On Sunday, September 18, the gaming world was shaken by a spectacular leak: A hacker released 3.4 gigabytes of video data on GTA 6, arguably the most anticipated game on the planet. Now, further statements from the hacker have emerged: Rockstar is said to have already spent more than 2 billion US dollars on the development of GTA 6, and they have been developing the new Grand Theft Auto since 2014. If that is correct, those are insane amounts.
This is the situation:
- GTA 5, along with the online offshoot GTA Online, is one of the biggest games of all time and a massive cash cow for Rockstar. The “GTA” series is one of the largest game franchises in the world.
- Everyone knew that at some point a GTA 6 would come – but while GTA Online was still doing so brilliantly, Rockstar almost never spoke about the new installment. Although there were constantly supposedly leaks and theories about the game, they were often nonsense.
- On Saturday, September 18, however, there was a real leak: A hacker succeeded in gaining access to Rockstar’s internal communication channels: He released 90 videos from an early test build of GTA 6: That was a disaster for Rockstar.
Chat logs of the hacker published from his attempts to sell the loot
What are the new details? From the attempt of the apparently 17-year-old hacker to sell the data, some chat logs have now surfaced. The chats are said to have taken place about 2 weeks ago. A Twitter account from the hacking scene made the chat logs public (via twitter).
Most of the conversations are not very interesting, the hacker asks others if they are interested in buying his leaks. But two details are exciting. In one chat log, the hacker says:
- Rockstar has already invested 2 billion US dollars in development
- The game has already been in development since 2014
What is so exciting about it? The costs of 2 billion US dollars are really huge, especially since the expenses will also include further development and the marketing of GTA 6 on top of that.
For Rockstar’s last major title, Red Dead Redemption 2, development costs are estimated to be between 370 and 540 million US dollars (via screenrant). And that was already one of the most expensive games in the world.
If the hacker’s statements are true, GTA 6 is therefore significantly more expensive.
Can Rockstar afford this? GTA Online is said to have made over 6 billion US dollars (via sportskeeda), mainly through microtransactions.
So that would certainly be feasible.
Nevertheless, these are of course unconfirmed data that relate to a chat log of a person who is not exactly known for his credibility. Additionally, the hacker may have exaggerated the sum to make the loot more appealing to potential buyers of his data:
