Several months before the highly anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto VI, it appears Rockstar Games has once again fallen victim to a significant hack. The hacking collective ShinyHunters infiltrated Rockstar’s systems, threatening to release the pilfered data unless a ransom of $200,000 was paid. Rockstar declined to pay, and ShinyHunters subsequently made the data public.
As reported by Kotaku, there’s little surprise as to why Rockstar might have chosen not to meet the hackers’ demands. The leaked data consists of numerous documents, but critically, none of them pertain to the Grand Theft Auto VI game code or any other confidential information regarding the highly awaited title. Instead, the release offers confirmation of details that were already largely known.
The leaked documents reveal that Grand Theft Auto Online generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually, with a substantial portion of this revenue stemming from Shark Card purchases. In contrast, Red Dead Online generates only a fraction of that income, which explains why this online mode appears to be largely neglected. Furthermore, it’s confirmed that PC players represent the smallest segment of weekly active users for GTA Online when compared to Xbox and PlayStation players, and a small percentage of these users are responsible for the majority of GTA Online’s revenue.
While this confirmation of financial data is interesting, it appears that any fears of Rockstar delaying GTA VI due to this hacking incident are unfounded. This does not definitively guarantee that the game will still launch on November 19th, but if any further delays occur, it is highly improbable that the leak of predictable, old financial data will be the primary contributing factor.