This past week has been groundbreaking and momentous, to say the least. Many video game developers, studios, and games journalists from all walks of life have spoken out. Studios have made donations to charities and have been highlighting their own programs that help the black community. However, Rockstar Games has just now spoken on how they will be showing solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Today, between 2 pm EST and 4 pm EST Rockstar shut down the GTA Online and Red Dead Online servers. This is to honor the legacy of George Floyd. This announcement was met with a mixture of anger and love from the respective communities. One consistent point that has been made, is this felt like nothing more than standard server maintenance. That the message from Rockstar Games could have been stronger. Even if they had shut servers down for 24 hours to show solidarity. To make an even stronger point they could have donated a portion of the microtransaction money made on these games over the past few weeks.
Black Lives Matter. To honor the legacy of George Floyd, today, 6/4/20, from 2:00-4:00 p.m. ET, we will be shutting down access to our online games, Grand Theft Auto Online and Red Dead Online.
— Rockstar Games (@RockstarGames) June 4, 2020
While the message behind this was one of love. It ultimately felt like just another brand making sure to take stand in order to fit into the current social and political landscape that we are in. Hopefully, we will see more from Rockstar Games in the upcoming weeks.
What do you think about these server shutdowns? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check back for the latest gaming news and information.