Remember when Realtime Worlds bought back the rights to their upcoming GTA-inspired MMO, All Points Bulletin? It made quite the flurry of news as people gasped and pondered what would become of the new franchise. Anybody who reads MMOCrunch regularly would know that this blogger speculated that perhaps Microsoft would helm the project for Realtime Worlds given the obvious relationship the two companies have. However, I might have been wrong.
According to Eurogamer, it seems that a “credible source” has told them that Realtime Worlds has plans to sell the game to Rockstar so that it may be redubbed as Grand Theft Auto Online. While this may seem unlikely, it actually makes a whole lot of sense. Rockstar is in need of a way to grow the franchise without infringing on their deal with Microsoft to allow for exclusive DLC. Allow me to put it this way, back in 2007 it was announced that Microsoft paid $50 million to secure exclusive DLC for the 360 version of GTAIV. In that contract there were probably stipulations concerning the advancement of the series. After all, would anybody really care for exclusive DLC is a GTAV were right around the corner? Probably not. In order to expand the franchise something different, but similar at the same time would have to be done. Enter APB, a “crime” MMO that promises GTA thrills but in a massive world.
Of course, who knows if this is true. I still maintain my own speculations that Microsoft will want to publish this game and make it exclusive for the 360, but I guess at this point anything could happen.
Stay tuned for more information on this matter.