways of making money without having to be forced into PVP.

[@SilverGeFer]

@@averagechadlegionary5824You just reminded me of forgotten awful memories of me grinding the 10 waves mode from GTA Online when you brought up enemies being able to shoot through walls. So many times I died to that bullshit. I completely forgot about that.

[@HexGuapo]

Used to play this alot with my friends in lock down I loved it from the second I start playing and it was sad to see it die, it had so much potential

[@PineappleElephant68]

i want to play with a friend but we both get disconnected in

[@MajimaEnterprises]

I feel like the time period RDO was set in really limited what they could do with it. Like, not having cars and motorcycles was a big limiting factor in terms of new content R* could add to the game. Boats were a thing though, so they could've done more with them. Maybe they could've added purchasable boats and a business where you had to use them to transport product to buyers.

[@ninochaosdrache3189]

I don't know. The time period of GTA 5 didn't stop them from adding stuff that didn't fit either.

[@frcdstcr]

They could've let us breed horses together on our own ranch and make our own customized horse. Customizable wagons, trains, etc.

[@edmccurdy469]

I still play online... and trust me so do many others. I love to hunt and fish, and since it takes place prior to the campaign, considering Sean McGuire is in the online portion, which means, Arthur is still around somewhere...not to mention people now a days are doing 20 things at once...I can do a legendary bounty hunt, wait the 30 minutes. Cause anything less than legendary won't allow 30 minutes...less than. And that's a misconception...not all bounties have to take 30 minutes. The hunting you get more than just skin...the only fall flat is the online story, it has about 8 missions maybe? But the blood money trying to earn "capitale" which is a poor man's version of Bronte from the campaign cause. Since there has been no update, the online "story " won't continue...which sucks...but other than that...I can do outlaw or lawful without worrying about the outcome of my character 😂😂

[@TheRastafarianStuff]

now, imagine having all RDO missions and content as a single player DLC, imagine having the opportunity to tap in any one of those missions (they were pretty awesome) when you want and play them because its single player. all this online content is virtually lost soon as the MP dies, servers will eventually go down - we already know

[@ninochaosdrache3189]

Maybe there are mods adding those things to singleplayer.

[@mrppman6188]

​@@ninochaosdrache3189the mods that exist are relatively bare bones, and typically don't work together well. Especially whyems dlc and the myriad of files you need just for that. All whyems does is unlock the weapons they added to online and unlock some of the clothing for purchase.

[@michaelschneider4701]

No brothels, train robbing, wagon selling, house building, gang fights, fighting for money, down folk brawls.

[@soulace_]

I personally loved RDO. Something about it was very immersive and I enjoyed just listening to music and hunting with me and a friend of mine. As weird as this sounds I never used any online map, this game was the first time in a LONG TIME where I actually felt like exploring an open world by myself. I played the RDO standalone before buying the singleplayer so exploring the map online was obviously something fresh for me. However I never played RedM, I want to try it someday though.

[@thatsreelcreative]

You are nuts if you skipped the story for RDO which is a shadow of the single player game.

[@soulace_]

@@thatsreelcreative the story was very short, if I had a bar I think out of my over 200 hours, the first 4 hours was the story so it’s something I barely remember 😬

[@thatsreelcreative]

@@soulace_ the story wasn't short at all lol. wtf

[@soulace_]

@@thatsreelcreative man this was ages ago, the most of my hours was after I finished the story so I only remember it in increments

[@thatsreelcreative]

@@soulace_ It's okay if you haven't played the story, it sounds like you haven't. Well actually not playing the Red Dead story should be a crime. but it's probably one of the greatest video game stories of all time

[@Fizbini1]

Every second game I join has a hacker in it wrecking the experience for everyone. The worst part is I can't select solo play.

[@avengingterrier3244]

Virtually my entire channel is devoted to OUTING these griefer and hacker scumbags. I have contacted RSG repeatedly about it and what have they done? Fuck all.

[@TheUthe]

I hadn't touched this game for probably 6 years. Then I loged on again around Christmas and loved it. There is stuff to do now.

[@CrystalPrelude]

RDO and how Rockstar handled it has caused me to completely ignore any of their games further. I don't give money to stupid people... Not willingly, anyway.

[@Relica07]

When I first join RDO, I enjoy the exploring, it looked good, and the areas seem interesting. I went full in on the collector job, personally due to it pay well with cash over gold bars, but when I randomly find a treasure map, I stop to look for it, the abilities from the collector job help greatly in this. I stop playing about when the moonshiner update came out, it was OK for a money/ gold sink, also did not know at the time other players could be targeted by or target me, dynamite was my best friend, but after a month I just felt tired and moved on without even wanting to pic it back up.

[@TheCODGUY21]

Robo you are always producing quality videos

[@jackdaone6469]

What I would have preferred is some singleplayer content. Undead Nightmare 2 and/or a Sadie DLC.

[@bruce2535josie]

What the should have done is bring Mexico into the game as a expansion , and make the towns more lively I would roll into some of these towns and there’s hardly any life in the town it looked deserted.

[@cski4048]

I still play, I have three created characters. from level 50 to 417..I am older so I just enjoy riding around

[@namesomega3694]

The Muskie glitch is what probably saved this game for me compared to others who probably played it less since I was able to quickly make a few thousand with it which was more than enough to purchase the best items in the game

[@AvengedHate26]

I still love to play it here and there when I wanna be alone. And just be a brutal outlaw but yea so much lost potential

[@StagInTheBag]

I mean seriously how hard would it have been for them to just add some freaking bank heists!!!

[@lunaticmickful]

With division 2 and helldivers 2 i really forgot about RDO. But it will always in my heart, for sure the storyline.

[@murrethmedia]

5:28 Rockstar's entire business model.

[@ype8921]

I think a pretty big factor in why the handling of rdo feels so lackluster is that rockstar messed up the monetization. Like you pointed out there's not enough things to spend money on but it was also too easy to earn gold with endless daily streaks. If Rockstar made gold slower to earn they would have more financial incentive to keep supporting the game. When you already have a large portion of the playerbase with more gold than they can ever spend it does not make sense to invest a lot of resources into new content. Especially if your company's other project is GTA online, one of the most profitable products of all time. I'm sure Rockstar had an idea of where to go with the game. The Heist gameplay from gta online would translate perfectly and there are at least a dozen more themed role updates that they could've gone with. If they made undead nightmare 2 it would also have given them lots of opportunities to sell overpriced vehicles, mounts and guns with new functions that players would pay a lot for. They probably had big plans for RDO and a pretty clear idea of where to go with it. They just struggled with adding content in a timely matter like GTA online initially, gave out too much gold and failed to keep a big portion of the playerbase interested. From an investment standpoint it probably did not make much sense to them to spend time and money to revive a dying game (that had lost a gigantic amount of microtransaction potential due to daily gold payouts) when they already had the most succesfull game of all time going on with the next entry on the way. If GTA Online did not exist, I'm 100% sure RDO would've gotten the attention it deserved. TL;DR: Rockstar messed up the monetization by giving out too much gold and too little to spend on, couldn't manage to get meaningfull updates out in time to keep players interested and the game's earning potential was never going to come remotely close to GTA online. So they did the bare minimum and called it a day.

[@Pmv3tr]

A shame because the game is absolutely stunning in many respects instead they worked on gta 5 online

[@Lodinii]

we get one of these vids every year lmaoo. Congrats on being the first one I've seen this year🌮

[@Ronen-808]

I play RDO religiously. Honestly, I think it’s great. There’s a lot more to do than the story mode imo. After you finish the story, there’s only fishing. But in RDO, you can find modders blowing up towns, you can have infinite bounty hunts unlike the limited ones in RDR2, hunt legendary animals, have a moon shining and trader business, etc.

[@JBrotsis1]

All the while, us campaign players wanted at least one campaign DLC akin to Undead Nightmare. I really hope after the flop of RDO, when we get RDR3, we get additional campaign content DLC. Considering that was the one thing they didn’t try doing.

[@Athasin]

The day they came up with two different Bounty Hunter jobs that you can only do with two different types of buyable in game currency was the day I knew RDO was never going to amount to anything. Also, what's crazy is we're only 4 years away from RDR2 being a *decade* old.

[@MinnieBlues4444]

I've only played RDO a year and still loving it. Call to Arms is super challenging! 🤠👍

[@johnjay1723]

Could of done Train & Bank Robberies (like GTA Heists), added a zombie mode, used the Mexico Part of the map, a Farming/Cattling update, added a Hot Air Balloon function to go over the map. More Story missions etc, But no, all the focus went on GTA. Its a shame because the graphics are still really good.

[@firecat3613]

REO, in a way, reminds me of Kill Bill and the Last Air-bender. These movies stopped in the middle of the story. Both stories left at least two or three more people to kill or tasks to complete. With Kill Bill, we got volume 2, which completed the story. However, as seen with the Last Air-bender - as is true with RDO - we never got to complete the story! This is a HUGE issue. Add to this never ending hope an update will come along to give us closure... only leading to disillusionment and a feeling of being abandoned. But the cherry on top of disappointment mountain is the toxicity of the online game. You merely want to do your own thing? You want to go hunt a deer and not bother anyone? Good luck with that, because some toxic a-hole will go out of his way to hunt and kill your horse... before spawn camping you!

[@KoltonCass]

Imagine we got a at least half length online story compared to the story mode

[@AnkleMuncher]

With collector you progress too fast if anything and you dont do missions to get gold you do missions to get treasure maps off bodies. If you know what your doing you can get everything fast, properties, carts and content was its problem slow progress is a knowledge issue.

[@GmrDad82]

Great video mate. I feel bad for the game. I love RDR 1 and 2 single so much. And Online falls way in the back…

[@ryanlopez1050]

Starting replaying my ps4 disk on ps5 and started online over, it’s actually pretty fun at first until you literally run out of things to buy, it’s feels so unfinished , it feels like if gta online stopped right before its first heist update

[@D-DUB_GAMING-PLUS]

I feel like it was fun at first packed with alot pf potential but i pretty much agree with your outlook

[@TruFalco]

I think it's crazy, RDO has SO much potential, and the community is there, 20k (full version) + 2k (standalone) players for an abandoned game is a lot, some newer live service games would KILL for those numbers (Payday 3?), it's just not GTA, so it doesn't make GTA money. Honestly, the whole RDO abandonment killed my faith in Rockstar basically completely. Also, an important note, GTA Online wasn't big on Twitch in 2020, FiveM was big in 2020. Small, but important distinction.

[@lgbfjb1183]

There was a missed opportunity, they didn’t add heists, like group train robberies, casino heists, cattle drives where you have to drive cattle and fend off bandits, I had so many ideas that I figured someone at rockstar surely was smart enough to come up with the same ideas

[@2udders]

it died because the original RDO was better and they didnt replicate any of its original features. Remember gang wars in gta online. In RDO1 thats how the best weapons were obtained. There was a dueling mechanic for pvp. It had a lvl/prestige system that gave you exotic mounts. RDO2 had none of those features and those were really popular mechanics. RDO2 had so many game breaking bugs that it had me take breaks between updates just to wait for fixes. It didnt affect their profits, just my time. I can't tell you how many sales of moonshiner carts I lost to black infinite loading screens. There were no properties to own, just a minimally customizable camp. The customizable features capped after the bounty/trader/collector update. Wheres my naturalist camp items? Wheres my capital or legendary animal pelt / taxidermy decorations? Only two wagons available and the only thing that was possible to change about them was color. You can't buy wagon tack for your horse, you've gotta use some strange horse you're not bonded with that is slow and lame. Selling is as slow as gta onlines brown boxville postman vehicle. Id like to fit my wagon for different weather types. Give it more uniqueness. Only your character has that ability with the trinkets. My horse doesn't either. I can put a mask and a new horn on the saddle. Its minimal. GTA has so much customizable features for their transportation, but my horse... saddle bag, Nacogdoches saddle, shoehorn, braids, mustache, mask, lantern. Not much else. The saddles didnt really improve beyond the 1st update. RDO2 Story... what story. I didnt finish it because it required more than 2 people. to play. And it doesnt seem to apply to anything, as people dont seem to have any advantages to completing it.

[@omgitsbees]

what also really hurts hard is that Red Dead Redemption 1 online was really good. I still play that to this day.

[@nightman6925]

Good video mate

[@jonesnicholos]

i think all i needed was the ability to play the story mode as a every character til the end and have it where everyone who lives lives and everyone who died dies. also if u could rob banks in every town, every passenger train, every trapper, store, taylor, heck anyone. make it where u can buy wht u need from the store and then rob them and get ur money back and some. if u rob them u couldn't use them for a period of time and have a ultimate reward if u rob every store on the map😊

[@swifthexx4587]

Man i have like 2000+ hours on red dead online. I loved the game so much that i even started off by playing online and not the story mode. It was so engaging and fun. I had the best time in that game and made the best friends. I did everything in the game. Literally. But I realized the sad reality and it was no matter how much i love the game, the game is dead and has zero future. So i stopped playing 2 years ago. But again i bought in on PC and would still play if i had friends to play with. Which i dont. So im really disapointed in rockstar

[@user-ym8jt6pn5t]

I played this game last year and another player ran up when I first started. They we're a lady nun. All of a sudden they start dropping guns and all kind of stuff. Then achievements started popping left and right. So then I just turned it off and never played it again... This also happened in black ops 2.

[@Lil_bottega73]

Bro put an ad on while the bear jumpin on the screen 💀

[@mrwelshaviation_024]

He doesn’t choose

[@ChadZLumenarcus]

Stopped at 5:30 to talk about the delay of mission payout. Basically, the game has an issue with hackers. The delayed payout prevents hackers from inta completing quests. From what I can tell, GTO and RDO both have hacker issues and can't seem to fix it. Which is a shame because I loved RDO.

[@Flutterd3rp]

Don't forget the "summer" update was released a few days before summer was over

[@martynromaine8518]

When Rockstar announced GTA6 they said For the last few years we have been moving resources from RDO to GTA6 development. They had absolutely no intention for long term support for RDO

[@Jay18367]

They wanted it to die on purpose. It’s obvious.

[@marcofantesini5058]

Is still very cool create your cowboy and go around free. That being said the grind both in time and boring activties is heavy, but when you reach the point you have the weapons clothes and horse you want the game become pretty good once you start play just for fun

[@jesselarsen1801]

What made me not want to play was the push to purchase gold bars and it was just so confusing

[@sauronsrighthandman301]

When I got RDR2 I was late to the party. Loved the story mode and tried the online. My very first role was the Bounty Hunter because, lets be honest, they have the best outfit. It was also the best way to earn gold at the time, and when I got the paddy wagon it became even easier to claim large bounties, which meant more money at least. From what I saw when I played, I immediately realised what R* was doing. Everything that should have been in the game at launch was absent, and the biggest flaw I found in the game was no voiced protagonist. A non-voiced protagnist works in GTAO because GTA doesn't have much interaction with the world to begin with. In RDR2 story mode you can have conversations with literally every NPC. Without a voiced protagonist, the world just feels empty and lifeless. You can see people but you can't live with them. The lack of robbery and heists of any kind is also a major flaw. And no text chat makes the game feel lonely and empty. Not everyone likes or can use voice chat. This game is literally set in 1864, they could have added a portable telegraph to the game to justify text chat and nobody would've batted an eye. Your video is great but I disagree with your assumption. I think this game was a deliberate experiment to see how many microtransactions they could get away with without nuking the game. If the game dies in the process they couldn't care less because GTAO existed and people would just play that instead. It is utterly shameful that they did this to what could have been a wonderful game.

[@SantiagoDuke69]

i wouldnt mind map expansion or map updates and some new free roam content for all the NPCs

[@vladvladimirov4399]

RRDO could have been so insanely good. It’s got such an amazing and polished foundation, beautiful map, great gameplay, etc. It’s rare that a game can actually be so entertaining and wonderful to just walk around in, not even including actual gameplay. RDR2 is one of those rare cases. All they had to do was keep adding some things that encouraged exploration, and just have content that isn’t just the same few copy/paste missions over and over and over. And my god just a LITTLE BIT of COMMON SENSE PAYOUT BALANCING. Certain fun activities that take a long time have zero payout while others that are super boring and take half the time give 10x the payout. Forcing people to sit AFK for 1/2 an hour at the end of missions to get the full payout. No logic at all. It would have been fun to just roleplay as a criminal but they don’t even let you do that because you literally can’t rob anyone, can’t rob stores, can’t rob trains, and slaughtering a town and getting a bounty is pointless. In RDR1 the wanted posse system worked properly. People would get wanted and posses would chase them all over. In RDRO you get a few second popup saying someone you can’t see and usually can’t even track is wanted, and if you accept it the reward is such a pathetically small amount that it’d be more efficient to just shoot a nearby rabbit and sell it. Most of the time the player bounty you accept never even pops up, and you never see them. THEN, even if you manage to see and get near the player bounty, it’s borderline impossible to take them in alive, dropping the already absurdly, uselessly tiny payout to half. The fact that RDRO is still fun to occasionally play despite all of this is proof of how amazing it could have been. Literally all of these things are just common sense issues that could be easily noticed and fixed by anyone who spends even an hour or two every few weeks playing the game. And the entire company does absolutely nothing. Because the reality is that RDRO is clearly a literal *zero priority* game for Rockstar. Even though it would take almost no money (especially for how much money this company has) and just a few employees to fix most of the issues and turn RDRO around, the reality is this: GTA is the only thing they care about because every single Basketball-American plays it and is obsessed with it because their entire culture revolves around crime and degeneracy, and since they have no impulse control and massive egos, they will collectively spend massive amounts of money in GTA micro transactions to show off to other Basketball-Americans.

[@JesseAnderson]

I actually played a lot of the first Red Dead Redemption Online, so the emptiness of Online 2 was so baffling. The whole thing was just this awkward gold farming simulator where Take Two held every aspect of the game hostage behind their microtransaction currency. I'm genuinely amazed that the game I quit in 2018 remained just as horrible all the way to 2024

[@oddgoblin1400]

I love this game. Rockstar failed it which is pretty hard to forgive.

[@SereglothIV]

I like the activities in RDO and I didn't mind the grind. The game had an amazing atmosohere and was fun to play for me. The reason it got boring was the lack of content to grind for, to spend that money and gold on. And the gameplay itself wasn't that different from GTA Online, aside from having a horse instead of a car. It's not like GTA has the most amazing gameplay ever. When you think about it, the gamaplay loop of GTA is: - drive a long distance - kill something - drive a long distance back - profit The key difference being that you actually have a lot of stuff to spend the money earned afterwards. In RDO there's nothing worth buying after you get a couple of weapons and a good horse.

[@mattsmustang65]

I played RDO, most all I did was look at a map of where collectibles were that I could trade to the gypsy lady to make a quick buck. I was very disappointed that I couldn't do train robberies

[@reseractionz]

0:57 that are not all the player playing right now because most people bought full game and play rdo. its about 30-40k on steam every day

[@stevestevenson3791]

RDR2 Online promised players a rollercoaster, but pushed players into the gift shop from the get go, then acted surprised when people were mad. Many such cases in gaming.

[@Galena_Fuchs]

I play it. I enjoy it. It's mostly all I play. But then I mostly confine myself to an 800mtu solo server to preclude grief, to making videos, and occassionally running coop missions with friends. Public free roam should be immersive and fun, but it's mostly aggravating- which is not one of my gaming goals.

[@ryanbowles9777]

It's so amazing that it died every time. I still play to this day. The lobbies are slap full

[@hammeredllama]

I feel like they could have added a lot of things from GTAO to RDO like Heists or protection missions depending your honor level, properties, more business, etc. they could have done goofy stuff like the alien vehicles and guns from GTAO and do like unicorn horses and crazy looking guns. GTAO also got casinos and strip clubs im certain western times had gambling parlors and brothels you could go and visit. They could have easily taken a LOT of stuff from gta and just slapped a western theme on it an players would probably be fine with it

[@insertusername7253]

We will never get that undead nightmare event

[@thusspokethestruggler]

Red Dead Online really filled a niche within the Rockstar community that was lacking within the core of the fanbase. Single player and PVE content. GTA Online is the kinda game where you know what it is. It's fast paced, action packed, and you were constantly having to grapple with other players whilst managing your empire. It scratched so many of these RPG-like itches all at once to LARP as your criminal. If you wanted a more down to earth and slow experience? No problem! Boot up FiveM and explore the multitude of RP servers and such. Red Dead Online offered a unique blend of both grounded PVP and built in immersion all in one package. I have played GTA Online since it launched. RDO was a breath of fresh air away from the high octane big brother. Just exploring the detailed venues, tending to my horse, or spending an evening hunting buffalo's and deer was a needed change of pace. A chance to get back to nature (figuratively) and just enjoy the community. So many people banded together and formed these RP communities without the need of third party softwares. It was kinda crazy, to be frank. I think Rockstar didn't see the large number returns that GTA did and gave up via reallocation of resources. Red Dead Online, with enough love and care like the main game received, could have been a paragon to go hand-in-hand with GTA. Could have even been their primary creative moneymaker while they transition GTA 5 to GTA 6 online. But those days have sadly came and went. I'll always think back to my time in RDO with nostalgic happiness and novelty frustration. I would go through all the teething troubles again just to recapture what it was like to gallop to camp for the first time, one more time.

[@PicklesofRedemption]

Then theres the hackers i haven't joined a single server where i dont get immediately murdered by some hacker :/

[@ponraul1221]

I wanted to enjoy it and tried to the first month of the “beta”, but the grind was insane, the character customization was way worse than single player, and support was very slow. Never picked it up again.

[@KatanaBladeKris]

Im still getting sweated on in every lobby, it still alive

[@Chris-iq5pr]

I missed out in 2018 and playing just last year!

[@bluetitan9149]

People who play rdr2 in pc now playing a moded rdr2 called RedM. It’s really fun and added all things that rockstar never did.

[@SL4PSH0CK]

Tldr: Rockstar figured theres only a handul of thngs you can monetize on a 1800's western era centered in a wilderness in contrast to the illusion of rpg provided by mateialism of GTA 👀

[@NotSoBentSpoon]

GTA Online doesnt feel like a world that's being lived in. That's why your health-stamina-deadeye cores felt important, everytime I drank, smoked, or ate something, my character reacted instead of just "health up". And truth to be told, the only reason I'm addicted to both is due to everything dying quickly as much as I am. I was sick and tired of MMO Genre and gear, and GTA/RDO Online were decent escapes from them. Too bad, one is dead, the other is about to die.

[@grimreaper6060]

I'm glad I don't even play Online games/modes. I'll just stay with the outstanding Story Mode for Red Dead Redemption II.