It's no secret that Grand Theft Auto has become a household name in the modern world (although the reasons for this might wildly differ). The controversial title has become one of the bestselling video games of all time for a number of reasons (good and bad). There's no one who can argue when it comes to the fact that Rockstar has truly created one of the best video game series of all time that has constantly evolved with each successive generation of video gaming in order to provide us with a memorable experience every single time another title is introduced to the main series.

However, no game is absolutely perfect, and Grand Theft Auto is no exception to this long-standing rule in video gaming. No matter how impressive a game might be, there will still be a number of flaws — whether minor or major — that stops the experience from being perfect. For all the praise that is showered on the Grand Theft Auto series, there are still a ton of problems plaguing the franchise. Most (if not all) gamers choose to ignore this issues since they either don't concern them enough, or they simply don't wish to acknowledge the fact that even games like Grand Theft Auto can have flaws, just like any other video game. Here are 20 problems affecting Grand Theft Auto that we conveniently choose to ignore.

20 The Stories Are Pretty Mediocre

via gta.wikia.com

The Grand Theft Auto games are known for featuring memorable characters with their own motivations, and the interaction they have with the world around them that is facilitated by the player. Keeping this in mind, it's a massive shame that the overarching plots centered around these characters are just so weak.

Grand Theft Auto is about the moment-to-moment gameplay and the bombastic set pieces, but unfortunately, the reasons for including these high-octane segments are ridiculously contrived and feel more like excuses made by the game to thrust you into these aforementioned set pieces. This has been an area that the series has been lacking in for a while, and it's baffling as to why Rockstar hasn't taken the appropriate steps to remedy this issue.

19 The Melee Combat Is Worryingly Underdeveloped

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The fact of the matter is that combat is an integral part of most — if not all — sandbox games, and Grand Theft Auto is no stranger to this golden rule. While the gunplay of the series is highly impressive and has constantly evolved over time, it's pretty unfortunate that the melee combat is very lacking in multiple departments.

There are games like the Batman Arkham series and Sleeping Dogs (among many others) that have demonstrated the wonders of adopting a fresh approach to melee combat, and it's quite unfortunate that Rockstar hasn't decided to innovate and freshen up their melee combat like their competitors have. It's only a matter of time before the problems in their combat system become all the more apparent.

18 The Side Content Is Simply Not That Good

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The Grand Theft Auto series is known for having quality main-game content that can easily satisfy players for a solid length of time. However, if a player wishes to extend their playtime with these titles, then they should be prepared for the inevitable disappointment once they realize just how empty the side content actually is.

One of the most despised ways in which developers provide extra content in a game is by including a large amount of collectibles, and unfortunately, Rockstar has utilized this particular tactic in this series time and time again in order to provide the illusion that the game is bigger than what it seems to be. Add to that the mind-numbing side activities, and you've pretty much ended up with a disappointing endgame.

17 The Treatment Of Women Is Highly Offensive

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Grand Theft Auto V came under a lot of fire due to the various unflattering ways in which the women of the game were portrayed. It's already bad enough that the game had three main characters... all of whom just happened to be male. This is still fine to an extent, but it's no secret that women in the Grand Theft Auto series are treated in a rather despicable manner.

From hungry strippers to topical complains — it seems that Rockstar is unable to comprehend the fact that women can also have unique personalities. Realizing this is all the more important when one considers the current landscape of the world and the increasing awareness of people when it comes to such touchy topics.

16 The Racial Stereotyping Is Blatant AF

For a series that has boasted a plethora of interesting main characters, it's somewhat disappointing that for a majority of side characters, Rockstar decided to take the easier path of utilizing prevalent stereotypes that will ring a familiar bell with players. Unfortunately, there's a huge drawback when it comes to this particular shortcut — most of these stereotypes are pretty offensive as well.

There are so many instances where racial stereotyping is painfully apparent in the series. Take San Andreas, where the concept of gang culture is a huge part of the backdrop of the game. Unfortunately, rather than trying to responsibly tackle the subject, Rockstar decided they needed a ton of racial stereotypes to generate an authentic environment — something that is completely unnecessary.

15 The Satire That People Associate The Series With Is Bog-Standard At Best

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Grand Theft Auto is known for — among other things — depicting modern society in a rather unflattering light by making fun of the various elements present in the real world and pointing out their ludicrous nature. While there's no doubt that the satire in the series hits the right notes most of the time, what is also true is that most gamers give the series way more credit than what it's due when it comes to this particular aspect.

Most of the satirical aspects of this series (while certainly true to an extent) are wildly overstated and poorly executed, with some elements that have no rhyme or reason whatsoever. This satire certainly makes the entire world a lot more interesting, but unfortunately, it's simply not great satire — hell, it's not even good satire.

14 Being Controversial Just For The Sake Of Being Controversial

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Grand Theft Auto has been synonymous with controversy even since the series was formed way back in 1996. Each iteration of the series has been mired with a ton of negative PR for a number of reasons — although, in this particular instance, one can argue that this PR has helped in improving the overall sales of the franchise. In fact, at this point one might argue that Rockstar is attracting controversy on purpose in order to take advantage of this mainstream media coverage.

Take the example of the shoehorned torture scene that was included in Grand Theft Auto V. This particular sequence could've been easily avoided, but it was included for the aforementioned reason to take advantage of the free PR. It's a rather despicable strategy, although — admittedly — it's certainly a smart one as well.

13 GTA Online Is Still Marred With A Ton Of Bugs And Issues

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Grand Theft Auto Online is perhaps one of Rockstar's biggest success stories — so much so that they ended up axing the idea to release any single-player DLC for the game in favor of trying to perfect the online gameplay. This is quite a shame, especially since the online component of the game still suffers from a ton of issues that can truly hamper the overall experience.

These problems are seemingly endless — lag, connectivity issues, glitches, and the oh-so-frequent player misconduct are just a few of the problems that plagued GTA Online. It sucks that instead of trying to add more single-player content to a series known for its riveting gameplay, Rockstar is simply trying to rake in cash from something that's inherently broken to begin with.

12 Modern Society Is Not As Bleak As The Games Make Them Out To Be

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Remember when we talking about how weak the satire of the series was? Well, a huge contributor to this is the fact that most of this so-called satire revolves around depicting modern society as the single worst construct to have ever existed in the history of humanity — something that is completely untrue.

The fact of the matter is that society is not as bad as it's portrayed in the Grand Theft Auto games. Are their problems with the way things are currently? Yes, absolutely — but there's a difference between a few bad apples and declaring that pretty much every fruit is rotten to the very core.

11 Why Do They Like It When Strangers Grope Them?

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Grand Theft Auto V is perhaps one of the greatest games of all time, and a major factor that has contributed to this success is the way in the which latest addition to the series has completely revamped the overall gameplay in more ways than one. However, while most of these changes have been met positively, there are some that are absolutely unnecessary.

Case in point — just why would Rockstar introduce a mechanic where strippers would start 'liking' the player character if he started touching them more often? This is wrong on so many levels that it boggles the mind as to why a prominent studio like Rockstar would be able to think in any capacity that adding this mechanic to their game was a nice idea.

Since we're speaking of how women are ill-treated anyway...

10 Interacting With "Women Of The Night" Is Constantly Shoehorned In

Prostitute in first person mode
Via: YouTube - Coco C
GTA V, however, has much more realistic prostitutes. Almost too realistic.

Since Grand Theft Auto III, "women of the night" have become an infamous mainstay of the series for reasons unknown. The inclusion of these women in the series has been met with a ton of criticism and backlash from mainstream media — although as we've already discussed before) such controversy has never deterred Rockstar before.

Constantly shoehorning prostitutes into the game as an excuse for a meaningless side activity makes no sense, especially with the modern Grand Theft Auto games. At least when it came to the 3D Universe games, interacting with these women gave a useful health bonus. This bonus has been omitted in the latest entries of the Grand Theft Auto entries, which basically entails that these ladies serve little to no purpose in the grand scheme of things.

Since we're speaking of the new games...

9 Forsaking The Arcade Nature Of The Series Was (And Still Is) A Bad Idea

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When the Grand Theft Auto series came into existence in 1996, the nature of the gameplay had an authentic arcade feel to it. Fast forward to 2001, and while Grand Theft Auto III had embraced a 3D look, it still had a nice mix of realism and an arcade-y feel to it. However, with the changing nature of the video game industry, Grand Theft Auto also had to evolve... unfortunately this was done at the expense of its authenticity.

With the introduction of Grand Theft Auto IV, fans were introduced to the next-gen experience in the form of a revamped Liberty City, with a style of gameplay that truly encapsulated just how far the gaming industry has evolved. However, this progress was made at the expense of forsaking the roots of the series by abandoning the arcade-y nature of the gameplay that had won over the Grand Theft Auto faithful in the first place.

8 The Wanted Mechanic Hasn't Aged Very Well

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Perhaps one of the most iconic images that one can associate with Grand Theft Auto involves a bunch of cops chasing your character down as a bunch of stars appear on the top right. Each additional star implies a whole new level of pain for the person getting chased down by the men in blue, (or — in this case — black).

While this mechanic is certainly a novel one, people seem to ignore just how annoying this can get at times. This is all the more true when a player might be minding his own business, but a minor mistake leads to the entire police force getting alerted to their presence. And what is this offense, I hear you ask? Accidentally nudging a cop car with your own.

And speaking of the wanted level...

7 Getting Busted Is A Royal Pain

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When you get wasted in Rockstar, pretty much all of the time you know it's your fault. Managing your health is a crucial part of any Grand Theft Auto game, and failing to do so will lead to this particular repercussion. This also works like a learning experience of sorts since it helps you understand what you did wrong how you can avoid this fate again.

But when you get busted, it's a whole another story.

First of all, most players rarely get busted in Rockstar which shows just how useless this mechanic actually is. And if players do end up getting busted, then more often than not it's through no fault of their own. Rockstar should simply remove this mechanic in their next game, or try and revamp it so that the action actually makes a lick of sense.

6 Rockstar's Extremely Cocky When It Comes To GTA

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Grand Theft Auto is truly one of the greatest gaming series of all time, there's no doubt about that. The much-lauded franchise has received a ton of praise for constantly pushing the boundaries of open-world gaming by constantly innovating its titles time and time again every time another main title was introduced to the series.

However, this elevated status of Grand Theft Auto is something that has been noticed by Rockstar — and that's putting it mildly. It's pretty obvious that Rockstar considers the Grand Theft Auto series to be way ahead of its competition, and this pride might be somewhat inflated in nature as well. This can be witnessed in one of the easter eggs present in San Andreas, where a tombstone reads out "RIP Opposition 1997-2004."

This is somewhat worrying, especially since...

5 Rockstar Is NOT The Greatest Game Developer Of All Time

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The image of Rockstar Games has been portrayed in an extremely positive light in the eyes of pretty much every gamer who's experienced their masterful products. This task is not exactly that hard to accomplish since the current state of the gaming industry means that there are a ton of companies that utilize some rather shady practices in order to maximize their revenue (at the expense of their company's image). In this cesspit of depravity, a company that functions like it should will ideally have little to no problems in creating a good brand image for themselves.

However, Rockstar has still partaken in these shady strategies from time to time. There's the decision to ignore single-player DLC in favor of multiplayer that we've already discussed, but there was also the looming threat of Take-Two threatening to destroy the entire modding scene for Grand Theft Auto V — a move that Rockstar quickly swept under the rug.

4 Cops Are Portrayed As Inept, Bumbling Fools

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The police are meant to be a paragon of justice that should ideally portray the image that they'll be present to stop crime everywhere, irrelevant of what its scale might be. However, in the universe of Grand Theft Auto, cops are nothing more than useless pieces of meat that are in the way of the player on his trail of pure destruction.

The argument of "it's just a game" can only go so far, and after a point, one must question just how ineffective the police force in Grand Theft Auto actually is. Rockstar needs to realize that their games are pretty influential, and they should actively try and make the cops look like more than just a complete waste of textures.

3 The Grand Theft Auto Series Has Become A Cliché

Via: hardcoregamer.com

We've already talked about how the Grand Theft Auto series has pretty much defined open-world gaming. By constantly innovating the series and making the maximum use of the available hardware, Rockstar has shown other AAA developers how to develop quality games.

However, by trying to constantly define open-world gaming, Grand Theft Auto has ended up becoming a cliché in itself. With the very mention of the term 'Grand Theft Auto,' gamers envision a game based on a modern landscape full of the usual stereotypical characters, the same old gunplay and a predictable story to boot.

Perhaps this is why...

2 There's Barely Any Room Left For Experimentation Anymore

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Trying to push the boundaries of gaming is quite a tall order, and to Rockstar's credit the developers have managed to redefine open-world gaming with every addition to the Grand Theft Auto series. This task is certainly impressive, but is quite taxing as well, and the stress of trying to constantly innovate their titles time and time again must be unbelievably hard.

Perhaps the worst part about all this is that with the amount of change that the series has already gone through, the amount of space Rockstar has to innovate has shrunk extensively. It's a hard pill to swallow, but when Grand Theft Auto VI comes around the corner there's a very high possibility that the only noticeable improvement will be the graphics.

1 GTA Is Rockstar's Main Focus, Which Means That Its Other IPs Will Play Second Fiddle

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We've already established how proud Rockstar are of Grand Theft Auto. It's evident that the majority of their time and resources goes into trying to make these games as perfect as they can get. While this certainly ensures that the end product will be of an amazing quality, unfortunately, what this also implies is that Rockstar's other IPs might not get the same treatment.

Take the recent delay of Red Dead Redemption 2, and the whispered rumors of Grand Theft Auto VI already being in development. From a business standpoint, it would make sense that Rockstar would give more importance to their most recognizable series... but is it truly worth it if other games made by the same developer don't receive the same attention?