A new race mode is coming to GTA Online that combines the two best things about life in Los Santos—dangerous driving and guns—into one super-sport. Target Assault Races puts one player on the wheel and another on the trigger in a race where accuracy is even more important than speed. 

Passing checkpoints and finishing in the top three will earn bonus points, but hitting the targets is what really counts: Smaller targets are worth more, and hitting the bullseye will earn more points too. That puts a lot of responsibility on the driver, who will have to keep the vehicles slow and steady (relatively speaking, anyway) rather than fast and furious.

"If your Gunner's on a streak, ease up on the throttle and let them rip through a few more targets before rushing to the next Checkpoint," Rockstar said. 

And we're not talking about leaning out of the passenger window with a .38, by the way: The guns in these races are basically anti-aircraft artillery, which is why most of the vehicles in the trailer are trucks of various sorts. (Yes, there are a few cars in there too, but let's be honest, a minigun mounted on the roof of a Lexus is neither practical nor a particularly good look.)   

Target Assault Races are live now, with seven new tracks and "an assortment of assault-minded vehicles," including the brand-new Vapid Caracara, a big, bruising bad-boy with a mud-camo paint scheme. Players can also score discounts on a number of other vehicles and upgrades, including the Mammoth Avenger, a "soaring tower of doom" that will serve as your very own airborne base of operations.   

The Premium Race this week is Liftoff, locked to the Super class, with GTA$ and triple RP up for grabs, and more of both on the table for anyone who can beat the par time in the "Observatory" Time Trial. Full details are on the Rockstar Newswire. 

Picture above: JulioNIB's Superman script mod for GTA 5. We don't actually want superpowers in the next GTA (or do we?), but what a great image.

Samuel: Me and Joe have been thinking about what we want from the next GTA. Not the mad-as-shit stuff that they speculated about in the old PlayStation magazines I used to work on, like how GTA 4 should've let you fly a rocket into outer space or any of that nonsense, but stuff Rockstar might actually do. Between us, we have a few hundred hours of GTA Online under our belts.

We both really like the core of GTA—the singleplayer part always succeeds at gradually peeling back the layers of the world, and giving you that journey from getaway driver with a baseball bat to gunship-flying millionaire. GTA Online is imperfect, but there's a reason it's one of the biggest online games in the world: for a certain generation, it's the MMO they've always wanted to play, and I include myself in that. It's perhaps done the whole living game thing more successfully than anything else. Rockstar now adds huge updates on a quarterly basis. 

So what should GTA do next? Here's some backseat game design from two guys who know nothing about programming, 3D modelling, pipelines, netcode or indeed anything relevant. 

The option to play the campaign in co-op (or a specific co-op campaign)

Samuel: GTA will never stop having a story-based singleplayer campaign—Rockstar sounds very protective of that based on this Game Informer interview. "As a company we love singleplayer more than anything, and believe in it absolutely—for storytelling and a sense of immersion in a world, multiplayer games don’t rival single-player games." Well, hey, fair enough. I love a good GTA campaign and wouldn't want that to change. It's refreshing to play GTA without the threat of some griefer in a jet blowing up my precious Batmobile (GTA Online's Vigilante, the most prized of my pretend cars).

The potential for co-op, as demonstrated by GTA Online's multiplayer missions and particularly its heists, though, is huge. They show that GTA is at its peak when all players individually feel like they're kicking ass. I'd love to be able to play GTA 6's campaign with a friend or two, with the challenge scaling up or down depending on how many players are there. 

Alternatively, I'd love an even more involved version of GTA Online's heists—an entire co-op campaign that lasts for many hours. Joe: I couldn’t agree more. Three Leaf Clover was one of GTA 4’s best missions, which I think is reflected by its successor's penchant for heisting. And while I also enjoy GTA's singleplayer campaigns, co-op missions are so circumstantial—read: filled with inadvertent death and explosions and swearing—which is what makes them so much fun. Admittedly, more story-driven heists would do it for me, but I'd gladly take a specific co-op campaign. Even better if that was somehow fed into the singleplayer story itself—similar to how certain NPC-assigned GTA Online missions require multiple players.     

Better matchmaking in GTA Online

Samuel: All eyes are on Red Dead Redemption 2's multiplayer, because I'm keen to see if the matchmaking in that game is any smoother than GTA 5's. I really hope it is, because then GTA 6 will likely follow suit. If I could join a game in GTA within 60 seconds, I'd be very happy. In fact, I'd probably play every single day—I'm not a particularly patient man and this is a bit of a barrier for me. 

Joe: To my shame, I have played the game (almost) every single day for the past two months. A quick look at my stats tells me I’ve spent over six days of my life in-game, within which I've spent five hours, 27 minutes and 13 seconds being chased by Los Santos’ finest. 

A figure I don't have to hand, however, is how long I've spent waiting for the game to load. I bet it’s a while. My routine these days is: fire up the game, head to the kitchen, grab a glass of water and a snack, and return with time to spare before my game kicks off. If loading times in GTA 6's online component—whatever shape or form it takes—are half of GTA Online’s, they’ll still be too long.

Fewer but better Adversary Modes

Samuel: I can't criticise the amount of content in GTA Online—there's an absolute ton to do in the game after years of development by Rockstar, and there's still a lot of it I haven't spent much time investigating. I will say that I've always considered Adversary Modes the weak link, though. I would never play one unless I had the double money/experience incentive to do so—and when I do, it feels like there are too many long pauses between games and rounds, players drop out too easily which can make the teams unbalanced, and matchmaking always takes longer than I'd like. 

More importantly, though, I don't think I'd ever seek out an Adversary Mode just to play it for fun—the ones I've played like Slashers, Motor Wars, Hardest Target, Bombushka Run and Overtime Shootout vary in quality, but none of them capture GTA at its best for me. This Kotaku piece explores the problem with GTA's wealth of content: like the writer says, a Splatoon-style revolving set of modes might be the solution. 

Joe: I like the idea of rotating certain Adversary Modes, or swapping them out entirely. Creating a smaller pool would improve matchmaking, and having players vote for their favourites could help maintain interest. Future polls might bring old modes out of retirement, whereas themed modes—such as the aforementioned Halloween-inspired Slasher—could be kept exclusive to their respective seasons. 

In-keeping with Rockstar's double RP/GTA$ drive, the two least voted for Adversary Modes at any given time could both receive this treatment—incentivising players to play each before a final vote determines their fate.     

Wilder vehicles, weapons and objectives

Samuel: The highlight of The Doomsday Heist in GTA Online for me—and perhaps the greatest GTA mission of all time—is destroying an aircraft with flying DeLoreans. It's unlike anything GTA has done before, and since you share the moment with friends, it feels even better. I feel like the gradual expansion of GTA Online has taken Rockstar into areas they wouldn't normally explore in singleplayer, particularly in the massive selection of vehicles: the Vigilante or the Avenger are way beyond the remit of what was found in GTA 5's story. I've seen some comments comparing the changing tone to Saints Row, but GTA's always had a weird side: UFOs, Megalodon skeletons, Bigfoot. 

With that in mind, I want GTA 6's campaign to get super crazy. It'd be great to play singleplayer missions that have some of the same toys you get in GTA Online, as well as a load of new ones. Underwater missions, flying cars, stealing from the army, jetpacks: after almost five years, GTA Online has loads more experimental tools and missions than the campaign does. I'd love for the next campaign to catch up with that.

More limited time story content in GTA Online

Samuel: This one's very specific. I was a big fan of the recent Red Dead promotion for GTA Online, where players got a cool revolver for investigating clues at certain spots on the Los Santos map. It didn't take long to finish, but the idea of there being a one-off story thread with little bits of environmental storytelling was really cool. I'd love GTA Online to explore more objectives or story strands that aren't focused on the pursuit of money—where the fun of the thing itself is the incentive. 

I'd probably wrap the Chiliad mystery into that, too. I love the idea of weekly story events, or community-driven mysteries—reasons to keep logging in that aren't just experience/money bonuses, with some kind of story element and unique reward. 

Joe: Absolutely. I'd long viewed text updates for the Treasure Hunt as a pain in the arse distraction from other things. Last week, though, I started unpicking some of its clues and while I didn’t see the expedition through to its conclusion (I wound up getting mobbed by a levitating hacker; GTA 6 needs less hackers), I had great fun studying photographs, uncovering notes and visiting spots of the map I’d normally avoid as I searched for answers. 

Tying similar future adventures to story threads would not only let players invest more of themselves in missions, it'd also make treks to the forgotten corners of the game world worthwhile. You can only pick up trucks and drop off cars to the farthest flung areas of San Andreas so many times before the journey becomes a chore.  

More likeable protagonists

Samuel: GTA 5's trio of protagonists are fun when they're together, but they're not particularly warm characters—likely a deliberate choice to reflect the nature of the setting. And hey, sometimes you need to get them drunk to find out how they really feel. But GTA has a pretty decent history of protagonists you want to like: CJ in San Andreas, Niko Bellic in GTA 4 and Johnny Klebitz (RIP) in Lost and Damned. You can even extend this to the way Rockstar portrays heroes in its other games, like Jimmy Hopkins in Bully or John Marston in Red Dead Redemption. They're flawed characters, sure, but you want to see them win. 

Will GTA ever have a female protagonist? I think that'll happen eventually. I imagine that character being a lot like Sweet Dee from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. 

Joe: I would play the shit out of this for that protagonist alone. The Gang Makes GTA 6.   

Oh, what the hell: two cities instead of one

Samuel: GTA 5 satisfied players because it gave them a sprawling playground for the first time since San Andreas—but one thing it didn't capture is the sense of the landscape feeling like a state rather than just a city and its outskirts. And fair enough: what you got instead was a gigantic map and a beautiful recreation of the Los Angeles sprawl, plus plenty to explore outside of that. 

Driving from Los Santos to San Fierro (and then again to Las Venturas) was quite the experience in San Andreas, though, even if the scale of it was much smaller. It's the one thing San Andreas has that hasn't been replicated by the HD GTA games yet.

So, while I won't brazenly suggest GTA 6 goes into space like my former PlayStation magazine colleagues—hey, there's a GTA 5 mod for that anyway—I'd love to drive (or fly) from one city to another. 

Joe: Could the closure of the ‘Liberty City in GTA V’ mod last year suggest something official is in the pipeline to this end? 

Samuel: I'm not sure, Joe. It's probably just protection of intellectual property—but I'd love to fly from one location to another, even if the file size of GTA 5 would soon eat my entire hard drive. 

J.B. Smoove is an actor, writer and comedian whose career spans over two decades. Best known for his role as Leon Black in Curb Your Enthusiasm, you might otherwise recognise Smoove from Saturday Night Live, Everybody Hates Chris, Mr Deeds and a number of other TV shows and feature films. You might otherwise recognise his voice from the Grand Theft Auto 5 talk radio show Chakra Attack. 

As we discuss his role in the latter—one Dr Ray De Angelo Harris, a fictional host who haphazardly explores spirituality and relaxation—Smoove switches in and out of character. With fictional portrayals in mind, and given the fact this is a phone interview, I can't help but think of this scene from Curb. 

Let's talk GTA. You provided the voice of Ray De Angelo Harris in Grand Theft Auto 5's Chakra Attack. Chakra Attack is, let's say, a little bit out there. Is that fair?

It's about your mind and being in a certain place, man. There's Zen-like, and then there's Ray De Angelo Harris-like. There's a way of conjuring up your soul—diving into your soul and looking at how your brain works, we attach ourselves to that and we regenerate your energy into our energy, reprocess your energy and send it back out. That's what the whole mantra was when we were doing this amazing radio show on GTA. The power, reaching out to people, grabbing them, shaking their ass up a little bit. It's all it is. Grabbing your ass through the radio waves, and shaking that ass up. 

You know how many people told me that even in the game they would pull over—pull over a car in a videogame—and park on the side of the road, just so they could concentrate and absorb of the vibe of Dr Ray De Angelo Harris. They'd pull over in a videogame. Who the hell pulls over a car in a videogame to listen to the damn radio? You're playing a damn videogame! 

I mean, I can't in any way vouch for Rockstar, but what if there was a mission where the player meets Dr Harris—would you be up for that?

Of course I would! I would fix your life. I would  adjust the screws on your life. Everybody got screws. Sometimes the screws are loose. Sometimes they're too damn tight. I would adjust your screws to fit your personality and motivate you in my own special way. Everybody needs a good doctor in their life. 

Chakra Attack is all about mindfulness and yoga. At one point on the show, you talk about hot yoga. Episode 7 of the latest series of Curb is all about hot yoga. Is there a link there? 

That's just a coincidence, man. Hot yoga is something else. It's crazy how things intersect sometimes. My wife is at yoga right now. I don't know how you can go into yoga and not think about being so damn hot. 

Namaste. 

That's it! 

Leon Black, the character you play in Curb Your Enthusiasm. He strikes me as someone who enjoys videogames. 

Listen. I think Leon would love videogames. I think he'd really love GTA 5. His life might be like GTA. We don't know much about Leon's story, he doesn't have a true origin. You watch these Marvel movies—everybody got a damn origin story. I know those guys are superheroes, but no one knows where Leon came from. We know a little bit about him, but I think if we knew more about him that's something we could channel. Who is this guy? Where did he come from?

Could you ever see Leon sitting down with Larry David to play videogames?

I think it'd have to be something about life itself. I think Leon and Larry could play GTA 5, because there's enough in there of a lifestyle that Larry has no idea about, that he's never experienced. Take Larry down that road. On a mission with Larry? I think that'd be so hilarious. Just to explain the game to Larry, and how it works, you know? Larry, we're gonna get in this car. We're gonna drive across town. We're gonna get this deal poppin'. We're gonna do this, we're gonna all these steps. 

I think that would so intriguing to him. I think he would get caught up. I think if Leon introduced him to GTA and told him how it works and how crazy it is—you know, there's ladies in it, there's intrigue, there's power, there's fights, there's running, there's driving cars, there's all of that stuff that you have never experience, Larry. I think Larry would get caught up in it and he'd be addicted to it. And Leon would have to pry the controller out of his hands at some point. I think that'd be a funny episode—Larry gets caught up in a videogame. He's up all night. His eyes are red. 

If this doesn't feature in a future episode of Curb I'm going to be very disappointed. 

Ha! How great would that be, man?! Aw man, how great would that be? Larry's eyes are red and… aw man.

Leon: What's wrong with you, man?

Larry: I was up all night playing that videogame you got me hooked on! I can't stop. I just can't stop. You got a game in you? Come on, let's play a game. Just one game.

Leon: I can't! I got other things to do, man.

Larry: … One game?

That would be awesome, man. How great would that be? Larry's addicted to the game. He can't stop playing. Aw, man! Then he starts living like the game. He starts doing stuff the game would do in real life. That would be great.

I'll leave you to run that past Mr David. Back to Chakra Attack, what was it like working with Rockstar—how much creative freedom were you given, how much was scripted, how much of yourself were you able to bring to the part?

It was amazing working with Rockstar. Do you know who actually hooked me up with Rockstar? DJ Pooh hooked me up with Rockstar and GTA, how crazy is that? It's crazy how your connections with other people end up being your connections with where you need to be at. He called me up and said: Hey man, you wanna do a voice on a videogame? I said: Yeah, what's it for? Once he told me what it was, I thought it was great. I could definitely do that. 

That worked out great. We had a great time in the studio. They had something written, of course, but they allowed me to get in there and they allowed me to have fun. I mean, it's one thing to have a concept, but it's another to know the voice behind it, to have the rhythm behind it—all these little nuances that we don't think about that come into play once you get into that studio. I had no idea how I was going to do it, or the character. But once I got in there and felt the energy, that's when everything came together. 

After that it's like a golf swing. You get in there and you get that rhythm on, and now you've built this world around. Everything you say, and everything you do, you attach your personality to it and your cadence and all of these great things to it, which in turn brings your character to life. Although it's only a voice over a radio station, now you actually have in your mind how he would be in person. Dr Ray isn't a physical person, he's a radio guy, but hearing him you almost feel like you know him, you almost feel like you want to meet him, you know what I mean? Whether you see him as J.B. Smoove, or you see him looking like somebody else, you have this presence to him, a base to him, a voice to the character. 

In December GTA 5/Online recorded its highest ever player count. It's almost three years old on PC and five years old on console. As someone involved in its creation, why do you think this is? 

I think the speed of things, the world of gaming, everyone has access now, and it makes it a lot easier for people to grab a hold of technology. We're in this place now where it's only going to get bigger. This game came four and a bit years ago, but it's still so popular. People love stories, and love being a part of those stories. If you can adjust that story to whatever you want it to be, that's what makes the game so amazing. You chose to turn down this street, but then change your mind and turn down that street. That's simple but these games operate on so many levels that even the smallest changes can totally change their outcomes. It's amazing. 

Those interested in seeing J.B. Smoove live on the road should visit his official website for more information. His book, named The Book of Leon, is out now. Here's a promo clip for that.

GTA Online rolled out its Southern San Andreas Super Sports Series last week with new vehicles, a Vice City-inspired Hotring Circuit and the promise of new stuff from now till the end of May. The first of that takes the form of the Pegassi Tezeract and the Vapid Ellie. 

As outlined in the header image above, the Tezeract is a looker—assuming you can afford its not-exactly-modest $2,825,000 price tag. For that you'll get top tier speed and maxxed out traction, granted, but having just applied turbo to my trusty Grotti Turismo—aka my pride and joy—I'm not sure I can personally vouch for that cost. To those of you who've taken it for a spin already: feel free to prove me wrong in the comments below. Here's the Tezeract's stats:

Those of you familiar with the Nic Cage-starring Gone in 60 Seconds remake, on the other hand, will recognise the Vapid Ellie as a fictional spin on the real world's Shelby GT500 1967 Ford Mustang—known in the film as Eleanor. "This old dog has torn the limbs off braver hipsters than you," warns the car's description, which will set you back $565,000 for the pleasure. Here's its stats:

Elsewhere, this week's update offers double GTA$ for Special Cargo Sales, with the same gratitude extended to Bodyguards and Associates' salaries.

Discounts span business centres, special cargo warehouses, yachts, choppers, and, the best of the bunch, the Fort Zancudo Hangar A2. It's going for $1,625,000 with 50 percent off. 

Of the three hangars situated at Fort Zancudo it's the biggest and probably the best. It'll also net you low-level access clearance to the base, which means you can nab Hydra fighter jets much easier than without.  

Head to the Rockstar Newswire for more on all of the above. For tips on how to earn quick cash in GTA Online, check out our comprehensive moneymaking guide.   Here's the Tezeract in motion:

The GTA Online community reports multiple PC players received 30-day banning orders this weekend. The bans are said to be tied to the game's Southern San Andreas Super Sports Series update—with many players suggesting they've done nothing wrong. 

As detailed on the GTA Online subreddit, it appears tweaks to the PC version of the game's tunables have triggered a fault with its anti cheat detection system. Discord user Funnypig reports their own anti-cheat software in turn identified a lobby full of modders—including the host and Funnypig themself.

Identified by the subreddit, this Rockstar support thread includes comments from banned players—30 days, no appeal, wiped profiles—with anything between ten and 3,000 hours of logged game time. Naturally, it's not uncommon for banned players to claim innocence following bad behaviour, but the comments section below MikeRaven11's post is full of players who claim they've been unfairly removed.  

Rockstar is yet to comment on the situation, but the subreddit advises those affected to raise support tickets and/or contact the developer via its official Facebook and Twitter channels. Reddit person prove_your_point2 says: "If you use the word ban or choose the ban category, your support ticket will be auto-closed. Try to explain the situation without using that word."

Moreover, prolific GTA 5/Online YouTube person MrBossFTW recommends playing in invite-only servers for now. In the meantime, GTA 5's Steam reviews have suffered a negative spike—similar to the backlash following last year's OpenIV debacle.  

We've reached out to Rockstar for comment and will update as and when we hear back. If you believe you've been unfairly banned yourself, tell us about your experience in the comments below. 

The irritating thing about Sea of Thieves living just on the Windows Store—aside from the process of using the store itself—is that you're bound by the game's price on there. You can't buy Rare's co-op pirate game through Steam or other third-party retailers. In the UK, that means the PC version is a relatively steep £50, more than most major publisher games are priced on Steam. This led to a recent conversation among the PC Gamer staff: how much are you willing to spend on a game? How much have you spent on games in the past? We had wildly different answers, based on our gaming preferences and, er, unhealthy addictions.

In this week's PCG Q&A, it's confession time: what's the most you've ever spent on a game? Let us know your answers in the comments. 

Philippa Warr: £522+

I have spent £522 on Dota 2. Well, sort of. That's the amount the game client has recorded, but it doesn't take into account money spent attending events or on things outside the client. Further complicating the matter is the fact that it doesn't take into account stuff like rare item drops which I sold on the Steam Marketplace and thus which added credit to my account. I'm not sure where gifts to and from friends would factor in either. 

Dota was also significant to my work in that the industry had a lack of regular staff writers who understood Dota when I was playing it a lot and thus this total doesn't factor in payment for writing about a game I had deep knowledge of, or an esports scene I was immersed in. This isn't about justification, it's about how odd it feels seeing a figure next to my account and realising I have no idea what it actually means in terms of what I spent and what I got out of that game. Besides, as a millennial, I guess if I hadn't bought digital hats I'd have only frittered it away on avocados and flat whites.

Tim Clark: £965. You know which game.

I'm afraid my answer is Hearthstone, again, and it's not even close. I really didn't want to do this, but I just trawled my Blizzard order history and in the years since I've been playing (it looks like I began in February 2014) I've spent [deep breath] £965. Before checking, I assumed the amount was close to a thousand, but seeing all the transactions written down, I still feel slightly shocked. That's £241 per year on a supposedly free to play game. Why, you absolute idiot, you no doubt wonder. Well, I guess the uncomfortable answer is because I can just about afford it—I have a steady job and don't have kids—and because ultimately I want to. 

For the most part Hearthstone has been something I've enjoyed spending time with on a daily basis. Of course off the back of a big losing streak I hate myself and want to die, but that's card games baby. I also fully concede (I also do that often) that if I were coming to the game now I would find the idea of trying to build a competitive collection incredibly intimidating. But I guess I'm okay with keeping my existing one up to speed so that I can play whatever meta deck I fancy. Ultimately I view it as less buying a single game and more investing in my hobby, like I might with fly fishing, or drone flying, or other outdoor things I'm absolutely not going to do. 

It's... it's a sickness, isn't it?

Samuel Roberts: about £80

I don't play MMOs or free-to-play games, but I'm generally down for buying DLC packs for singleplayer games I like. This usually means I can end up spending double the amount of the game on these expansions—BioWare and Bethesda RPGs are good examples of this. Hot damn, those DLC packs are crapshoots, though. You never know if you're going to score a Lair of the Shadow Broker or something that expands on a part of the game you don't like (I can't bring myself to play Inquisition's Deep Roads-themed DLC, for example, as I have no intention of ever returning to the Dragon Age universe's underground caves).

This is a level of financial commitment I can live with. The most I've ever spent on microtransactions is £24 worth of Shark Cards for GTA Online, but since I've played that for over 130 hours, I can justify it to myself. I really wanted to fit missiles to my Batmobile. Sometimes joy has a real-world cost. 

Steven Messner: Around $1260

I'm going to split this into a couple of smaller answers because when it comes to spending money on a game, the reason matters. If we're just looking at gross totals, the answer is undoubtedly World of Warcraft, which I have been playing off-and-on since I was about 14. If we do some rough math and say that, in the 14 years since I've been playing I've only maintained a subscription for half of that time (which is super generous), I'd have sunk about $1,260 USD into it. But that means that WoW has also given me seven years of fun and enjoyment, so in hindsight that seems like a pretty good investment. In fact, I don't regret any of the money I've spent on MMOs—and I used to pay two subscriptions to EVE Online so I could play multiple accounts simultaneously.

But when it comes to spending money on microtransactions, you'll find I have a bit of an illness. I can remember multiple 2AM nights where I sat staring bleary-eyed at Hearthstone's storefront doing mental gymnastics to justify why $70 for 60 packs seems like a good idea. I've done similar with Rocket League, CS:GO—the list goes on. Right now, my current obsession is Path of Exile. I've dumped at least a few hundred into cosmetics because what's the point of being a god-slaying badass if you don't look the part? The one thing I'll say in defense of my bad purchasing habits is that these are all games that have returned my initial investment hundreds of times over. I've played Rocket League for 500+ hours, I think I can spend a little extra on some dumb cosmetics and still count my investment as in the black.

Evan Lahti: $512.94

If you would've asked me how many CS:GO keys I've purchased over the modest 1000 hours I've put into the game, I probably would've said 40 or 50—plenty, but from what I remember from my 2014 heyday, most of the stuff I picked up was in trades, skin gambling, or off the Community Market.

Checking my Steam Account History for the first time, it seems that between August 2013 and February 2017 I bought 206 CS:GO weapon case keys at $2.49 per. That's $512.94. Ho-ly shit. Yow. And out of that, I can't even say that I have anything especially valuable. csgobackpack.net seems to think that my CS:GO inventory's worth $545, but that's including a $106 dollar Huntsman Knife that was gifted to me. The best critique I can offer of CS:GO's loot boxes at this stage—if I can be trusted at all at this point—is that I own maybe three or four skins that I truly love.

Joe Donnelly: £99.94, just this year

Besides a nasty obsession with Habbo Hotel furnishings towards the end of 2001—a perfect if costly distraction from studying for high school prelim exams—I've never really invested real money in a videogame. Well, rather, I hadn't really invested real money in a videogame until my recent foray into GTA Online. At the end of January this year, I splashed for the game's Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack for 40 quid. Then I played for a few weeks without spending a penny. And then I bought a couple of Shark Cards for £11.99 a piece. And then I bought one or two more. And having just checked my Steam account transaction history, I now realise I've actually purchased five of the same premium tokens all told. Which means I've spent £99.94 on GTA Online in the last eight or so weeks. Jeeso. 

That's a lot of money, but, in all honesty, I don't regret it. Please spend your own money wisely, folks, but I found the starter pack to be helpful while raising my character's level, and I've had some great fun over the past several weeks revelling in my spread of frivolous office upgrades, cars and cosmetics. 

James Davenport: Got drunk last night and spent $60 on Fortnite

I’ll keep this brief because I’m tired and hungover, but I woke up to an email stating I dropped $60 in Fortnite for a pile of goddamn V-Bucks. I don’t know how it happened. Saw that pot-of-gold pickaxe and must’ve blacked out. I’m OK, I just might need some time away to think. 

We've rounded up all the major ways to make money in GTA Online in our comprehensive guide below. Since Grand Theft Auto 5's release, the cost and amount of vehicles, weapons, clothes, and other fun items for sale in GTA Online, the game's multiplayer component, has increased substantially. But so too has the amount of money that can be made. Whether these two things have increased at the same rate is a discussion for another time, but in this article I've collected all the best ways of making money (legitimately) in GTA Online to help players make sense of what can sometimes be a complicated and clumsily-discussed topic.

There are loads of methods to make money in the game that are not listed below, such as racing, deathmatches, missions, and various other game modes. But the amount you get for the time invested has not scaled up since 2013, so comparatively they are very inefficient. New players may find them useful to get started and ultimately, as long as you're enjoying what you're playing, the acquisition of money will come naturally. This guide, though, will focus on a variety of the most efficient ways to make as much money as possible. We've recently updated it to include details on making money through nightclubs in the game. 

It's worth noting that all of the below is focused exclusively on money making. Feel free to mix things up and do what you like the most. Even though the most money per hour will be gained by having a Gunrunning bunker and/or cocaine business working in the background while you grind Vehicle Cargo and VIP Work (if you're playing solo) or the Pacific Standard Heist (if you have a competent group), doing the same thing over and over again can get boring. The absolute maximum you'll ever be able to earn with full on grinding is only around $500k per hour anyway, and while that may sound a lot, it would still take you over 600 hours of pure grinding at that level to be able to buy all the vehicles available in the game (as I explore on my YouTube channel here).

As soon as it becomes a chore to acquire cash, where it feels closer to a job than a game, or you're not enjoying the fruits of your labour as much, it may be time to give moneymaking a rest or look to other games for enjoyment. That issue aside, though, below you'll find the best ways to make money in GTA Online as it currently stands. We don't include the Arena War series here because it's not one of the better ways of making cash in the game. 

We'll update this article as soon as the casino opens in GTA Online.

If you're looking for GTA 5 cheats, we've got you covered too.  

Double money events

Keep an eye on double money events. Rockstar will change what you can do to earn double money pretty much every week. Sometimes it will be on races or adversary modes that, even with double money, won't be as efficient as the other methods I've listed here. However, sometimes the below methods may have a double money week, such as Gunrunning bunker or Vehicle Cargo sales. The more options you have open to you, the more you can take advantage of these double money events if they happen to be for something lucrative. And if there's ever double money on Heists (which is very rare), you should absolutely do some grinding during that week.

Heists

Potential profits: $400k per hourPrerequisites: High-end apartment (min cost: $200k) and 3 friendsMethod: Walk to the heist planning room in your high-end apartment and select your chosen heist to start. You will need to pay an upfront cost to start the heist as host. Invite your three friends and work through the setup missions and finale. It is recommended to have a good group of four people to do this as communication and skill is required to reduce the time taken, and there are numerous guides online for each mission.Tip: The Pacific Standard Heist on Hard mode will yield the most profit per hour than any other money making method in the game when done effectively with a competent group of players. The host of any heist doesn’t make any money during setup missions and has to spend money to start each, so it’s a good idea for the host to take 40% of the final heist earnings with other players taking 20% each so that all four players will earn approximately the same overall.

Doomsday Heist

Potential profits: $300k per hourPrerequisites: Facility (minimum Cost: $1.25 mil) and 1-3 friendsMethod: Walk to the heist planning room in your facility and select your chosen heist act to start. You will need to pay an upfront cost to start the heist as host. Invite one, two, or three friends and work through the prep missions, setup missions and finale. As with the old heists, round up a group of decent players because communication and skill is needed to reduce the time taken to beat it.Tip: Completing these heists with two players rather than four will naturally mean more money per player, as the overall payout remains the same, but the missions will be slightly more difficult and potentially more time consuming with fewer players. The host of any heist doesn’t make any money during setup missions and has to spend money to start each, so it's a good idea for the host to take 40% (4 players)/50% (3 players)/60% (2 players) of the final heist earnings with other players taking an equal share of what remains, so that all players will earn approximately the same overall. Paying to skip prep missions is almost always never worth it from a monetary or time perspective.

Special Cargo

Potential profits: $200k per hourPrerequisites: Office (minimum cost: $1 mil), warehouse (minimum cost: $250k) & organisation member (CEO)Method: Start an organisation as a CEO from the SecuroServ option in the interaction menu. Walk to the computer in your office and select "Special Cargo", then "Buy" on the amount of crates you desire. You will need to complete a mission to deliver the crates to your warehouse. You can only carry one crate at a time but you can go back and forth to collect them. You can then use the laptop in the warehouse to sell your collected crates via a delivery mission to turn a profit.Tip: Buying more crates at once is more time effective, especially if you have friends to help you collect them and deliver to your warehouse. The more crates you sell at once, the more money you'll make per crate, hence a large, full warehouse is the best to build up and sell. Large warehouses cost more to purchase, though, and selling 111 crates at once is a larger risk as you'll either gain 2.2 million or lose everything.

Vehicle Cargo

Potential Profit: $300k per hourPrerequisites: Office (minimum cost: $1 mil), vehicle warehouse (Minimum Cost: $1.5 mil) & organisation member (CEO)Method: Start an organisation as a CEO from the SecuroServ option in the interaction menu. Walk to the computer in your office and select "Vehicle Cargo", then "Source Vehicle". You will need to complete a mission to steal a vehicle and drive it back to your vehicle warehouse. Be careful when driving it back as damage will result in repair costs, impacting on profit. You can then use the laptop in the vehicle warehouse to export the vehicle you sourced via a delivery mission to turn a profit.Tip: Repeat sourcing missions until you fill up your vehicle warehouse with 10 standard range and 10 mid range vehicles with no duplicates. At that point, every source mission will give you a top range vehicle until you get all 12 of those. Only export top range vehicles and sell as many vehicles at once as you can if you have friends to help—this will help maximise profits per hour.

Air Freight Cargo

Potential Profit: $150k per hourPrerequisites: Hangar (minimum cost: $1.2 mil) and organisation member (VIP/CEO)Method: Start an organisation as a VIP or CEO from the SecuroServ option in the interaction menu. Walk to the computer in your hangar and select "Source", then the type of cargo you want to source. You will need to complete a mission to deliver the cargo to your hangar. You can then use the laptop in the hangar to sell your collected cargo via a delivery mission to turn a profit.Tip: Stick to sourcing only one type of cargo, and make it either narcotics, chemicals, or medical supplies. You get a 35% bonus for selling 25 crates of these types, and a 75% bonus for selling all 50 crates. Selling a full hangar will require friends to help you, and in general sourcing cargo with friends is much more time effective.

Gunrunning

Potential Profit: $80k per hour passively (while doing other things)Prerequisites: Bunker (minimum cost: $1.2 mil) and organisation member (VIP/CEO)Method: Start an organisation as a VIP or CEO from the SecuroServ option in the interaction menu. Walk to the laptop in your bunker and select "Resupply", then "Steal Supplies" or "Buy Supplies". You will need to complete a mission to deliver the supplies to your bunker if you choose that option, or they can be delivered without any effort if you buy them. Once you have supplies your staff will begin manufacturing, turning them into stock when you're doing most other things in the game. You can then use the laptop in the bunker to sell your stock via a delivery mission to turn a profit.Tip: Buying supplies is more time effective, as is setting your staff to only manufacturing and buying the equipment/staff upgrades. This is passive income so you should have this running in the background while you make active income from other methods listed. There is no monetary bonus for selling a full bunker, and doing so will require friends if there are multiple vehicles to be used for the sell mission.

Motorcycle Club

Potential Profit: $80k per hour passively (while doing other things)Prerequisites: Clubhouse (Min Cost: $200k), business (Min Cost: $650k) and Motorcycle Club presidentMethod: Start a Motorcycle Club as president from the corresponding option in the interaction menu. Walk to the laptop in your business building and select "Resupply", then "Steal Supplies" or "Buy Supplies". You will need to complete a mission to deliver the supplies to your business if you choose that option, or they can be delivered without any effort if you buy them. Once you have supplies your staff will begin production, turning them into stock when you're doing most other things in the game. You can then use the laptop in the business building to sell your stock via a delivery mission to turn a profit.Tip: Cocaine production is the most profitable (on par with the gunrunning bunker), with the cheapest cocaine business costing $975k to buy, although sell missions often take longer to complete. Buying supplies is more time effective. This is passive income so you should have this running in the background while you make active income from other methods listed. There is no monetary bonus for selling full stock and doing so will require friends if there are multiple vehicles to be used for the sell mission.

Nightclubs

Potential Profit: $40k per hour passively (whilst doing other things)Prerequisites: Nightclub (Min Cost: $1.1 mil) & Other Businesses (Min Cost: $850k)Method: Walk to the computer in your nightclub building VIP area and select "Warehouse Management", then assign a Warehouse Technician to one of the goods you have available. The goods you have available will depend on the other businesses you own, such as motorcycle club businesses, gunrunning bunker, or cargo warehouses, and you can assign up to 5 technicians to accrue goods. Once assigned, your technicians will begin acquiring goods on their own when you're doing most other things in the game. You can then use the computer in your nightclub building VIP area to sell your goods via a delivery mission to turn a profit.Tip: The business aspect of the nightclub is really only for those who have many other businesses already, and it will not make you much money on its own in comparison to everything else listed here. It is merely an extra bump to your hourly income in the same vein as Gunrunning and Motorcycle club businesses, albeit half as profitable. This is passive income so you can have this running in the background whilst you make active income from other methods listed. There is no monetary bonus for selling full stock and it is actually more efficient to sell earlier. To reach the maximum profits of $40k per hour ignore Organic Produce & Printing and Copying, and assign technicians to the other five areas. Then sell goods every time Cash Creation, Pharmaceuticals & South American Imports are full (every 20 hours).

VIP Work

Potential Profit: $150k per hourPrerequisites: Organisation Member (VIP/CEO)Method: Start an organisation as a VIP or CEO from the SecuroServ option in the interaction menu. Open up the interaction menu and select "VIP Work", then the mission you want to do. You will need to complete a mission in free roam and will be rewarded with money upon successful completion.Tip: These missions are a great way to earn some money while waiting for cooldown timers to expire, such as if you're waiting to source another vehicle for your warehouse, as they are completed fairly quickly and pay relatively well. They aren't a replacement for other money making methods, though, as their payout isn't as high, but they're solid filler jobs. Headhunter, Hostile Takeover and Sightseer are notably decent missions to take on.

Premium Races

Potential Profit: $80k per racePrerequisites: A fast car/bike, good racing abilityMethod: Either drive to the location of the premium race, which is a golden stunt wheel on the map, or hover over it and start the job from the map. When the lobby has filled with eight other players, you'll have $20k taken from your bank account. You must finish third or above to make a return on that investment, with the winner of the race receiving $100k, second place taking home $30k, and third place getting their entry fee of $20k back.Tip: Premium races change every week and are a gamble, as it can take time to fill up a lobby and there is no guarantee you'll make money. If you're proficient at racing, however, are familiar with the stunt race on offer that week and have a good car (if you don't already know beforehand which car to use then you're not ready for the premium race), this can be quite lucrative.

Time Trials

Potential Profit: $50k per time trialPrerequisites: A fast car/bikeMethod: Drive to the location of the time trial, which is a purple stopwatch icon on the map. Start the time trial when you feel ready and attempt to get to the end point in a quicker time than the listed par time. There are no checkpoints in between, so you can take whatever route you like. You'll be rewarded with around $50k for successful completion.Tip: Time trials change every week and you can only gain the reward for completing them once per week. You do have an unlimited number of tries to beat the par time and can respawn back at the start, but the longer it takes, the less money you effectively make per hour from this method. In general, pulling wheelies on a fast bike will get you to your destination in the quickest way possible.

Daily Objectives

Potential Profit: $1.6 mil per 28 daysPrerequisites: Rank 15Method: Open up the interaction menu and select "Daily Objectives". This will display the three objectives you'll need to complete on that day. Simply complete each task and you'll be rewarded with $25k upon successful completion. Some tasks may be more difficult to complete than others and require the use of friends to complete easily.Tip: This is one of the easiest ways to earn money but only if you keep at it every day, as there are significant bonuses for seven and 28 consecutive days of objectives completed. Completing daily objectives for seven days in a row will earn a bonus of $100k, with 28 days in a row netting an extra $500k. The total amount of money you would make by completing all daily objectives for 28 days in a row would be $1.6 million (28x25k + 4x100k + 500k).

Other resources

GTA Online Reddit Mega Guide A great resource for those who want to make the absolute most out of their moneymaking and time with the game. A lot of extra information.GTA Series Videos Time Trials Guides This shows the way to beat each time trial in GTA Online for easy money each week. Also has guides for premium races.Broughy1322 Car Testing The best vehicles to use for racing to help get those premium race wins.Making $500K per hour solo Add the Gunrunning bunker working in the background to this method for the best way to earn money as a solo player.