Realtime downplays GTA Online talk

By Robert Purchese Published 7 May, 2008

As rumours swirl that Rockstar's buying APB.

Eurogamer has been told by a credible industry source that Realtime Worlds bought the All Points Bulletin licence back from publisher Webzen so that it could try and sell it to Rockstar as GTA Online.

The developer, responsible for Xbox 360 game Crackdown, claims this is the first it's heard of it, and would only reveal that the team resecured the rights to APB to "give themselves some options".

"One of which is to launch it and support it themselves, and the other one is to look for another partner; someone else who may well be interested and have the infrastructure [to support it]," a spokesperson for RTW told Eurogamer.

Realtime Worlds, of course, has strong links with Rockstar, as it was founded in 2002 by developers who worked on the GTA games. Its early 2007 release Crackdown was a free-roaming, stylised, superhero take on GTA principles that won it critical acclaim.

All Points Bulletin, due out on PC and 360 (and possibly PS3), is an urban MMO where players choose between being the criminals or the police trying to stop them.

If it were to become GTA Online, it would be Rockstar's first attempt at a massively-multiplayer game, building on the publisher's experience with online gaming in titles like Table Tennis and GTA IV.

Rockstar has been contacted for comment.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 4 years ago

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  • BadBoyBonner #1 4 years ago

    Very interesting if true.

  • Britesparc Verified Creative, ITV #2 4 years ago

    I'd rather Real Time tried to stand on their own two feet, and not become part of the GTA brand. I'm sure APB will be a success and doesn't need the boost GTA will give it.

    However, I'm a big fan of the company so I guess whatever makes them a bigger success will be alright in the long run! Just wish they'd make Crackdown 2!
    Edited by 1 at 07/05/08 @ 11:29

  • muscleblade #3 4 years ago

    Crackdown is still the best sandbox game this generation imo. Realtime worlds can do this on their own.

  • mikew1985 #4 4 years ago

    Hmm, that actually is interesting, seems possible certainly.

  • Xerx3s #5 4 years ago

    Unfortunately, all the chavs disagree.

  • anomagnus #6 4 years ago

    i'd be a cop

    i'd kill chavs

  • HarryB #7 4 years ago

    RTW are cool, I live near them :D

  • monkie_king #8 4 years ago

    I think "developers who worked on the GTA games" understates it a bit. RTW was founded by Dave Jones, who is also the man who founded DMA Design, known these days as Rockstar North. He's also the chap behind games like Lemmings and Blood Money.

    Anyway, this seems entirely credible. The GTA brand has actually been completely underexploited (if it was an EA game, we'd have GTA Racing 3 and GTA Brawl 6 by now). A subscription-model GTA MMO makes total sense, and APB looks close enough to the GTA aesthetic that it could be made to fit the template without too much extra work.

    And RTW needs it too, APB is likely to be completely overlooked in the marketplace if it's in competition with GTA. Make it part of the GTA family and it'll make millions.

  • poloman #9 4 years ago

    i'd be a cop

    i'd kill chavs

    +1 destroy the chavs woop!

  • BadBoyBonner #10 4 years ago

    I think the real question is - seeing how well GTA IV preforms in multiplayer (putting aside the hideous front end and dropping out) - Do Rockstar need to buy APB at all? Seems Rockstar have the tech and a wealth of assets already in place.

    Just been back and watched the APB footage on you-tube (frame rate doesn't seem as shocking after being exposed to GTA IV as opposed to Crackdown which seems quite a bit smoother but with more object popping).

    The presentation doesn't seem half as novel after playing GTA IV for a week. In fact it seems like GTA IV but from an alternate future. Didn't like the median stipple effect thats applied to everything in GTA IV initially, but have come to like how it fuses the grubby world together visually - makes Crackdown and APB look very sterile.

    Are RealTime wanting to offload APB at cost? Even then, it can't be that tempting for Rockstar who have spent a considerable amount of time and effort developing their proprietary tech and assets.

    One thing that is much better than GTA IV in APB is the character creation tool (love the Miyamoto one) but that could hardly be described as the most difficult aspect to develop in a game of GTA IV's complexity.

  • anomagnus #11 4 years ago

    The Dirty Harold Revolver

    +5 Str
    +12 Agi

    +53 damage against chavs
    Your attacks ignore 193 points of burberry armour

  • Eighthours #12 4 years ago

    It's a very interesting possibility, and would seem like a very good fit. It would give Rockstar another monster hit, without having to spend 3 or 4 years developing an MMO game themselves.

  • monkie_king #13 4 years ago

    Think it also depends a lot on how much MMO-type infrastructure is going on with APB. I agree that the multiplayer gameplay part doesn't look leaps and bounds over GTAIV's. I forget what else APB is supposed to have going on in terms of a persistent world, character development etc etc.

    I do think that a dedicated GTA MMO would be a massive success for Rockstar though, it's really a question of whether it's more economically sensible to make one from scratch, or buy one off their old boss.

  • BadBoyBonner #14 4 years ago

    Well I always thought they were canabalising their own game (RTW with Crackdown - effectivley removing features that could have been in it; instead being left out to give APB more meat) if they had have expanded Crackdown to include the multiplayer aspect of APB in Crackdown on release - or as the downloadable content - Crackdown would be a much stronger brand than it is now.

    It would also have made GTA IV's multiplayer almost an expected non-event - only the lack of it would have ruffled feathers - instead it's being hailed as something of a landmark (rightly or wrongly - depending mainly on if you played the hacked PC version).

    Realtime had a fantastic window of opportunity - that window has shrunk considerably since GTA IV release.

    Rockstar could crush any chance of Crackdown 2 by releasing "Hancock" ( new Will Smith film character) as a down loadable extra for GTA IV - even I'd buy that as an extra ( N.B. I am currently boycotting any DLC purchasers - donations welcome :).

    EDIT - that's how to do a car jacking in Liberty City http://ww w.imdb.com/media/rm3387266816/t...
    Edited by 2 at 07/05/08 @ 15:05

  • Schiraman #15 4 years ago

    Seems quite possible, though TBH I'd much rather Realtime Worlds just produced APB themselves. For starters I don't see how GTA-branding the game would do anything at all to improve it, and secondly some serious competition for GTA can only be a good thing. If APB does well, maybe that'll encourage Rockstar to do GTA Online and we can see some real progress in this market. It's about time the MMOs started diversifying a bit.

  • indotoonster #16 4 years ago

    Mmm... an RTW-produced GTA Online. Is this the brand to finally challenge the hegemony of That Big MMO Franchise We Do Not Speak Of? It also started from a jealously guarded, high-quality game franchise...

  • Amblin #17 4 years ago

    Given APB is an instanced pvp mmo ala guild wars, i doubt rockstar would go for this, after all why bother? APB is nothing special in MMO terms, just a glorified multplayer game with pretensions of being an MMO.

    Rockstar have already shown the ability to give the impression of an MMO with GTA IV already, take a look at the social club and police blotter for an example of collating gaming information. All Rockstar would need to do to make GTA IV the same as APB is to add clans and some simple dynamic objectives to their multiplayer games modes. Then just carry on as now and collate information from the gamer tags & station accounts.

    If Rockstar go for this then great! Realtime games have been good so far but being a hard nosed bastard I wouldn't waste my cash on buying APB or realtime, it just isn't an economical purchase.

    More likely the release of GTA IV has shown APB to be lacking in comparison and is now looking like a still born donkey with little chance of mass appeal on the Xbox360.



  • zedzee #18 4 years ago

    Could someone write Elite as an MMO please?

    Has anyone told Mr Braben?

  • WinterSnowblind #19 4 years ago

    I like right beside Realtime Worlds, they often come to my University to do lectures. :)
    Unfortunately they never answer questions like these.

  • Crea #20 4 years ago

    Looks like these guys are stealing your news:

    Some spanish gaming site

  • PearOfAnguish #21 4 years ago

    Was your 'credible source' a tramp you found in the local park swigging from a bottle of cider?

  • holsty101 #22 4 years ago

    Hey Zedzee

    There was an article in Edge about a year or so ago (can't remember the issue number, whichever one had their 1st article on The Outsider) where they asked Braben about Elite. He said they'd been using Frontiers previous games (Dogs Life, Rollercoaster Tycoon etc) to develop some of the systems for the next Elite (A.I., animation etc) & that there were plans for separate single player & MMO focused versions.

    None of thats on the wiki page for Elite 4 though ... It does say it's ready to go into production after The Outsiders released :)
    Edited by 2 at 07/05/08 @ 16:44

  • erp #23 4 years ago

    @monkie_king x 1 billion on the Dave Jones point. I was about to write the exact same thing. Come on EG!

  • alpha-0ne #24 4 years ago

    OK i think most have no idea what APB is about if they think a 16 player gta4 game is anything like it

  • actionfitz #25 4 years ago

    while i reckon they could do very well standing on their own with this game...
    an MMO with GTA in the title and Dave Jones - one of the creators of the GTA francise - in the credits....

    would be:

    A
    LICENCE
    TO
    PRINT
    MONEY

    I reckon...
    :)

  • optimusprym8 #26 4 years ago

    Crackdown is an excellent game in it's own right, it didn't need to be whored with Halo3 beta keycodes to artificially inflate it's numbers (but did). Linking to GTA would just dilute APBs message