Rockstar is currently enduring one of its most embarrassing PR episodes in recent memory: With just days remaining before its Netflix-exclusive Grand Theft Auto 6 gameplay reveal, the developer is on the hunt for the cryptopeddler whose 11 leaks of illicit GTA 6 footage over six days seem to imply ongoing access to a playable game build.
While Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two are almost certainly at DEFCON 1 over the historic shitshow, former Rockstar developer Obbe Vermeij says the GTA 6 leaks will ultimately prove to be, well, kind of whatever.
“Calm down everybody,” Vermeij said in a post on X over the weekend. “The leaks are a nothing burger.”
According to Vermeij, who spent nearly 14 years at Rockstar North as a technical director on every GTA release from GTA 3 in 2001 to GTA 4’s Ballad of Gay Tony expansion in 2010, the recent GTA 6 leaks will likely constitute little more than “a tiny blip” for a game whose sales lifespan, if GTA 5 is any indication, is expected to span more than a decade.
“All that has happened is that some footage has escaped. Slightly ahead of the Netflix thing next week,” Vermeij said. “90% of future players don’t spend their time on the internet looking for video snippets. They don’t have the time and don’t want spoilers.”
(Image credit: Rockstar)
The Cyberleek situation, Vermeij says, is “far less consequential” when compared to the biggest “nightmare” he witnessed during his Rockstar tenure: the infamous Hot Coffee incident.
In 2005, the discovery that GTA: San Andreas had shipped with code for a sex minigame that could be enabled through unofficial modification earned the game an Adult Only re-rating from the ESRB. In the ensuing PR firestorm, retailers pulled San Andreas from store shelves until an updated version could be issued, leading to an estimated $50 million revenue loss in 2005 and a $20 million class action settlement in 2009.
Measured against that level of brand damage, Vermeij said in a response to another X user that he figures “there won’t be much damage if any” from the GTA 6 leaks.
Even if Cyberleek does something drastic like leak GTA 6’s ending, Vermeij—who himself once ran afoul of his former employer by publishing a short-lived blog detailing his GTA dev days—doesn’t think it would move the needle much.
“That would suck,” he said, “but people will still play it.”
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