Most reasonable people would say charging for ad space on leaked footage from the most anticipated media launch of all time warrants a pretty strong response from the IP holder, but when it comes to Rockstar’s years-long predicament with GTA 6 leaks, unfortunately there is reliable reporting that suggests that response disproportionately impacts employees with no involvement in the leaks.
According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, Rockstar implemented tight security measures including a return-to-office mandate for all employees following the explosive GTA 6 leak from 2022, which added salt to the wound when more leaks surfaced last week. The new leaker causing everyone at Rockstar to lose sleep currently has yet to be identified and has threatened substantial story spoilers. Rockstar has yet to respond publicly but has pursued aggressive legal action, as is its right, in the view of former Rockstar technical lead Obbe Vermeij, who was with Rockstar from 1995 to 2009.
Over on Twitter, Vermeij used his insights as a former lead at the company to say, “[Rockstar New York] overreacts a bit at times” before adding, “But it is their job to try to stop these kind of leaks.”
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Never thee mind, though, as Vermeij said in the same breath that the leaks “are a nothing burger” because 90% of prospective players aren’t looking around online for spoilers. “I was there during Hot Coffee,” he added, referring to an incident in which a very NSFW mini-game mistakenly made its way into GTA San Andreas.
“It was a nightmare for management [Rockstar’s New York offices] but didn’t affect us [Rockstar North] much. The current leaks are far less consequential than [Hot Coffee] was. It looks like GTA 6 will be phenomenal and sell for the next 15 years or so. The leaks are just a tiny blip.”
A tiny blip feels a little reductive considering gameplay and map details have been revealed against Rockstar’s will and now story spoilers are on the table, but at the end of the day, GTA is going to GTA and there’s little that could stop GTA 6 from being the biggest video game launch of all time.