Rockstar to Award Gamers $500K In-Game ‘Stimulus’ Loot for GTA V Online Woes

The initial roll out of Grand Theft Auto V's online multiplayer mode wasn't as rocky as, say, SimCity's from earlier this year, though several "technical issues" did crop up that prevented players from enjoying the experience on the first day, and even a little while longer. Even though Rockstar Games warned that there would be growing pains, the developer is sympathetic to what gamers had to endure and has decided to reward them handsomely for their patience.

How does half a million dollars of in-game currency strike your fancy? That's a lot of loot, and it's exactly what every online player who has played or will play Grand Theft Auto Online this month will receive, starting as early as next week, Rockstar Games announced.

GTA Online

"In order to keep the current worldwide in-game economy balanced, we will be providing this GTA$ to players via two deposits of $250,000. We will announce specific dates as soon as possible, but are currently hoping to be able to make the first deposit by the end of next week (after we’ve confirmed that issues causing game progress loss have been fixed) with the second installment to happen by the end of the month," Rockstar Games said.

It's not so much a peace offering as it is a 'Thank you' for being patient while all the bugs are stomped out. To qualify for the generous stimulus package, you must play or have already played GTA Online at any time during the month of October 2013. Players will first have to install a forthcoming title update (1.04) tentatively scheduled to arrive next week. After that time, two payments of GTA$250,000 will be deposited into each player's GTA Online bank accounts.