

One of the decade’s most eagerly awaited games is suddenly becoming more awaited. Namely, on Sunday, September 18, over 90 unauthorized clips of Grand Theft Auto 6 video files started showing up online.
This is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, leaks of this age that shook not only Rockstar Games but its complete fandom.
Multiple clips emerged on the fan site GTAForums, giving the public an extremely unpolished but first look at Rockstar’s upcoming triple-A title.
The leak has had a significant impact and has sparked a debate about how leaks affect every stage of game development in the video game industry.
But, will these leaks ultimately be a stepping stone or an obstacle for the development of the upcoming game of the famous cult series? Was this intentional, or was it a mishap from the company?
Read our take on GTA 6 leaks and find answers to all the hot questions surrounding this scandal.
GTA’s Decades of Surprises
The way the Grand Theft Auto series influenced millennials and zoomers alike is unprecedented.
Chances are, even if you never were a fan of video games, you’d still know about the premise of GTA: steal whatever car on the street you like and roam the city in whatever fashion you want.
I even remember showing GTA 3 to my dad as a kid, not knowing I was working as a pimp on a mission and quickly getting grounded for playing the game.
However, I didn’t even know about the first installments of the game. The first two games of the series started with 2D games that were played from the bird’s-eye view.
The most revolutionary game of the franchise was its third installment, in which you controlled your character from a third-person view in 3D surroundings.
GTA 3 was so successful and ahead of its time that it quickly spawned knock-off games and original sequels such as Vice City, Liberty City Stories, San Andreas, and many more, not counting infinite unofficial mods.
The GTA 3 series showed us that even the unlimited has limits that can be broken.
Vice City showed us that you could fly a helicopter whenever you thought you couldn’t get more out of a game than stealing a Dodo Airplane and flying it for 44 seconds in the previous game.
Soon enough, San Andreas showed us you could ride a jetpack and shoot people with an uzi on your way to get a haircut.
Whenever you thought you could ram into a traffic barrier and casually leave the car, the GTA 4 game physics showed us how to fly hundreds of meters into the air without a jetpack.
Finally, GTA 5 went so far as to demonstrate you can get high on drugs and alcohol and turn into a pigeon that can poop on pedestrians.
In short, Rockstar titles are so detailed and well-executed that I’m listening to the Head FM radio from Grand Theft Auto 3 as I write this.
In other words, whatever iteration this cult game had, it always brought something new and surprising to the market.
A large portion of the excitement and hype surrounding these games was the fact that you’ll never stop surprising yourself with a feature you didn’t know existed in the game even after months of playing.
However, this might be jeopardized by the most recent leaks that showed up on the internet in September 2022.
Uber Leaks
One of the most well-known websites for talking about anything Grand Theft Auto-related is GTAForums.
This week it was in the center of the internet thanks to the leaked information on the still-in-development Grand Theft Auto 6, alongside other social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube.
The game’s various in-development features, including the setting, gunplay, and NPC AI, were demonstrated in a variety of unfinished footage.
The videos also appeared to confirm several GTA 6 speculations that were previously going around the internet, such as the existence of both male and female characters.
The confidential information was leaked by a user, “teapotuberhacker,” the same individual responsible for the earlier hack of the Uber app.
What’s the strangest thing is that the user might not even be a top-tier hacker. In fact, he accessed the information through social engineering.
In other words, this person didn’t use any elevated computer science or surveillance skills. Instead, they managed to access the leaks through shrewd WhatsApp communication.
They leaked 90 clips from the game, six assets, and the game code, firing up the whole gaming community.
Take-Two Take Action
Leaked footage from several platforms was taken down later that day at Take-Two Interactive’s request.
According to VGC, takedown requests looked to originate from people with Rockstar email addresses, further verifying the leaks’ integrity.
As Monday came, discussions containing the leaked material were deleted from GTAForums and the GTA 6 subreddit.
Websites posted notices stating that they were removing all copyrighted content as requested by Take-Two.
Although the original GTAForums thread was revived once more, it was soon blocked from further comments and any references to the erased GTA 6 content.
Rockstar Games Confirms
Given that the footage wasn’t polished, people at first thought clips at stake weren’t the real deal.
The presented videos had a lot of coding on the screen, and some textures and renderings looked like work in progress.
However, Rockstar surprised everyone by confirming the authenticity of the hack. Now the situation seems to be escalated to the point that it can’t be a scam.
As it can be seen from their statement: “We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorized third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage for the next Grand Theft Auto.”
Despite the widespread disclosures, Rockstar reassured fans that it did not foresee any disruption or “long-term effect on the development” of its continuing projects and that the next GTA development would “continue as planned.”
Five-Star Wanted Level
The FBI has joined the investigation into the hacking due to the scale and scope of the attacks and the fact that not one but two large corporations have been victimized.
As we mentioned earlier this year, the same person claimed to have hacked Uber corporation, disclosing confidential information.
Uber stated that it was collaborating with the FBI and the US Department of Justice to look into the most recent data breaches and claimed that the same hacker was likely also responsible for the Rockstar incident.
Uber stated it suspects the hacker or hackers are part of the Lapsus$ organization, which has attacked businesses like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Samsung using similar methods in the past.
The fact FBI joined in the pursuit show only that this isn’t a Pokimane nude photo scandal that will settle in the upcoming days, but a serious issue.
Grand Theft Aftermath
Even though the leaks happened just a few days ago, the episode has already sparked a lot of debate in the video game community.
One such debate centers on the negative effects of releasing such unfinished game videos and how that can influence how people see the finished product.
Although the next Grand Theft Auto game is still in its early stages of development, the lack of common awareness of game creation could have a negative impact on the game’s final rendering.
However, the unfair comments about the game looking unfinished are clearly coming from trolls and people who don’t realize that the clips are actually unofficial and unauthorized leaks.
Nevertheless, there were a lot of comments about the game looking great, even though it’s still in development.
For instance, you could see that there might be an option for carrying bodies around or carrying a visible rifle on the back of your character.
It’s not certain whether we’ll be limited on the amount of carrying multiple larger weapons around, or we’ll need to decide on one main thing.
Perhaps the most noticeable feature of the game is that we’ll get the chance to play with a female protagonist.
Having a strong female protagonist won’t be a revolutionary thing in gaming. Still, it might motivate the much-needed female gamers to take more interest in the originally male-oriented games.
The story is rumored to be a contemporary version of Bonnie and Clyde. It would be cool to see whether devs will make the game playable in co-op.
The setting of the game is apparently a modern-day Miami, meaning we’ll see some nods to the GTA Vice City.
There were rumors about the GTA 6 story being spread across multiple locations, but the leaks didn’t reveal it.
What Does This Mean for Rockstar Games?
It looks like this is one of those situations when you start thinking about whether even bad marketing is good.
However, does this fiasco with the GTA 6 leaks generate a bad or a good public image in the first place?
The thing is, all corporations tend to have meticulously planned new product launch strategies that assume a rigorous PR schedule.
The leaked material is certainly an unplanned reveal of some of the major sensitive information on GTA 6.
It means PR staff can’t count on the element of surprise whenever they want to use new information like the first female protagonist etc.
For instance, maybe Rockstar planned to reveal GTA 6 details during Thanksgiving, Christmas, or on the day GTA V celebrates a whopping ten years of its launch (which falls on September 17, one day before the leaks).
The planned launch campaign can surely build up a good hype around a product, making the public anticipation even more exciting.
Given that savvy gamers liked what they saw in the leaked material even though it wasn’t polished, it also gives high hopes for the upcoming Rockstar title.
The fact leaks showed only unpolished, but good stuff might even insinuate that Rockstar had planned this little maneuver from the start.
Most likely, this wasn’t orchestrated by Rockstar Games. The GTA 6 hacker or hackers in question already disclosed Uber information.
In addition, Rockstar Games is known to be a rather secretive corporation that wouldn’t put its raw content out to the public so easily.
Furthermore, giving out your game code to the public and the ideas might not be smart, given that all your competitors can steal the key concepts before your launch.
However, Rockstar can also ride this wave and use all of the free marketing the leaking incident suddenly provided out of nowhere.
It can use all of the upcoming memes, speculations, and word of mouth to its advantage and draw an even larger public to the game.
Who knows, maybe we’ll even have a GTA 6 mission where we’ll need to set up one hacker for jail time or something else?
Until then, we must agree with the words of Neil Druckman, the co-president of Naughty Dog:
“To my fellow devs out there affected by the latest leak, know that while it feels overwhelming right now, it’ll pass. One day we’ll be playing your game, appreciating your craft, and the leaks will be relegated to a footnote on a Wikipedia page. Keep pushing. Keep making art. ♥️”