Rockstar updates Red Dead Online’s economy, gives beta players free gold

Rockstar Games is making changes to Red Dead Online’s contentious economy starting Thursday, adjusting prices of in-game items and increasing payouts of cash and gold. The better news for players who have tried out Red Dead Redemption 2’s online beta is that Rockstar is giving them a nice little infusion of cash for free.

The best news is that if you bought something in Red Dead Online already, and Rockstar has dropped the price of that item, you’ll get some in-game currency refunded to you.

Here are the major changes coming to Red Dead Online, including adjustments to rewards, pricing on catalogue items and rebalanced values of pelts and other items:

Increasing the cash and gold payments across a number of different activities including Free Roam Missions, Free Roam Events, replays of A Land of Opportunities Missions, Showdown Series modes and more.

Reducing the prices of most weapons in the Wheeler, Rawson & Co Catalogue and Gunsmiths. For players that have already purchased weapons at the previous prices, we will automatically deposit the difference to player balances starting today - please look for an alert message the next time you log in to the Red Dead Online Beta to notify you of this change, refunds may take up until Monday, December 10th to reach all eligible players.

Balancing the values of select pelts, skins and fish as well as horse reviver and pamphlets.

Rockstar says it’s not done tweaking Red Dead Online’s in-game economy. “Of course our efforts to improve and balance the Red Dead Online Beta will continue,” the studio said. “We are conscious of and still evaluating an assortment of further adjustments based on feedback from the community.”

Players who have taken part in the Red Dead Online beta (from Nov. 27 through midnight PST Dec. 6) will receive $250 of in-game cash and 15 gold bars. Rockstar says those freebies will start hitting today.

As previously announced, Rockstar plans to roll out another update soon to address bugs that have been kicking players from gameplay sessions.