Grand Theft Auto 6’s massive leak and the aftermath, explained

Two terms I’ve grown accustomed to, in writing about video games, are “marketing cadence,” and “work in progress.” They relate to all the authorized, pre-release, preview stuff I see about new video games. And they help explain why Sunday’s unprecedented Grand Theft Auto 6 Many in the industry would be shocked by leakage.

The leaked footage is about an hour worth of in-development footage. However, it does not include the little disclaimer at its bottom. And it definitely doesn’t follow some marketer’s plan, which is to hand-feed a discussion of a big game’s features, to sustain interest in (and desire for) a game from announcement to launch.

But setting Stuff They Don’t Want You to See loose into the wild like this is hardly a victory for transparency, or whatever higher-minded idea some might try to attach to what was, from the looks of it, an online burglary. The truth is that this is just hype of a different kind, and just like the more conventional hype, we’d all do well to cool our expectations.

This is clearly incomplete

It’s strange to see Twitter comments comparing the Vice City environment to Google Earth textures — as both compliment and insult — when it’s possible everything seen here is a placeholder. Yes, as Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported this summer, GTA 6 has been in development “in some form” since 2014. But I have no idea what “in some form” really means, and what this game should look like at this point. Do you?

Everything should be considered at face value. It’s a cinch this game is set in Vice City, and I’m excited to go back there 20 years after playing the original. Rockstar, the developer of Rockstar, has committed to playing both female and male lead characters. This is an unprecedented series. But there’s so much more we don’t know about Grand Theft Auto 6Rockstar does not expect us to enjoy it, but we do know how it’s made.

You’re not getting this game early

The hacker claiming responsibility — who also claims responsibility for hacking into Uber’s internal systems last week — says they have the game’s source code, and they’ve cryptically signaled they want to strike a deal with Take-Two/Rockstar.

This game does not have source code. It’s nothing to celebrate. Half-Life 2The source code for the game was taken and made public in October 2003. A playable version was made by fans one year before the game’s launch, November 2004.

It’s unclear if the GTA 6 hacker’s threat is believable; they seem to have taken most of their assets from the company’s internal Slack message system. However, they did appear to be able to access much more Uber. Either way, it’s unlikely that whatever was stolen from Rockstar would do much more in the public’s hands than recreate the kind of janky demonstrations seen on Sunday.

And you’re not getting more info, either

What about marketing cadence, remember? I’ve never seen a leak, no matter how large, budge a publisher off their plan for talking about a game when they want to talk about a game. A leaker revealed that Spike Lee had been directed in 2015. NBA 2K16’s story mode, plus two of the game’s three cover stars. 2K Sports (whose parent company is also Take-Two Interactive) didn’t acknowledge the leak until they made their official announcement, on their schedule, a month and a half later.

They’re hardly the only ones sticking to the script. Capcom has confirmed that the 18-fighter launch squad was finalized. Street Fighter 6 Although it was known from the start of June that they would launch next year, this has not been confirmed. The majority of MultiVersus’ roster was datamined in March, and WB Games still confirms things at its own pace.

You might get as close to the truth with something like Ubisoft’s case recently. It saw important details about Assassin’s Creed Mirage These (including the names) were first leaked on YouTube August 30th, and partially confirmed two days later. It was mostly an announcement for a livestream in which everything would be disclosed anyway.

The point here is, it’s not like Rockstar Games is looking at this leak and feverishly thinking about how to get ahead of the story, as in an episode of The West Wing. A sustained campaign on Reddit, gaming forums, or other social media isn’t going to pressure the company into making any kind of substantive reveal or acknowledgement of the leak beyond what they already have said.

This won’t change the finished product

Despite the fact that a game was leaked, Half-Life 2’s sales were largely unaffected and, critically, the game came home as one of the best of 2004, and one of the best of all time. Grand Theft Auto has become the most popular franchise in videogames today.

Shares of Take-Two Interactive dropped in trading before the bell on Monday but have recovered and are back where they were on Friday. Reuters reports, citing Bank of America analysts Grand Theft Auto 6 It is anticipated that bookings will be generated (i.e. contract revenue) of $3.5 Billion at launch, and then $2 Billion thereafter.

When you’re talking about money in billions-with-a-B, no amount of nitpicking over the few creative choices that are shown in the leaked videos will change developers’ minds. This isn’t an intentional leak that the conspiracy-minded might claim was testing fans’ reaction to a female protagonist or a kinder, gentler GTA. These design decisions have already been made and the ship is sailing. This is something else altogether, and it’s not a victory for transparency in any sense of the word.

People’s jobs are in play here

A key point made in Bloomberg’s report this summer is that Rockstar Games, sensitive to its reputation for crunch culture, backed away from a more ambitious vision for Grand Theft Auto 6 To provide a game base that can be continuously updated after release.

There’s no question that having your unfinished work brought before the world to be picked apart is demoralizing as hell — I’m already thinking about how I’d feel if you saw this draft leaked, or the discussions I’m having with my editors, benign as all of them are.

Since Red Dead Redemption 2 In 2018, the campaign was launched. Many fans voiced concern that workers would be making their own money. These fans might end up supporting, or even extending the harm done to workplaces by investing in this leak.

Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games, has already told investors that it has “taken steps to isolate and contain this incident.” Increased workplace security and quality of life there are two dots that aren’t hard to connect. Remote working policies could, for instance, be considered.

Let’s see the bottom line. This leak doesn’t tell us what the pace of development is like now at Rockstar Games. It doesn’t tell us what it’s like to be a woman working in that office, either. It doesn’t tell us if anything really has gotten better. However, it could lead to worsening of things.