Red Dead Redemption fans turn their ire against Rockstar after bewildering PS4 port choice: 'Rockstar is Dutch and we've all become Arthur'

pcgamer.com:

After months of speculation, the Red Dead Redemption remaster/remake saga hit a damp squelch of an anticlimax yesterday afternoon, when Rockstar proudly announced it was porting the basic version of the original PS3 and Xbox 360 game to the Nintendo Switch and PS4. For $50, no less. Fans were upset.

«C'mon Arthur we only need to sell one more copy of Red Dead Redemption for switch at 50$ and tomorrow will be eating mangoes» pic.twitter.com/QfEhWA1NDxAugust 7, 2023

Fans continue to be upset, actually. Red Dead community hubs have gone into full-on mutiny mode, trading memes that excoriate and mock Rockstar's decision-making and encouraging one another to boycott the port entirely.

"Do not buy Red Dead Redemption," reads the title of a much-upvoted and awarded thread in the subreddit all about Red Dead Redemption. Its author, dtv20, explains their reasoning thusly: «It's a $50 port of a 13 year old game» with «no graphical enhancements. No FPS enhancements» and «no multiplayer.» «Don't buy this cash grab,» they conclude.

I'm always wary of the phrase «cash grab,» which is usually used to paper over holes in our understanding about how particular games come to be, but I get the frustration. After over a decade of RDR1 being trapped on consoles that most of us—at best—have locked away in lofts and garage, it's bewildering to see the game's stewards decide that the best thing to do is port it to a decade-old console (and the Nintendo Switch, which at least makes sense) but leave PC in the dust.

Plenty of fans have pointed out the incongruity between RDR1's new port—and its price—and the backwards compatible version that fans can play right now over on Xbox Series S/X. You can pick that one up for a mere £25/$30 right now, and