I don't play multiplayer games, but GTA single player are some of my favorite games. As long as there is a good single player campaign in GTA VI I'll buy it pretty much immediately when it's available for PC, as I'm sure plenty of others will as well. I doubt this leak will affect the sales, although I can understand why the developers would prefer to not have their half finished work leaked like that.
According to the thread on gtaforums it was allegedly the same hacker that recently hacked Uber. Will be interesting to read more about this when there's more info out, I assume they have something in common and that more companies are vulnerable.
The story lines have been getting more and more shallow. Simple cooperative heists, killings, theft, etc, with very predictable gang assertion themes.
They are investing far more time and effort into "online" - the leaks confirmed this. "Open worlds" lend themselves to shallow micro-stories.
Maybe I'm being a grumpy old man, but in video game history, the best games were those that had complex character development, and novel worlds that supported a deep and thoughtful plot - something that would make the player have some emotional investment in.
I don't see any evidence of that in recent GTA games.
IIRC Uber was hacked via human weakness in multi-factor authentication. It’s actually something a ton of companies are vulnerable to so I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see it replicated here.
> I doubt this leak will affect the sales, although I can understand why the developers would prefer to not have their half finished work leaked like that.
Speaking from experience: gamedev has a lot of things that get removed or rejigged. Leaks like these not only destroy the feel of the game as a finished product it also gives unrealistic promises.
Case in point: There was a Snowdrop tech demo that got leaked which included "the division" with stealth mechanics. Such mechanics were technically impossible (for a lot of reasons I don't want to get into); but that leak had people going nuts because it looked cool.
(to be perfectly fair to the hype-train: the division was oversold in an official E3 trailer in 2013 anyway; before Ubisoft had details of the next generation hardware specs, same year as watchdogs... oops.)
>As long as there is a good single player campaign in GTA VI I'll buy it pretty much immediately when it's available
Same here. I used to game a lot in high school and college, then I stopped. The only thing that ever gets me to fire up the console again is a new release of GTA and a new release of CoD (provided the story is good and not some futuristic crap).
Last time was when the Modern Warfare reboot was released in 2019. The 2nd part is coming this year, so it looks I will be playing it as soon as it is available. Same with GTA VI, although I guess that will be a lot longer from now, given this hack.
The commonality seems to be Slack. They either know some way to exploit Slack, or they have a setup to social engineer Slack in particular. (maybe both)
The common denominator is Slack, there is something fishy about Slack, some people might have breached them and are able to join what ever server they want
Hence how they managed to download the whole "leaked" content from Slack message history
Uber, now Rockstar, if i was wearing my conspiracy theorist hat, i would say it's that secretive group that operate Microsoft, either they want to force them to use azure, or, to spread FUD to facilitate a purchase, but that's too much for HN, i'll loose this account, again lol
One real issue I've seen on Reddit is people mistake the debugging tools as actually (unfinished) gameplay UI. There are lots of people angry that GTA is copying Watch Dogs, because Watch Dogs has a game mechanic that looks similar to how these debug elements look.
I was also blown away by the tooling shots. It almost looked like those self-driving tooling shots that get shown every now and then, which I suppose makes sense.
I wish more places would show off their internal tools and how they make things, but I guess they view those things as part of their edge.
The idea of polishing dev tools used to seem counter-intuitive to me, but I’ve come around on that. The last thing you want is to dread doing your job, and if you can make parts of your job joyful, then I think you’re likely to be more productive and do better work.
I'm a completely casual game in the sense that: basically the only games I've ever really played and enjoyed that much are GTA and Skyrim. I have an Xbox and a gaming PC, because people talk about video games as if they're really fun, but I have just never actually been able to materialize that for myself.
I figured the next GTA was never coming out, and that they would just keep milking the current one until the end of time.
This leak showed that not only are they working on it, but it looks really cool.
I have a tough time seeing how anybody would see this leak as a negative. The game looks great.
Any press is good press — I'm not a gamer but can someone explain all the negativity? I assume it wasn't a surprise that another version is in the making.
Don't see why the downvotes, this is a good question.
I have a slightly tangential one, too. I don't understand why this leak (of the source code) is such a big deal. I genuinely don't understand. What exactly can people do with the (the best case) a half-baked game? To exaggerate a bit, these days we get even 'finished' games in such a 'raw' state, people barely want them for free.
As for the negativity. I suppose, one could dig some pieces of the main story lines from the source files, and try to predict how the new story is going to be told. But that would be nothing but a speculation. It is impossible to tell what Rockstar are going to do with the game until we see a finished product. And, to state the obvious again, the game is far from finished.
Drawing conclusions from that early (to say the least) build is ridiculous. Do people on reddit have some extrapolated opinions on GTA 7, too?
It was announced already, but I think the issue is that the leaked footage was very rough. I’ve seen a lot of comments from gamers saying they expected it to be further along and more polished, but it’s likely that either the footage is older or they’re not focusing on in engine visuals yet.
Either way, I think the issue from Rockstars perspective is that it’s not a good indication of the game and might contain character, features, and gameplay which won’t end up in the final game. They likely want to control what goes out much more to avoid too much hype or expectations too early on.
A) It taints the perception of the game beforehand. People look at an incredibly raw bit of gameplay footage and go "wow, this looks like trash!"
B) The guy who did the leaking apparently tried to sell the source code, which is just scummy and would likely result in significant retooling from the devs' side, which means time and effort wasted.
C) While I personally don't subscribe to the glamour and glitz, there is something nice about a clean rollout for something anticipated or a surprise release. I remember seeing the first trailer for Peele's Nope and being incredibly excited because I heard nothing about the movie prior to that. If it was leaked or the screenplay was floating around with spoilers, I'd be somewhat less enthused.
The game industry used to believe that any press is good press, but not any more. These days, studios want to control what people see before a game comes out. If they show off some feature, it might change radically or even get dropped before launch, and then you have a bunch of people asking why it’s missing.
Whether you believe “any press is good press”, it’s clear the game industry doesn’t believe that.
It was. It has become a meme that GTA6 will come out (similar to HL3). There were rumors but nothing official.
A proper reveal would have generated massive hype, now it's mixed with "hack".
But as the ol' saying goes: never let a good crisis go to waste. Although I think they're in a tough spot since it's probably too early in the development stage to put a spin or reveal anything.
I was wondering the same.
I think GTA is so know that it might have a positive effect instead of the super picky fan base.
For my side I have not touched a game for 5 years but I was excited to see GTA6. For me it was good news.
But am I a target audience? I am not sure I would buy it (slow PC, no time).
Tens of millions of people have been waiting for years for GTA VI to release and i am pretty sure that despite this leak people will be extremly for it to launch.
It seems he's outside of the US if asking for some type of monetary reward / bribe. Either way it appears Rockstar is taking this (rightly) extremely seriously, and hopefully it won't delay the game much more, as they are one of the few remaining major development shops that don't bend their game's quality to market timelines.
I feel for the engineers and artists at Rockstar right now..
I don't think people realize how devastating this can be to them. Imagine you are working really hard on a creative project, coming up with different designs, prototypes, and solutions but then all of it gets leaked to the public without your consent.
After this leak, _all_ the mystery is gone.. we underestimate the rush of dopamine designers get from the validation of unveiling something beautiful and perfect to the public. Short of completely reworking major parts of this project, all they can do now is to improve the existing assets and build upon it.
Further, the executives might put more pressure on the teams since people are expecting a release, marketing has to crank up unexpectedly, PR needs to shift gear, security has to be tightened and so on. This is not a fun situation for anyone.
I hope the person responsible for this gets prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
I think this is overhyped as damaging and negative. In fact, GTA VI seemed to be on the path to becoming the “new Duke Nukem Forever,” which is no longer the case. Everything I’ve seen from the leak indicates this will be a really great game with the same cinematic qualities and cultural relevance that remains somewhat unique to this franchise.
It’s not great from a creative standpoint to have parts of your narrative out there for inspection and criticism, true, but from a commercial perspective the timing of this leak (weekend of Tokyo Game Show) could not be better. More people are talking about this than whatever announcements took place at TGS.
One of the things that made Duke Nukem 3D such a smash hit was its shock value. It was probably the first mainstream game to include strippers.
But DNF was delayed so long that by the time it came out, Duke's schtick was just cringe-worthy. It wasn't shocking or fun, it just felt like your 50 year old uncle telling the same sexist jokes from 20 years ago.
> "We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you in this way."
Granted, it could happen to anyone, but this is the kind of messaging I would expect if someone had accidentally emailed screenshots to IGN, not as the result of a breach.
I am not a huge fps gamer, but every time a new GTA comes out I tend to buy a new console. I am worried this time that there might be shortages when GTA6 comes out, and as such will already order one for xmas as a preemptive measure. As for this hack, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand I am thrilled to see some gameplay, on the other I also respect Rockstar enough to not look at it. Still doubting.
Great that there is some information about the game now. They are extremely bad at generating excitement despite the huge amounts of money they make from these and the loyal fan base.
Only thing I was bummed about was it looks like the have the same punch animation they have been using forever... But otherwise it looked like a pretty decent game in progress.
Vice City is by far my favorite GTA game and every few years I spin it up for a bit on my old PS2. They've moved the series more towards some kind of realism since then, but I love the arcade like qualities of Vice City and GTA 3. The whole city is a great parody of Miami, with constant parties and vibrant colors, seedy clubs and funny radio shows, etc. The general action and driving quality is more cartoonish and video game like to me than the newer versions. GTA5 by comparison feels so much more stiff (and the GTA 6 leak video looked to be following directly in GTA5's footsteps).
Social engineering attacks are destructive not just because of the data that is compromised but also because it makes us paranoid of interacting with others and forces us to adopt increasingly anti-social practices.
[+] [-] sorenjan|3 years ago|reply
According to the thread on gtaforums it was allegedly the same hacker that recently hacked Uber. Will be interesting to read more about this when there's more info out, I assume they have something in common and that more companies are vulnerable.
[+] [-] koheripbal|3 years ago|reply
They are investing far more time and effort into "online" - the leaks confirmed this. "Open worlds" lend themselves to shallow micro-stories.
Maybe I'm being a grumpy old man, but in video game history, the best games were those that had complex character development, and novel worlds that supported a deep and thoughtful plot - something that would make the player have some emotional investment in.
I don't see any evidence of that in recent GTA games.
[+] [-] afavour|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dijit|3 years ago|reply
Speaking from experience: gamedev has a lot of things that get removed or rejigged. Leaks like these not only destroy the feel of the game as a finished product it also gives unrealistic promises.
Case in point: There was a Snowdrop tech demo that got leaked which included "the division" with stealth mechanics. Such mechanics were technically impossible (for a lot of reasons I don't want to get into); but that leak had people going nuts because it looked cool.
(to be perfectly fair to the hype-train: the division was oversold in an official E3 trailer in 2013 anyway; before Ubisoft had details of the next generation hardware specs, same year as watchdogs... oops.)
[+] [-] 22SAS|3 years ago|reply
Same here. I used to game a lot in high school and college, then I stopped. The only thing that ever gets me to fire up the console again is a new release of GTA and a new release of CoD (provided the story is good and not some futuristic crap).
Last time was when the Modern Warfare reboot was released in 2019. The 2nd part is coming this year, so it looks I will be playing it as soon as it is available. Same with GTA VI, although I guess that will be a lot longer from now, given this hack.
[+] [-] namelessoracle|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bubble_Pop_22|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kukumber|3 years ago|reply
Hence how they managed to download the whole "leaked" content from Slack message history
Uber, now Rockstar, if i was wearing my conspiracy theorist hat, i would say it's that secretive group that operate Microsoft, either they want to force them to use azure, or, to spread FUD to facilitate a purchase, but that's too much for HN, i'll loose this account, again lol
[+] [-] YPPH|3 years ago|reply
I'm seriously impressed by the quality of the internal tooling. All that effort only to be seen and used internally. And yet they still polish the UI!
Most of the internal tools where I work look terrible, unless they're web based where some framework can do the hand holding.
[+] [-] Comevius|3 years ago|reply
https://github.com/ocornut/imgui
[+] [-] squeaky-clean|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bmitc|3 years ago|reply
I wish more places would show off their internal tools and how they make things, but I guess they view those things as part of their edge.
[+] [-] CoryAlexMartin|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cypress66|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _joel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thepasswordis|3 years ago|reply
I figured the next GTA was never coming out, and that they would just keep milking the current one until the end of time.
This leak showed that not only are they working on it, but it looks really cool.
I have a tough time seeing how anybody would see this leak as a negative. The game looks great.
[+] [-] groovybits|3 years ago|reply
At the bottom of this blog post, under "What's next"
https://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/ak73k92o47ko7...
[+] [-] racl101|3 years ago|reply
I think it's simply a matter of being in control of your own product.
It ain't cool that people can just hack your servers and dump your stuff that's a work in progress for the world to critique and make memes about.
[+] [-] marban|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] n4bz0r|3 years ago|reply
I have a slightly tangential one, too. I don't understand why this leak (of the source code) is such a big deal. I genuinely don't understand. What exactly can people do with the (the best case) a half-baked game? To exaggerate a bit, these days we get even 'finished' games in such a 'raw' state, people barely want them for free.
As for the negativity. I suppose, one could dig some pieces of the main story lines from the source files, and try to predict how the new story is going to be told. But that would be nothing but a speculation. It is impossible to tell what Rockstar are going to do with the game until we see a finished product. And, to state the obvious again, the game is far from finished.
Drawing conclusions from that early (to say the least) build is ridiculous. Do people on reddit have some extrapolated opinions on GTA 7, too?
[+] [-] oakesm9|3 years ago|reply
Either way, I think the issue from Rockstars perspective is that it’s not a good indication of the game and might contain character, features, and gameplay which won’t end up in the final game. They likely want to control what goes out much more to avoid too much hype or expectations too early on.
[+] [-] WilTimSon|3 years ago|reply
B) The guy who did the leaking apparently tried to sell the source code, which is just scummy and would likely result in significant retooling from the devs' side, which means time and effort wasted.
C) While I personally don't subscribe to the glamour and glitz, there is something nice about a clean rollout for something anticipated or a surprise release. I remember seeing the first trailer for Peele's Nope and being incredibly excited because I heard nothing about the movie prior to that. If it was leaked or the screenplay was floating around with spoilers, I'd be somewhat less enthused.
[+] [-] klodolph|3 years ago|reply
Whether you believe “any press is good press”, it’s clear the game industry doesn’t believe that.
[+] [-] danr4|3 years ago|reply
A proper reveal would have generated massive hype, now it's mixed with "hack".
But as the ol' saying goes: never let a good crisis go to waste. Although I think they're in a tough spot since it's probably too early in the development stage to put a spin or reveal anything.
[+] [-] esel2k|3 years ago|reply
But am I a target audience? I am not sure I would buy it (slow PC, no time).
[+] [-] april_22|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Thaxll|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ericzawo|3 years ago|reply
It seems he's outside of the US if asking for some type of monetary reward / bribe. Either way it appears Rockstar is taking this (rightly) extremely seriously, and hopefully it won't delay the game much more, as they are one of the few remaining major development shops that don't bend their game's quality to market timelines.
[+] [-] swat535|3 years ago|reply
I don't think people realize how devastating this can be to them. Imagine you are working really hard on a creative project, coming up with different designs, prototypes, and solutions but then all of it gets leaked to the public without your consent.
After this leak, _all_ the mystery is gone.. we underestimate the rush of dopamine designers get from the validation of unveiling something beautiful and perfect to the public. Short of completely reworking major parts of this project, all they can do now is to improve the existing assets and build upon it.
Further, the executives might put more pressure on the teams since people are expecting a release, marketing has to crank up unexpectedly, PR needs to shift gear, security has to be tightened and so on. This is not a fun situation for anyone.
I hope the person responsible for this gets prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
[+] [-] numair|3 years ago|reply
It’s not great from a creative standpoint to have parts of your narrative out there for inspection and criticism, true, but from a commercial perspective the timing of this leak (weekend of Tokyo Game Show) could not be better. More people are talking about this than whatever announcements took place at TGS.
[+] [-] Sohcahtoa82|3 years ago|reply
One of the things that made Duke Nukem 3D such a smash hit was its shock value. It was probably the first mainstream game to include strippers.
But DNF was delayed so long that by the time it came out, Duke's schtick was just cringe-worthy. It wasn't shocking or fun, it just felt like your 50 year old uncle telling the same sexist jokes from 20 years ago.
[+] [-] hoffs|3 years ago|reply
How did you get this perception? There was nothing to indicate that really and rdr2 was especially great single player experience.
[+] [-] JadoJodo|3 years ago|reply
Granted, it could happen to anyone, but this is the kind of messaging I would expect if someone had accidentally emailed screenshots to IGN, not as the result of a breach.
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