After over 10 years of waiting, there are now only three months left before Grand Theft Auto 6 officially launches, but the game recently suffered yet another major leak, causing a large amount of gameplay footage to spread online and drawing significant attention from the player community. In response, Rockstar Games’ parent company Take-Two has officially launched legal action, filing subpoenas against Microsoft and Discord in an attempt to uncover the true identity of the leaker “Cyberleek.”
According to court documents cited by GameSpot, Take-Two has formally filed a subpoena with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to obtain identity information on the individuals or groups “suspected of copyright infringement,” but this has also made players more confident that the series of content leaked by “Cyberleek” is indeed gameplay footage of Grand Theft Auto 6, rather than a mere prank or fabricated material.
More seriously, in addition to sharing a large amount of gameplay footage, “Cyberleek” also recently used the protagonist to shoot the four letters “LEEK” into a wall in the leaked Grand Theft Auto 6 footage, thereby proving that what he possesses is an “actually playable” version rather than development footage.
Based on the court documents released this time, Take-Two clearly wants to identify “Cyberleek” as quickly as possible, and has requested that Microsoft and Discord hand over any activity data potentially related to Cyberleek by September 4, including user information from specific Discord servers, account IDs, emails, IP addresses, phone numbers, and even linked Xbox and Google accounts. Even so, this leaker still has no intention of keeping a low profile whatsoever.
After repeatedly promoting his own cryptocurrency in leaked videos, Cyberleek has now gone a step further by adding a “Contact” page directly on his platform, stating that they are raising funds through “community support and strategic partnerships.” Those interested in collaborating can get in touch with him by paying 400 Monero (approximately $164,000), and he will place their advertisements in the subsequently leaked Grand Theft Auto 6 footage.
It is worth mentioning that although this incident has caused quite a stir among players, and Take-Two officials have already launched a large-scale investigation, former Rockstar Games technical director Obbe Vermeij, who worked on titles such as Grand Theft Auto 4, remained quite composed, stating that the impact of this incident may not be as severe as players imagine.
According to him, Rockstar Games’ secrecy regarding their projects is mostly driven by marketing considerations, and this incident merely caused some game footage to be exposed earlier than originally planned. Not only that, but he also asserted that ninety percent of players wouldn’t actively seek out this leaked content because they don’t want to be spoiled. However, one thing that’s 100% certain is that the Rockstar Games team will still be extremely pissed off about this.
Additionally, Obbe Vermeij compared this wave of leaks to the “Hot Coffee” incident that broke out with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas back then. At the time, players discovered a highly interactive “sex mini-game” in the background of this classic game. Although the development team had locked the related content, players could still unlock it through mods.
The controversy back then not only subjected Rockstar Games to immense social pressure but also triggered numerous legal issues, forcing the company to urgently pull Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from shelves and comprehensively modify the relevant content. In comparison, in his view, the Grand Theft Auto VI leak this time was merely an unexpected “minor incident,” and its impact is nowhere near comparable to “Hot Coffee.”
Even so, many players still believe that this incident carries risks that cannot be ignored. After all, if Cyberleek really does have a “playable” build in hand, and continues to release more story-related footage, or even uses it as a tool for commercial profit, then the impact on Rockstar Games might not be so simple.
For now, Take-Two and Rockstar remain tight-lipped about the incident, with neither company having issued any public statement beyond court filings. As for how this leak controversy will ultimately play out, it seems we’ll have to keep an eye on how things develop.
Source: KOCPC Chinese