GTA 5 player locked out of game after 219 hours playtime

The modern digital age can be a wonderful thing. Access to your favourite content without ever leaving the comfort of your own home. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much the only convincing that I need.

However, it also has plenty of drawbacks. For starters, most publishers sell digital content at the maximum RRP, despite having less overheads costs and before you say “wait for the sales” physical content obviously have sales too. In many ways when you “buy” digital media, you’re essentially leasing it from the property owner and trusting it not to remove that product from all existence. In that respect, you might as well be paying a subscription fee. Recently, Sony found itself in hot water after it pulled thousands of digital content from players' accounts without offering refunds.

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Look, I do appreciate the convenience of digital content and being a disabled gamer, it can be handy switching content on the fly on a particularly bad chronic pain day without having to leave the sofa. That being said, I will always prefer physical media. Imagine a world with no physical comics and no freshly printed pages to smell. Would life even be worth living?

For what can be bought at the same cost as the digital counterpart, you own that physical copy and unless you misplace it or it's stolen, you will always “own” that content. This is why I feel sympathy for the Grand Theft Auto gamer who is the unfortunate topic of today’s story.

The gamer in question is Twitter user The Duke, who has recently lost access to an alleged legally obtained digital copy of GTA V that was paid for on Steam in 2015. The Duke claims that around 219 hours of playtime has been lost. “F*** DRM, f*** online only,” said the understandably irate gamer.

In a follow-up tweet, The Duke said that the game files have been verified, a clean install of Rockstar Games Social Club launcher has been performed and various recommended fixes online have been attempted, yet access to GTA V has still not been granted. The Duke has contacted Rockstar Games for help and I hope that this issue is resolved ASAP because it shouldn't be happening.

Grand Theft Auto V is out now on PC, PlayStation and Xbox. As for the next game in the series, GTA VI will be released in 2025 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.