The internet is a meta-planet where you can find practically anything. It is also a place with trends of its own, and right now one dominates the video game industry more than any other.
Complaining.
The other day, Rockstar and Netflix unveiled the latest development in a partnership that goes back quite a while. That is worth remembering, because many people are discussing the news as if the two companies had only just met.
The new part is simple: the most anticipated trailer in video game history will premiere on Netflix and remain exclusive to the platform for six hours.
Naturally, the internet has decided that this is a scandal.
A paywall millions already pay for
The first complaint being repeated everywhere is that Rockstar has put the trailer behind a paywall. Technically, Netflix is one. But this is a platform that hundreds of millions of people around the world already pay for. I am one of them.
I also find it curious that we only use the word “paywall” when money is directly involved. You pay for YouTube too: either with a Premium subscription or by giving your time and attention to its adverts. Not having to take out your card at that exact moment does not mean there is no transaction.
That does not make Netflix free, nor does it mean everyone should subscribe. It simply puts the scale of the supposed offence into perspective: anyone without Netflix will have to wait six hours to watch an advert for a video game through an official channel.
Six hours.
Not six months. Not even six days.
Netflix did not invent exclusives
You also have to be very young, or have a very short memory, to present this as something unprecedented.
Specialist media have spent decades publishing exclusive screenshots, interviews, covers, demonstrations, features and trailers. Magazines did it, television did it and video game websites still do it. And yes, some of those exclusives have been tied to paid media.
The model is not what has changed. The difference is that this is GTA VI, an event capable of turning a six-hour wait into a personal offence for part of the internet.
Rockstar has already won
I do not think what Rockstar is doing is bad. I think it is a masterstroke.
A single announcement has put the company back into headlines across the international press. Even more people will be watching the clock on release day and, during those six hours, the real spectacle will unfold: reuploaded clips, livestreams, reactions, copyright takedowns and a race to spread the footage across every possible platform.
People who do not want to pay for Netflix but refuse to wait will talk about the trailer. People who consider the exclusive intolerable will talk about the trailer. People trying to find a copy will talk about the trailer. And people who already have Netflix will talk about the trailer too.
Netflix will concentrate an absurd amount of attention into six hours, while Rockstar gets the entire internet to turn an advert into an event. Both companies get exactly what they wanted.
Complaining is in fashion
But the heart of the issue is much simpler.
Why does it seem so wrong for a private company that sells entertainment, and needs to convince us to buy its next product, to place an advert on a platform not everyone has? Do we not normally complain that there are too many adverts?
You do not have to like Netflix. You do not have to celebrate exclusives or pay for a subscription just to watch a trailer either. You can wait six hours and watch it on other platforms afterwards.
What is difficult to understand is how such a small commercial decision becomes another moral battle. Nobody is losing access to an essential service. Nobody is being prevented from playing GTA VI. Rockstar has simply found a way to make millions of people watch the clock and discuss its game before a single second of new footage has appeared.
The internet has turned outrage into entertainment, and Rockstar knows it. The company has made our need to react, argue and treat every business decision as a personal attack part of its own campaign.
Complaining is in fashion. And that is why the GTA VI exclusive on Netflix is a masterstroke.