Update For 2020
The content is unchanged, but the price is improved. As of April 2020, the base price is $9.99, which is far better than the original. At that price point, isn’t that bad. Better yet, as it is aimed at new buyers, the Steam bundle with the base game drops this price to almost half. For a bit over $5 extra, it is definitely now worth it.
On top of that, Steam has a big bundle with a Whale Shark card, for an extra $25! I’m not one to advocate for buying shark cards, because they are relatively overpriced, but this is effectively a 50% discount on one. That is huge! I’d spring for it, so I could start out with almost GTA$ 5 million to upgrade my working properties at the start. That bundle price is subject to change. Note that is is unavailable to me as a current owner of the game. It is only a special deal for brand new players.
No, I’m not so sure that it is worth it just to get a head start on the game, but it would make your early life a lot easier. It would get you the Vehicle Warehouse, which is the easiest fun way to make more money fast, especially solo. You can get that fairly fast even without this boost, with the GTA$ 1 Million from the starter pack, but you can’t just start out in the game with your businesses upgraded and running.
The advice I give below about the value of the properties and items is unchanged. You shouldn’t use the Paleto Bay bunker, unless you are going to ignore the gun running business except for missions. Even then, the location is inconvenient, but it is at least out of the way from the main city where most players in online live and work.
New Bottom Line: If you are starting out fresh as a new GTA Online player, get the new starter kit. At its current price, it is actually worth it, and will make your new player experience better.
I still recommend making friends to play with online. It greatly enhances the experience, and makes learning how to play the game profitably a lot easier.
I have two words for the new Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack: Rip Off!
http://gta.wikia.com/wiki/Criminal_Enterprise_Starter_Pack
For about $40, you supposedly get over GTA$ 10 million of stuff to get you started playing GTA Online.
That sounds like a good idea, and a good value, compared to the classic way to get a head start: Shark Cards. It would be, if it was actually both worth more than just getting a Shark Card — the Whale Shark at $50 for 3.5 million for example — and included enough useful to really get you going in the rough world of GTA Online.
It isn’t.
So should you consider buying this? No. I don’t recommend Shark Cards either, not at full price. But at least they would give you a better start in your life in GTA. There are packages with this pack in addition to Shark Cards, but even those are of dubious value.
It is sad. Sad!
This is really a good idea, because any new player of the game is going to have a huge disadvantage while trying to catch up to established players. Simply handing someone a lot of GTA$ isn’t going to guarantee a good start, because you won’t know what to get first. What a GOOD starter pack should offer is all the essential properties, weapons, and vehicles to actually run businesses and missions to make money fast. It also has to give good value for the price tag.
This Starter Pack fails at both.
If you want to know why this is true, read on. There are two big faults with the entire package. Since it is a good idea, I’m going to make suggestions to make it better. If nothing else, I want to give some simple advice on what you really need to get up to speed in GTA.
Problems In The Package
The biggest catch is that all the things you get are given as FREE items, from the in game stores. There are other free items available in the game. Free is generally a good thing, unless you are paying actual money for the free stuff. Because unlike in real life, where a free car would be just as valuable when sold as any other (after paying off the taxes of course), the purchase price determines the sale or trade-in value of the item.
My guess is that Rockstar did this to avoid “free money” glitches where you get something for free, then sell it for GTA$ later. I could still call it lazy programming, as the free Hermes offered at Christmas was locked and tracked at one purchase per character. It is much more of a problem for the properties, where trade-ins later if you choose to move would be expected, than for cars. If it treats the cars in the package like the free Elegy RH8 you can get, it can be fun to make a whole collection of differently customized cars without worrying about the cost.
At about 50% to 60% trade in value, 10 million GTA$ of free stuff would be worth about 5-6 million. Now, some of the things in the package cannot be sold or traded in. For those, you aren’t losing out on any potential value if you choose to later exchange or upgrade your collection.
Clothes, weapons, and Pegasus vehicles cannot be sold or traded. But cars, properties, and businesses can be. You can sell cars, and you can trade in or relocate your properties. You are likely to do that during your career, simply because you’ve reconsidered your choices, want new scenery, or something new and better comes along to replace it.
The second problem is that a starter kit needs to give you good things you really need. It is OK to have some fluff and luxuries which are cool and colorful, nice to have but not beneficial to your game play. But when the goal is to speed up your path to fortune and fame in the game, you can’t count the VALUE of those things. All that matters is what actually gives you a leg up, an advantage in the game.
So what do you get that is useful?
Weapons. Compact Grenade Launcher, Marksman Rifle, Compact Rifle. You can’t trade these in, so they are beneficial. I’d pick other weapons to give a new player a good start. Nothing they give you is rank locked. I’d recommend the AP Pistol — you can get by with this as your only pistol weapon, and ammo is cheap — and the Sniper Rifle. You need a drive-by weapon to shoot from a vehicle, and something with good range to counter all the other folks out there who already have it.
Still, they aren’t a rip off, just maybe not the best choice and you’ll end up buying other weapons to actually do missions with in the game. You will get weapons for free if you do the introductory missions for GTA online, and I recommend those. You’ll unlock the Micro SMG at rank 5, which you’ll reach fast, which is an essential drive-by attack weapon. I can see not unlocking it by default, given how quickly you’ll get it, but it is truly essential. The AP Pistol is a fully automatic pistol which is excellent for drive-by as well, and uses cheap (and easy to pick up off dead bodies) pistol ammo. You’ll get it too, but it takes longer. There are a lot of weapons unlocked on the right wall in Ammunation, so you will have lots of good options before you rank up.
1561 San Vitas Street Apartment: Really? A low end, 2 car garage place, albeit in a nice neighborhood, isn’t in line with the lifestyle of a crime boss in GTA. Worse, for a little over double its value, you can get a high end apartment, with a 10 car garage and a heist room. Tinsel Towers, Del Perro, Alta Street, all pretty cheap and good locations. You’ll eventually replace this place, and that means its zero trade-in value makes it worthless. It is worth something as a home to begin the game with, but nowhere near its $99K price.
What you’ll need: The cheapest high end apartment is $200K, at Del Perro Heights.
1337 Exceptionalists Way 10 car garage: Not bad, we get something you can use. No trade-in value, but it will be quite a while before you purchase enough properties to make you want to replace this. Assuming you ever do. It is near the LSIA airport, and that is also close to a LS Customs shop, both useful. Garages work as spawn locations, just like apartments, so for working in the game, it is perfectly fine. Still, $112K isn’t a whole lot of value.
Maze Bank West CEO Office: An office is extremely useful to have, so its $1 Million price tag makes it a good deal. The lack of trade in value is a downside, if you choose to upgrade later. Office price – like all properties – is all about the location, and to some degree, access and amenities. Close to the west side highways, with a low altitude helipad for easy air access, this isn’t a bad choice if you want to stick with it.
But you don’t get any of the useful add-ons which are what make a CEO’s life so good. You have to shell out money – a lot of money – to really start living the life of an Executive Criminal. You want a warehouse — cargo or vehicle, I’d recommend a vehicle warehouse if you get only one — in order to actually have a BUSINESS to run from your office.
If you do want to relocate — Maze Bank West is the cheapest office because its size and location makes it sometimes a little harder to operate from — you effectively lose the “free money” value of the place. All in all, I’d still count this as being nearly worth its “price.”
What you will need: Cheapest Vehicle Warehouse is 1.5 million, La Mesa. This isn’t that close to the office, but none of them are really.
We aren’t up to 1.5 million yet in useful things in this package. Let’s look at the next set.
More Properties
Great Chaparral Biker Clubhouse: The cheapest one, again. I like the location myself, so it isn’t a bad thing. Only GTA$ 200K, but being able to form a biker club and use its 10 motorcycle garage is a very good thing.
Senora Desert Counterfeit Cash: If you want to operate in the Senora Desert like Trevor, this isn’t a bad location. For biker businesses, if you are going to operate more than one, it makes sense to pick them all from the same area. The fake cash business is, however, third on the list for profitability. If you are only going to work with ONE biker business, Coke is the best deal. If you are going to get a Coke Lockup later, you need to consider if you are going to have the time and energy to also keep (and pay for) a 3rd-rate business as well. This time, not the cheapest.
About $845K. It has no upgrades, and for a new player, lacking them can really hurt the effectiveness of the business. Figure another 1.6 mil to really get the place rocking like it should. Upgrades roughly double the profits of the Biker MC and Bunker businesses. The lack of a security upgrade can make the frequent raids on the place frustrating. Upgrade cost: $1,609,000.
Again, if you relocate — or just choose not to keep the Cash business running — you get no value from these. So while they can be useful for a new player, they aren’t quite worth their list price. Still, running value is now about 2.5 million in properties. Or two Great White Shark Cards. You do get $1 Million in your bank, so that’s maybe 3.5 million — the value of the $50 Whale Shark card. But with the Shark Card, you’d have the trade in value, plus be able to get things from your favorite list of “stuff to buy first in GTA Online.”
So far, so OK. This is where things go downhill.
Paleto Forest Gunrunning Bunker: The cheapest you can buy, and the start of the big rip off! When you trade this in, it makes it effectively worthless. This is the bunker you’d buy if you want an underground home far away from the crowd, and just wanted to do some quiet weapons research and not bother with the messy gunrunning business. It is simply too far from everything to be a fun, profitable choice to actually use for the gunrunning business.
Because Gunrunning is the most profitable “passive” business, if you decide to run with it, you will quickly find the location too frustrating to use. Most sell missions have a 15 minute time limit, so being an extra five minutes from everywhere can turn a difficult task into an impossible one. With failed missions losing product and profit, it could quickly turn you off from the whole business.
Do you only want to get an MOC and the new weapons and vehicles (and missions), and not actually make money from your bunker? This is the place for you. Otherwise, too bad, so sad, it is worth NOTHING.
I mean, seriously, if you did get this Starter Pack, don’t invest anything in this bunker, just by another location and chalk it up as money wasted.
Note: Gunrunning and Biker businesses are “passive” in the sense that you provide supplies (stolen on missions or paid for with cash), then wait for the product to be ready for sale. You only need to a short time supplying the business (a handful of minutes if you buy supplies), then a sale mission every 5 or so hours of in-game time. For a typical gaming day, you can easily do one of each, collecting your money, then do other things with the rest of your play time.
Let’s talk about the real cost of Bunker operations. While the basic price isn’t too bad, it is all the upgrades and research which will really kill you.
Equipment Upgrade $1,155,000
Staff Upgrade $598,500
Security Upgrade $351,000
$2,104,500 total.
You’ll also need an MOC with the vehicle workshop in order to customize any of the weaponized/military vehicles it offers, and a weapon workshop in order to get any of the upgraded weapons. That’s another 2.5 million, not including any upgrades you stick on it.
Let’s say that you want that fantastic rocket boosted flying motorcycle, the Oppressor. Can be bought from Warstock Cache and Carry for $3,524,500 or for $2,650,000 (trade price). The trade price means completing missions from your MOC, and you need the MOC in order to upgrade the thing, so why not save some money?
So, for about $4.6 million for the MOC and upgrades (so your bunker can make money and do research efficiently), and the price of the Oppressor, you’ll drop some $7.3 million to get a flying motorcycle. But wait, what if you want to ride like a MegaForce and shoot missiles from that flying bike?
That requires you to run research in the bunker. The order of items researched is entirely random. It will cost you roughly $10 million to fast track all the research, or roughly the equivalent in supplies and lost gunrunning weapon sales if you just let the bunker do research. On average, you’ll hit the one item you most want about halfway through — but average isn’t the same as guaranteed, and you might get unlucky and get it last. Even running off the average, that is another $5 million or so.
So to get a fully armed, upgraded, fantastic flying motorcycle, it will set you back over $12 million.
While you’re doing that research, you’ll unlock other things. Having unlocked cool new things, you’ll be tempted to spend money to actually use them.
This is why I say the Bunker is a money sink. It is a great business, but it doesn’t actually pay much better per hour than the best Biker MC business.
If you are established, it doesn’t take that long to get all this stuff in your bunker. I, for reasons mostly of my own doing, was basically broke when the Gunrunning DLC dropped, and had all the upgrades and research done within two months. But I had my CEO Vehicle Warehouse, Cargo Warehouse, and Biker MC Coke business and let me make money and turn the bunker into the a profitable, fun business, with cool new toys including the flying bike.
Let’s look at the vehicles in the Starter Pack:
First, a quick mention of the joy of custom races and vehicles. Established players will want custom races on, so they can use their fully upgraded, customized rides in any races. Why not, they paid their money and earned them. As a new player, all of the performance upgrades will be locked. The Transmission, Engine, and Turbo upgrades combined give a 40% boost to engine power and acceleration. The others offer a lesser advantage, but it still makes a difference. All things being equal, how much chance do you think you’ll have over an experienced racer who has that much better of a car, even if you own the same model?
So your question should be “What can these vehicles do for me?”
And the answer is, not much besides look nice.
Pro Tip: The best performance unlocks require 44 race wins or Rank 100. It can take a couple of months to rank up, but here’s some short advice on race wins: A short, 4 player one lap race win counts as one win, same as a win in a 30 player, 5 laps around the city race. 2nd place doesn’t count. Do short races like Criminal Records set at one lap, and you can get the wins well before you rank up. Us old-school players didn’t have the rank unlock, so we had to get wins to get the cool upgrades.
Dune FAV: The idea of an armed dune buggy is fun. But you can’t arm it unless you do enough research in your bunker. Figure you’ll spend 5-12 million to complete the research if you invest in it. The gunrunning vehicles can be fun, but without the expensive weapon upgrades they aren’t very impressive. Add in 3 million or more for the nice MOC vehicle to let you upgrade them and the upgrades for the bunker, and this simply is a cheap offroad vehicle with no weapons. Not as good as the much cheaper offroad vehicles you get just buy in the game.
Maibatsu Frogger: Ok, so you get a helicopter, but this one isn’t impressive. Not too fast, and no weapons. Did you know that a CEO (and some biker club officers) can call on vehicles from an interaction menu, and if you happen to OWN one of them, you call them for free rather than paying money? It only costs $200 to call any Pegasus vehicle, and you have to go to a pickup location to get it.
The single most useful helicopter in the game right now is the Buzzard. It is on the CEO and Biker Road Captain vehicle menus, with the CEO one being the most useful as it comes with its weapons. Best of all, it will appear near to you wherever you call it, rather than at a few select airfield/helipad locations.
Huntley S: Not a bad luxury SUV. But do you need a luxury SUV when starting out in the game? It is neither the fastest in its class, nor especially fast as a general vehicle. The Baller MK2 (sloped roof) you can steal off the street and insure at a custom shop is about as good, and not bad off road if you need that.
Enus Windsor
Obey Omnis
Banshee
Coquette Classic
These cars are just to look cool in. They aren’t high performers in their classes. The Elegy RH8 is still an excellent racing sports car, and free to Rockstar Social Club members.
Turismo R: The cheapest mid-range supercar, it looks good but isn’t good enough to use in custom races against other players. When the game first came out, this was a fine 2nd place supercar. But that was a long time ago, and it no longer holds any strong position. The cheapest current competitive supercar is the Zentorno.
Pegassi Vortex
Western Zombie Chopper
Neither of these bikes is good for anything but looking cool when you ride them.
All of the cars suffer from one big, big problem: It will cost a small fortune to customize them, and the really useful upgrades are all locked when you start out. You could spend a million or two upgrading and decorating the “FREE” cars you got. With no resale or trade-in value, these are pretty much just a money sink.
Net useful value of the vehicles? Zero. Like clothes, they might look good but don’t do anything to actually help you in the game!
Bottom Line Advice
You’re still thinking about getting this, aren’t you? Rockstar is pushing this package, with messages in-game and in advertising elsewhere, hyping the “over $10 Million value” you get. How does it actually work in-game?
Well, you don’t simply get all the things give to you. You get a menu item for the Starter Pack showing its contents, and you can select an item, which takes you to the online store for things normally purchased that way (vehicles and properties). The price will be shown as FREE, and you purchase it normally.
If you are already a little established in the game, and have some properties, trading a better property for a FREE but poorer one might refund you some money, but give you no actual advantage or step up in the game. It is really meant for players who haven’t obtained money and property in the game yet.
Players who are clueless about what to buy in the game. And dropping an extra $40 on this, might be willing to put out another $50 or $100 (99.99) for Shark Cards, in order to get things which are ACTUALLY USEFUL in the game.
Is that you? Rockstar sure is hoping for a lot of new players with extra money to “invest”.
What could make this a better deal?
First, give a trade in/resale value above zero for the items given for free. It can’t be that hard to essentially give you a “voucher” for the items at, say, half cost, so you get the in-game equivalent of about 5 million in purchase value. Which turns into about 3 million or so in trade in or resale (after depreciation, cars for example are worth 60% of purchase price if you sell them). Add in the million bucks cash, and you’d be definitely ahead compared to getting a Shark Card. I don’t expect Rockstar to actually do this, because of problems with glitching free money (which players have done with other things).
Second, give more useful items. A bunker sounds cool, but the cheap Paleto Bay location is frustrating and effectively worthless for serious players. I’d recommend a vehicle warehouse instead. The import/export business is easy to get into — steal hot cars and sell them — and more important, usually fast and furious fun and profitable. It is the single best money-making feature in the game right now. I’d recommend other guns, like the AP Pistol, that you are more likely to use on real missions in the game.
Third, more useful vehicles. Not just difference choices, I’d suggest giving a one time LS Customs “voucher” for each and every customizable vehicle, allowing you to ANY customizations you want, even locked ones, on for free. The all important racing performance upgrade “Turbo” is locked to Rank 100 (or a lot of race wins). If you could start out with “fully upgraded vehicles” for racing and missions, that would be worth paying extra for. You can’t get those unlocks without a lot of play time (about 100 hours, not bad but still a while).
There are vehicles which top most players “must buy” lists. None are included. I suggest:
Stuff You Really Need
Buzzard: Top pick for most useful thing for any CEO, or just anybody.
This is my #1 essential vehicle for a new CEO. Or for that matter, for the first aircraft you get in the game. It has guns and missiles, is fast and agile, seats four so you can carry crew around, and most important, is on the CEO and Biker MC Road Captain vehicle menus. For $5000, you can call up a Buzzard (or some other helicopters) when you are a CEO, and they will appear near your location. But if you OWN one, the cost is zero!
The $1,750,000 cost is a lot, but it is far, far more useful than the Frogger helicopter. A long, long time ago, in a GTA far away, I bought a Swift for my first helicopter, because the Buzzard was rank locked and I had money. The Swift IS faster, but weapons are usually better than speed. Now, there is no reason not to select this vehicle as your top priority for a new CEO.
Duke O’ Death: You really need an armored car for working missions, both in free roam and jobs like contact missions and heists. This is free for “returning players,” so there is a way for some people to already get it free. It is a cool muscle car and fun to drive, and its bulletproof, explosive resistant design makes it (or one of the other armored cars) an essential tool for any criminal. $665K.
Kuruma (Armored): I mention this only because it is an often superior alternative to the Duke, but I’d rather give the Duke as the free car, and give you an incentive to do the Fleeca Heist to unlock the discount on this (plus you make enough quickly to buy one that way). $698,250, or $525,000 (After The Fleeca Job, Online)
Shafter V12 (Armored): This is the fastest (currently) vehicle with armor protection. $325K. The (Armored) version is still classed as the fastest sedan, and it is the fastest land vehicle with armor.
All three of these together is $1,688,500. What the heck, just get all three. Each has its own advantages, why not have them all? I do.
The Duke O’ Death is a muscle car, good acceleration, and tougher against explosives than the Kuruma. It has a firing slit in the front which leaves the driver vulnerable, but if you shoot at an angle you are quite safe. The Kuruma is a sports rally car — it has excellent off road handling — and has a higher top speed than the Duke, making it good for long drives, but less acceleration. It has more bulletproof armor over the windows — the front windshield is nearly impenetrable — but isn’t as tough against explosives. The Shafter V12 (Armored) has the Executive ballistic armored glass, which can take quite a few shots to penetrate, but offers no firing slits and will eventually break. Like the Duke, it is resistant to explosives. Use it when you need to get someplace fast and don’t want to get shot up.
Because the Elegy RH8 is still free and a fine sports car, you don’t really need to include it in any package. But there are some sports cars which you could have.
Shafter V12: This was the fastest Sports Car before the Pariah was added, and remains faster than many supercars and lots of fun to drive. $116K. Also valid in the Sedans class for racing. Best speed for money of any car.
That’s it, really, for what you need for missions. Here are some that I’d consider fun to have as a starting player, and worth getting.
Zentorno: The Vagner is the current top gun racing supercar for regular circuit tracks, but this is less than half price and remains a contender. A bad ass looking car with nice acceleration and sound. Fully customized, you can pull off race wins if you know how to drive, still a top 5 or top 10 best race car choice. $725K.
Pisswasser Dominator: The Dominator is a nice muscle car and you can steal one off the street and claim it. The race car version is even faster, and gives you a solid, fun choice for muscle car races, as well as just driving around. $315K.
BF400: This motorcycle is fast and good for wheelies, and also qualifies for off road racing. The Sanchez and Bati 801 are both very good bikes, but can be stolen and kept. This costs $95K.
Nightshark: This military armored SUV is fairly fast and extremely tough, able to take multiple rocket hits and survive. It laughs at the weak guided missiles of a Homing Launcher and many armed vehicles. The Insurgent is a classic alternative, but this is even faster. It has built in forward facing machine guns, but you can’t use your normal drive-by weapons in it, unlike the Insurgent. $1245K.
When starting out, never ignore the cars which are cheap, as some will do just fine as your personal working or racing vehicles. You can steal cars off the street, and keep them, as long as A) the purchase price is $95K or less and B) they are base game vehicles, not DLC add-ons (because those don’t normally appear in traffic).
Fixing the Starter Pack:
Things to add:
The cheapest high end apartment is $200K, at Del Perro Heights.
Cheapest Vehicle Warehouse is 1.5 million, La Mesa. Pro tip: sell only the Top Range value cars at maximum (spend 20K to customize) price.
Buzzard: $1,750,000
All 3 Armored Cars: $1,688,500
Shafter V12: $116K
Total: $5,255,500.
That’s a lot of extra money you’ll need to get your life set up in GTA Online. Might have to get a big Shark Card in order to manage it. In fact, one of the Megalodon cards would about do it!
Or, we can just swap out stuff in this package and give you what is really useful.
Properties: $1,099,000. Remove the small apartment and the bunker.
Vehicles:
Frogger $1,300,000
Dune FAV $1,130,500
Ok, so far $3,529,500 for obvious things to replace. Got to come up with another $1935K. If we swap the next three most expensive cars out, we easily hit that. Bye bye, Windsor, Omnis, Coquette Classic.
We actually have some flexibility. I don’t mind things having no game utility. Most clothes (other than bulletproof helmets) do nothing for you in the game. Most cars are just for fun, with no in-game benefits.
In practice, since the “free cars” in this package are mostly just for fun, the price is just for the marketing value. Claiming that you’re getting over $GTA 10 million of stuff sounds nice, but not everything is actually worth spending real money on.
At least, not for most people. Cool clothes and cool rides are things you buy when you have extra money earned in the game and nothing pressing which you need. It isn’t what you’d want to spend your REAL money on when you are trying to get a boost to your starting situation.
In the long run, you will make money playing this game. There are some tiers of income levels, depending on your resources and types of activity.
First, let’s look at some easy basics.
#1: Selling street cars at the custom shop. The top range of common cars you can steal and sell get you $9000-9500, and you can do this every real world 48 minutes. Or about $10K per hour of play. It only takes a couple of minutes to sell a car, so this is something near 300K per hour, a very good deal for the time spent. The less common customized street cars can pay better.
#2: Daily Objectives. Another easy way to make money, gives you $25000 for completing three tasks each day, with a nice 3000 RP reward as well. But if you don’t miss completing them on every day you play, you get bigger bonuses every 7 and 28 consecutive days. The big $500000 bonus is very nice. It usually takes under 20 minutes to do the three activities, so this again is both not bad for the time and not hard to do. If you have trouble finding players for activities, make friends or just ask in your current public session.
Now, let’s look at game play incomes.
A) 60K/hour. Basic typical jobs, like death matches, races, etc., and associate and biker club member incomes. Pays around 60K per hour, $1000 per minute. This varies some, but on average the usual simple things you do in the game which pay money will give you at least this much. Roughly 16 hours per $1 Million.
B) 120K/hour. The good jobs: Contact missions, and most things with double GTA$ awarded by Rockstar. Also, running a Biker MC business along with other activities tends to push you into this range.
Pro tip: Contact missions pay 100%, the maximum, after 15 minutes, but will give you 50% of the payout after 4 minutes. You can do three 4 minute jobs in under 15 minutes and collect 150% of the job pay rate. For a typical about 20K payout job, that’s 30K every 15 minutes.
Roughly 8 hours of play per million.
C) 240K/hour. CEO executive with a fully established business, or three Biker MC or Bunker businesses with no CEO businesses. One vehicle warehouse will let a single, solo player make this money. You can also do so with the Cargo Warehouses, but it takes longer. The Hangar smuggling business makes good money ONLY if you have a full crew working with you. About 4 hours for every million.
D) 350K/hour. CEO executive with two Biker MC or Bunker businesses. Note that even with one — the starting package I’d recommend — you’ll be making somewhere near 300K an hour even without perfect efficiency. About 3 hours of play per million.
E) 500K/hour or more. The real deal. CEO business plus two or three other businesses, including Bunker, operating with a full crew or syndicate. This game can be played lone wolf, but the advantages of having a crew of four or more to run business operations is huge. This is also the potential for good heist crews. Heists are awesome, but the income is very dependent on the quality of the crew, because any one player messing up can fail the job.
Conclusions
To get all the things in this Starter Pack which are useful for a beginning player, it would take you maybe 20-40 hours of play time. The single element which would really let you make money, the vehicle warehouse and office, make up the first half of your “getting started” game play.
You could buy a Shark Card to get a boost to this point, but after that? It isn’t that hard to keep making money once you have both a good CEO business and a couple others.
I’d say that you want to get a shot at catching up to established players, but that just isn’t practical. Players can be making 100-500K per hour of play in this game, and some people have 1000 or 2000 or more hours of play time. Fortunately, there is a huge, huge gap between what you need to run a “normal, successful criminal life” in GTA and what it is possible to acquire over time. It is good that there are so many things to get in the game, because you always have something to look forward to. But it even better than you don’t really NEED all those cool toys in order to have fun and be a success in the game.
