I've read that there is some complaining about the Grand Theft Auto 6 pre-order. I'm posting this the day after the two options went up for sale. Now, I haven't read any actual complaining. I avoid comments and social media like they are literally toxic. I've only seen articles about some very predictable complaints. I'll address the major themes I saw:

1. I don't care that it is download-only. If there was a physical release I'd have to download at least 300GB of updates before I'm allowed to play it anyway. Discs are now pointless unless they include the final, fully patched, game.
2. $80 to pre-order a game with a trailer and no actual gameplay footage? That's fine too. I bet it's going to be like Grand Theft Auto 5 but with better graphics. It seems unlikely that when it finally downloads I'll find it's anything other than that.
3. $100 to pre-order it with vague descriptions of extra stuff. Sure, whatever. That's what extra stuff in a game costs now. Is it worth $20? Guess I'll find out the hard way.
4. Some of the usual suspects are upset that a game set in a fictionalized version of Miami seems to have a lot of non-white characters. Good. I hope they are miserable.

Look, I paid $70 to pre-order Mortal Kombat II on the Super Nintendo. This is a real number:

The gift certificate part of that receipt is how things worked back in 1994. A pre-order was rung up as a gift certificate, trust me on this. Mortal Kombat II on the Super Nintendo was incredible. I'm sure I played it for 100+ hours. If I do the dollars-per-hour math, I predict Grand Theft Auto 6 will come out ahead (even without adjusting for inflation).

I have two actual concerns:

1. The Grand Theft Auto remake trilogy was a buggy mess that they never fixed. I doubt that will happen for a major release like this though. I mean, it will be a buggy mess at first but they will fix it.
2. There are no details about the length of the story mode. There's a chance it will be short because they want to emphasize the online service instead. I figure if the story mode is only as long as, let's go with Grand Theft Auto 3, then it's still a good enough deal.

So yes, I just clicked "buy" on a $100 download-only game that I know almost nothing about. I'm totally fine with that.

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