GTA 5 Online: Rockstar Games to Give Away $0.5m In-Game Money

Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA 5) has broken a slew of Guinness World Records on its way to becoming the best-selling game of the year. Indeed, the game's popularity seems to have surprised Rockstar Games, whose servers have laboured under the strain of demand for online gameplay and have encountered major technical hiccups, producing crashes and server disconnections that have affected millions of GTA 5 online players.

In a bid to compensate players for their time and resources, the game publisher plans to place a special stimulus package worth GTA$500,000 ($0.5m) into the GTA Online bank accounts of all players who took part in the multiplayer event in October.

Rockstar says it will credit the in-game currency worth $0.5m in two equally split instalments in order "to keep the current worldwide in-game economy balanced".

In other words, the first in-game cash instalment of $250,000 will be credited to GTA Online bank accounts as early as next week, with the second instalment proposed for the end of this month. However, the exact dates are still unknown.

"For players who experienced cloud server errors, connection issues, and lost game progress and characters in these first days of GTA Online, we hope this GTA$ helps to facilitate a fresh start or makes your continued life in Los Santos and Blaine County extra sweet," states Rockstar Games on its official blog.

The game publisher lists a few eligibility criteria to qualify for the GTA$0.5m deposit in your in-game bank account:

• You must play or have played GTA 5 Online during the month of October 2013.
• Players are required to install the latest GTA 5 title update (v1.04) which is expected to release next week. The v1.04 update is expected to fix all instances of issues causing vehicle purchase loss, besides enabling the addition of GTA$ stimulus cash worth $0.5m from Rockstar Games to the players' online gaming bank accounts.
• NOTE: Rockstar will announce on its Newswire section, after each instalment of GTA$ cash deposit is made into players' bank accounts, and the credited in-game money should automatically appear in the GTA Online bank accounts of eligible players.
• All eligible players can redeem the GTA$ credit by just downloading and installing the upcoming v1.04 title update. No other special action is required.

Those who need more in-game money may purchase bundles of $0.5m (in-game dollars) for $10 or £6.99 via the GTA Online store.

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