GTA 6 leaks were ‘upsetting’ for developers

Publisher Take-Two’s CEO has said that a massive leak of GTA 6 details last year took an emotional toll on Rockstar employees.

The CEO of Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two has said that a massive leak of GTA 6 footage last year took an emotional toll on developer Rockstar’s employees.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zedlnick spoke on the impact of the leak during the company’s financial earnings call, saying that it wouldn’t affect business at the publisher, but that employees were upset by it (thanks, IGN).

“We take leaks very seriously indeed and they disappoint all of us – it’s really frustrating and upsetting to the team,” Zelnick said, “However, as a business matter, we’re not affected. But as a personal matter and an emotional matter, our teams are affected”.

Take-Two and Rockstar have yet to officially announce Grand Theft Auto 6, with insider sources saying that the game is still quite far from being finished. It’s expected that the game will be exclusive to current generation consoles and PC, skipping over the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One in favour of their successors.

Grand Theft Auto 5 is almost ten years old, having been released in 2013 and ported across three console generations. Picture: Rockstar Games

Zelnick also noted that Take-Two would be undergoing cost cutting measures, after the company’s revenue fell short of projections. One of the cost cutting measures may be lay-offs, but they will reportedly be minor in nature.

“We don’t expect some kind of broad-based [lay-offs] or anything of the sort, but that said it’s not as though we guarantee lifetime employment sadly,” Zelnick said, “So there will be certain instances where jobs will be lost, but I think that will be pretty modest”.

Grand Theft Auto 6 leaked in September last year, with almost 100 videos of in-development footage appearing online following a cyber attack on the company. The videos showed footage of the game very early in development, and many called it the worst leak in gaming history.

The leaker subsequently tried to make a deal with Rockstar, and though no demands were publicly made, the leaker threatened to post more data if the developer didn’t get in contact with them.

Work on the next Grand Theft Auto game slowed while developer Rockstar worked on Red Dead Redemption 2. Picture: Rockstar Games

A similar cyber attack took place at Riot Games earlier this year, with the League of Legends source code getting stolen and posted online. The attack came in the form of a ‘social engineering attack’, which is when a bad actor coerces important information out of an employee, like a password or an access point, and then uses those details to access content without any actual hacking.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.