Love Playing 'GTA Online' on Your PS3? Well, We've Got Some Bad News for You

We've come a long way in video games. Back in the day, it was pretty incredible to see an overall-wearing plumber jumping on turtles and eating brick-encased fungus grow into a more powerful version of himself.

Somewhere along the way though, 10-year-olds started stealing cars, soliciting prostitutes, then running over said virtual prostitutes to get their money back. Grand Theft Auto is one of the most recognizable "grown-up" game franchises, but what's happening to one version of the franchise on December 16?

Listen all of you degenerates out there who prefer to play out their violent fantasies in an online group setting: Grand Theft Auto Online will be going the way of our hopes for a new standalone Howard the Duck movie come December 16, 2021. Well, on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, at least.

Rockstar Games announced that online support for the title that tons of people are enjoying on those consoles will be taken offline. If you've got a PS4 or Xbox One, then you should be fine, and of course, if you're playing the title on your PC, you've got nothing to worry about.

Gamers will still be able to play the single-player mode of Grand Theft Auto V, but they just won't be able to enjoy online gaming modes. Oh, and if you have any in-game currency or items you purchased with you know, actual dollars, those won't carry over to other versions of the game. And you can't get a refund for them either, or for the game itself.

Again, this is only for the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the title.

Rockstar discussed its decision to shut down GTA Online for this specific user base: "As we continue to move forward with updates and support for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC versions of Grand Theft Auto Online — as well as prepare for this fall's launches of the new expanded and enhanced versions of Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S — the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of GTA Online, including website stat tracking via the Rockstar Games Social Club, will officially be shutting down on December 16."

If you're interested, you can check out the entire blog post here for further context, but it basically just boils down to the fact that they need to stop allocating resources to a quickly dwindling userbase.

There are some gamers who are probably up in arms about the fact that transferring their data over to another console isn't part of the discontinuation deal, but Rockstar made that move back in 2017. It's also important to note that you cannot buy a new Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 from a store. They were discontinued, and any console you'd purchase now would have to be second-hand.

That's not to say that you probably won't find one unopened and untouched, but that's neither here nor there. So get your GTA Online in now.