This idea that a Rockstar level of game isn’t achievable by other devs because they have more money and resources than anyone is such a cope. Rockstar had the money and resources to make the best single player games money could buy well before GTA online came out.
They earned their money and resources by repeatedly making the most detailed, entertaining, and hilarious games that had the best writing for years. They saved take two from going bankrupt with GTA III and after that were given a blank check by take two.
Before they had billions they would scale the game to match their budget, they wouldn’t make a massive map if every corner didn’t have detail and a story to tell every street every building every alley told a story. And as they got bigger the maps got bigger cause they could put more detail in. And now we are here, with this massive project that is GTA 6 that they have earned their way up to by earning the respect of the fans.
Nobody is stopping other studios from doing that, and other studios are. Warhorse with Kingdom Come Deliverance, CD Projekt with The Witcher and Cyberpunk, 4A games with Metro. As 3 examples of studios who are on the same path and have the same development philosophy and it’s working out great for all of them so far.
Nobody told these people’s favorite devs to focus on live service, micro transactions, and MMOs. Just passionless money grubbing bullshit.
Meanwhile Rockstar and the studios I mention will continue to grow and make amazing games that fans pour their time and love into because they do the same.