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🦉 WE READ 881 OWNER COMMENTS
Of GTA: what owners actually say
Owners report GTA Online is plagued by omnipotent cheaters and serious security flaws, while Rockstar's anti-cheat update collateral-damaged Linux players
What owners complain about
- Linux/Steam Deck blocked overnight COMMON
Rockstar added anti-cheat that nuked Linux and Steam Deck support with no warning, despite the game being a top 10 Steam Deck seller for years. Players report feeling cheated after having paid for the game.
- Cheaters are essentially omnipotent COMMON
Hackers can drop unlimited money, spawn vehicles, teleport all players to them, lock people permanently in cages, rapidly cycle weather, strip millions from accounts, and unlock all collectibles for everyone in the session. Multiple owners call lobbies 'unplayable very regularly.'
- Innocent players banned with no appeal SOME
Players report being banned for receiving money that a cheater 'gifted' them — weeks of gameplay and achievements lost. Rockstar's ban emails state bans are final and appeals will not be considered, confirmed when support ignores follow-ups.
- Remote code execution risk SOME
Multiple technically-minded commenters discuss a real RCE exploit in GTA Online, noting that the many ways mod menus can crash other players was an obvious signal that RCEs were waiting to be found. One commenter quit PC online gaming entirely because of it.
- No single-player content in a decade SOME
Owners express frustration that Rockstar hasn't released a sequel or single-player update in ten years but managed to impose an anti-cheat engine. Some refuse to buy specifically because of the forced online focus.
What owners love
- Enduring single-player experience
Despite all online issues, owners note the game has remained a top seller on Steam for years, and some express being big GTA fans who specifically want single-player or couch co-op experiences.
- Story mode still playable solo
Players report that if you cut peer-to-peer connections to other players, you can still get a solo session — the single-player experience remains functional even as online deteriorates.
Surprising patterns
- The anti-cheat that blocked Linux was implemented 10 years after the game's release, making it impossible for existing Linux players to have voted with their wallets in advance.
- The anti-cheat was reportedly already bypassed by a free cheat menu on Windows almost immediately after implementation, meaning it primarily hurt legitimate Linux players while failing to stop actual cheaters.
- Rockstar apparently recommended disabling the Windows Event Log service for performance, which commenters note is a critical OS component required for services like Task Scheduler — not an extraneous service.
- The game's netcode is so poorly architected that one commenter noted the client-update handshake used to consist of an enormous JSON of all updates ever done to the game state, parsed naively, and was only patched by an interested third party.
- One former PC gamer was so fed up with GTA V's cheater problem that they abandoned PC online gaming entirely and bought a console, relearning controls from scratch.
WHO SHOULD SKIP IT
Linux or Steam Deck users and anyone who cares about account security or playing online without being harassed by omnipotent cheaters should avoid this, per owners who report blocked access, unappealable bans from gifted money, and active RCE exploits.
Synthesised from 881 real owner comments across 5 platforms. Every point is grounded in the comments — no marketing, no AI guessing. How we do it →