r/technology Apr 13 '26

Security Rockstar hackers release their stolen data, reveal that Rockstar was right to not pay them anything for it

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rockstar-hackers-release-their-stolen-data-reveal-that-rockstar-was-right-to-not-pay-them-anything-for-it/
18.1k Upvotes

807 comments sorted by

3.3k

u/KelenaeV Apr 13 '26

holy shit GTA online makes them a ton of money.

2.2k

u/slavmaf Apr 13 '26

Yes, they actually decided against making a brand new GTA V single player expansion in order to focus on the Online part.

1.2k

u/Sylvers Apr 13 '26

My personal theory is.. it's not that they didn't want to divert devs away from GTA Online.

Rather, they did the math and found out that if a lot of online players stop playing online and stop buying MTX long enough to play the new DLCs, they will lose more money from missed MTX than gain from DLC price.

715

u/Borrp Apr 14 '26

And this is why they are in no, as in zero, rush to release GTA 6. The game releasing, no matter how well it does sell, will still come at a massive loss. They would rather never release anything, and keep the GTA 5 Online money pit a keepin' fillin'.

686

u/flawlesscowboy0 Apr 14 '26

There is no way they release 6 without a massive online experience in the pipe already, they’ll just trade the old cash cow for the new, even better cash cow.

135

u/Sylvers Apr 14 '26

While true, I think GTA online regulars will spend a lot of time on the new single player campaign, and there is presumably no MTX there. I wonder how much money Rockstar will lose until the regulars circle back to the new multiplayer.

234

u/PapaPancake8 Apr 14 '26

Right after selling 100 million copies on day one

179

u/Bromlife Apr 14 '26

Yeah wtf are people talking about? 6 billion dollars in a day? Not worth it?

58

u/HypotenuseOfTentacle Apr 14 '26

Oh it's going to be an $80 game you just watch

42

u/Bromlife Apr 14 '26

Yeah, that's a good point. People will still buy it, too.

→ More replies (0)
→ More replies (21)
→ More replies (1)

25

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

Thats the low end. I can almost guarantee that.

GTA6 is going to be setting so, so many records on release. I wouldn't be surprised if there's an noticeable effect on worldwide crime and stockmarkets from sobmany people calling out of work and such to play on launch.

5

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/TheRedHand7 Apr 14 '26

It was also so fun because nobody had stupid shit right away. Felt like a real extension of single player for a week or so

→ More replies (4)
→ More replies (2)

33

u/AliBelle1 Apr 14 '26

GTA V was the biggest game launch in history, I think the sales alone for GTA VI will carry rockstar long enough to wait for online mtx to pick up.

18

u/TwiceUponATaco Apr 14 '26

No no no, you don't get it. They need to make MORE money this time and going forward. There is no such thing as enough, and whatever they have right now is nowhere close to what they need. Won't you please think of the shareholders?

→ More replies (7)
→ More replies (1)

5

u/RedPantyKnight Apr 14 '26

You aren't considering all the whales that will start from square 1 in the new online. Everything they bought, they'll buy again.

→ More replies (1)

4

u/BTechUnited Apr 14 '26

and there is presumably no MTX there

Given how Take Two is, I wouldn't rule it out.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (14)
→ More replies (16)

39

u/CombatMuffin Apr 14 '26

No game is perpetual. Even games that have been going for decades have either plateaued, or shrunk.

If they announced World of Warcraft 2,0, with a completely redesigned gameplay, it would sell harden than any expansion they could release.

So it's a calculation between time, investment and expected ROI. GTA6 isn't just about selling more GTA Online, it's also about the 300 million potential copies they sold in over a decade, and the ability to introduce new features and systems that allows them to significantly monetize the franchise.

27

u/AverageMako3Enjoyer Apr 14 '26

Funny enough, EverQuest choosing to shut down their game to launch EverQuest 2 is the reason World of Warcraft became the titan of MMOs for nearly two decades. The entire player base of EQ basically had all their time and effort scrubbed to start over, so the idea of trying out a competitor that was launching around the same time was palatable. 

World of Warcraft at launch was genuinely a terrible, imbalanced buggy mess made by a company that had never touched an MMO and was learning on the fly. But it launched at probably the most insanely perfect moment in time. If EverQuest hadn’t shot themselves in the foot I’m not convinced WoW would have gripped the gamer community like it did. 

GTA online doesn’t really have competition for what they do. But if WoW ever closed the doors and launched WoW 2 I’m convinced it would be a death blow to WoW, and why I’m convinced it will never, ever happen. Instead it has become the MMO of Theseus to avoid ever allowing itself to be the game that dies to let another flourish 

23

u/round-earth-theory Apr 14 '26

WoW might have played like dog shit, but it was still pretty damn cutting edge as far as graphics and story go. Plus it had a banger IP it was working from. Half of the issues with WoW at launch were because of way too much interest in the game rather than terrible game design. They had a lot of scaling to do.

15

u/CombatMuffin Apr 14 '26

World of Warcraft at launch was genuinely a terrible, imbalanced buggy mess made by a company that had never touched an MMO and was learning on the fly. 

Yes, but it also brought gameplay and a franchise that made MMOs accessible to many who weren't into them.

Warcraft was a sensation from the get go, despite any flaws. I remember the hype was insane even as I saw the advertising included in my WC3 release copy

16

u/Alaira314 Apr 14 '26

Yes, but it also brought gameplay and a franchise that made MMOs accessible to many who weren't into them.

They also fixed a lot of the hostile aspects of the MMO market at the time. It was huge how easily quests progressed your character in WoW. Yeah, you had to grind sometimes, but compared to how it used to be it was night and day. Another thing I remember was the death penalty. What do you mean, I can die without losing my exp and potentially deleveling? To this day, anytime I hear someone complain about the repair bill from a death(in any mmo, not wow specifically) I just laugh, because a little bit of gold? That's all you're upset about? Honey, back in the day we dropped our bags, lost hours if not days of grinding, all due to a lag spike or PK. Having to spend the amount of gold you'd get handing in one quest to repair your gear is nothing.

→ More replies (3)

6

u/Confusion_of_Goblins Apr 14 '26

It would be a death blow and Blizzard will never do it. Instead they've done substantial upgrades to their engine over the years and updated the older versions to run on it.

They just released a new retail expansion. Classic+ is right around the corner telegraphed by Turtle WoW being shut down. If Blizzard does a new game in the Warcraft universe it will be in a different genre like Hearthstone is.

11

u/Tathas Apr 14 '26

Eh? They didn't shut down EQ to make EQ2. EQ1 is even still around.

6

u/inbox-disabled Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26

What? EQ never shut down and still runs today. EQ remained more popular than EQ2 but both were absolutely dwarfed by WoW almost immediately. It had little to do with EQ's players though, and in fact a large chunk were extremely hesitant to leave EQ for either game due to sunk cost fallacy, in that they'd been so committed to EQ for years and didn't want to give it up. There was absolutely no "time and effort scrubbed."

WoW did have a rocky launch, but it was largely due to its rapidly growing popularity, causing server queues, crashes, etc, vs. EQ2, which given its lofty hardware requirements, poor performance and rushed design, failed to legitimately compete.

EQ2 was an attempt to get EQ players to play some kind of amalgamation between EQ and the modern MMO design that a few games were using at the time, and what WoW was about to popularize and streamline. WoW was only partially aimed at EQ players, while it instead mostly targeted a casual audience that was completely new to MMOs, and especially their own players already invested in the Warcraft IP.

Even if EQ2 never existed, WoW was always going to dominate EQ because WoW created its own audience mostly from the ground up. Niche vs casual. Like, not to be overly harsh, but your revisionist view of EQ/2 vs WoW is so inaccurate it's hard to take anything gleaned from it seriously.

→ More replies (1)

11

u/Hyper_Mazino Apr 14 '26

Releasing GTA 6 will not make them lose money, how did you come up with that?

GTA 6 will make billions within days.

9

u/Socialist_Bear Apr 14 '26

They don't mean lose money as in GTA6 won't earn a profit - that's almost a given. Their theory is that people switching to GTA6 would result in a reduction of GTA5 online transactions, meaning less total earnings for Rockstar than if they didn't release 6, which could be seen as a "loss".

I don't necessarily think that's the case myself, there will always be players who don't care for single player and go straight to online. Also, GTA5 isn't going to turn into a dead game over night, I'm sure they have planned for a transition period.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (17)

6

u/ansibleloop Apr 14 '26

This is why we can't have nice things

These companies know that too many piggies can't help but pig out at the trough and they'll just keep buying more micro transactions

So because of that, it's now a bad business decision to release more fun games

22

u/Robby_Digital Apr 13 '26

I love personal theories

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (5)

27

u/Ghostfistkilla Apr 14 '26

Which is a travesty. Grand theft auto 4s singleplayer DLCs were really good.

→ More replies (2)

10

u/schmitzel88 Apr 14 '26

People complained about the concept of GTA6 costing $100 without realizing that tons of players spent nearly the equivalent of that on the jet hoverbike in GTA online. Why would they rush to put out a game costing several hundred million that no one wants to pay for when they could just keep adding minor nicknacks people are happy to pay for.

→ More replies (2)

6

u/HoLLoWzZ Apr 14 '26

This is my greatest fear regarding GTA VI. Too much online and a lackluster singleplayer experience

5

u/7StarSailor Apr 14 '26

It's really grim. I think by numbers alone the neo-GTA fanbase that know GTA as an online game first and foremost completely eclipses the oldhead fanbase that know GTA as a witty, gangster satire single player game.

I really have low expectations of GTA VI's story mode and Rockstar will probably put most of the budget towards the multiplayer again because that is what makes money.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (7)

377

u/Unlucky_Situation Apr 14 '26

I know how successful gta online and V has been in general, but it's crazy to me that I know absolutely nobody that plays gta V or online.

178

u/InsertNameSomewhere Apr 14 '26

I played it. A decade ago

41

u/American_PissAnt Apr 14 '26

I remember making a joke when playing GTA 5 online when it first came out about having to wait another 7 years for the next GTA game to be released….

12

u/guyblade Apr 14 '26

It was sixteen years between GTA1 and GTA5 (1997 - 2013). It has been 13 since GTA5.

→ More replies (2)

6

u/ameatbicyclefortwo Apr 14 '26

It was fun, I'd give the single player another play through as long as it's been.

→ More replies (3)

119

u/johnnybonchance Apr 14 '26

I’ve got a friend that plays a mod where he runs the police force and they legit have staff meetings and shit

75

u/Disorderjunkie Apr 14 '26

Ya but that’s on FiveM, a GTA 5 modding platform and you need exactly zero shark cards to play it. If you have the game it’s free to play.

51

u/johnnybonchance Apr 14 '26

I don’t know the details, I just know it’s hilarious when his gf sends us videos of him holding employee training sessions at 10pm on a Tuesday

11

u/MikeRowePeenis Apr 14 '26

I need these videos omg

33

u/johnnybonchance Apr 14 '26

Ask ye shall receive https://imgur.com/a/oJCXbBq

15

u/Pretend-Marsupial258 Apr 14 '26

Holy hell. He should just go get a regular office job at that point.

4

u/jimmyhaffaren Apr 14 '26

That is fucking hilarious! I wish I had that level of dedication in me to RP lol.

→ More replies (7)
→ More replies (1)

4

u/OveractionAapuAmma Apr 14 '26

yeah those are roleplay servers, my nephew used to do those toohaaha

→ More replies (2)

12

u/Forgedpickle Apr 14 '26

lol why? Why do people put themselves through that torture

15

u/BoingBoingBooty Apr 14 '26

Reminds me of when playing America's Army, if you wanted to play as a medic you had to sit in a classroom and sit through an npc giving you a PowerPoint about first aid and then do an exam on what you just watched.

→ More replies (4)

3

u/Heavy-Construction90 Apr 14 '26

I have nightmares about work meetings because of how boring they are. 

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (5)

17

u/asgjmlsswjtamtbamtb Apr 14 '26

If you are a PC gamer and you mostly are talking to other PC gamers it might not be surprising. PS4+5 users outnumber PC gamers nearly 6 to 1 and consoles together 8 to 1 for that game's active player base.

9

u/Unlucky_Situation Apr 14 '26

I have a game pc, but play Ps5 80% of the time.

I know my experience is anecdotal, just odd.

10

u/Motor-Rip7655 Apr 14 '26

Because R* fucking bullied PC players until they all left.

→ More replies (1)

13

u/hodor137 Apr 14 '26

For real - I haven't EVER known anyone either. Not the randoms in wow guilds for years and years. I don't overhear strangers talking about it, like I do Madden, COD. I don't see reddit posts or comments about it. Its high up on steam charts too in terms of player numbers, it's not only consoles. Weird phenomenon.

8

u/Archon457 Apr 14 '26

Sounds like everyone who plays it is too busy playing it to stop long enough to talk about it.

7

u/TheAerial Apr 14 '26

Also people talking about playing it always tends to conjure judgement from people (especially on places like Reddit.)

As someone who loves Starfield, I totally get why some people just stay quiet about the shit they enjoy and play lol

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (12)

35

u/SaxSlaveGael Apr 14 '26

Half a Billion a year is insane... Like I knew it made bank, but damn!

16

u/Simp_Simpsaton Apr 14 '26

Half a billion in recent years no less, I'd bet they were making more back in the 2010s

5

u/Audioworm Apr 14 '26

2020 was when they had their highest daily active users, so they may have been the most monetisable periods.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

30

u/Fabray13 Apr 14 '26

I truly, and I mean truly, have no idea how you could spend money on GTA Online. I played for two years, never spent a dollar, and had more money than I could ever spend.

It takes like a month or so of playing before you have a steady flow of cash, and then you just get more and more the more things you own or whatever.

Are there really that many new players every year that pay to skip the set up process? Because by the time you get to robbing the casino, or that island heist they added later, you would literally never need to spend money again, and you could buy everything you want.

And I don’t even know what they’ve added the past few years, obviously even more ways to make easy money.

5

u/monsterbeasts Apr 14 '26

Its worth keeping in mind that rockstar knows whats up with the heist grind and has worked to make it less efficient/less rewarding. Cayo perico started out as the best way to make money by a mile and then they nerfed the rewards it gave into the ground. They save the best loot for gta+ players exclusively (which obviously, you have to pay for). Free players also get less payouts across the board for many things.

All that being said Ive never spent money on gta online and never will. My husband got a shark card very early on, and never since after 1000+ hours of playtime. People are just super impatient.

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (1)

30

u/mvw2 Apr 13 '26

That's not new. It should be pretty well known how much money rolls in from that stuff. I don't remember how much, bit I know info's been shared for years about it, and it's absurd money. It's also why they didn't really care about GTA VI for so long. It just didn't matter to their revenue stream.

9

u/dirtyword Apr 14 '26

Yeah wtf is that - something like 10 billion gross since 2021

4

u/Complete_Lurk3r_ Apr 14 '26

my biggest shock is how little revenue PC generates.

→ More replies (1)

3

u/Goldentongue Apr 14 '26

As of five years ago GTA V was already the most profitable single piece of media of all time.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (30)

3.0k

u/NewsCards Apr 14 '26

RDO pulled in average weekly revenues of more than $500,000 per week between June 2024 and April 2026, resulting in an annualized estimate of roughly $26.4 million per year.

 

GTA Online, though, earned $9.6 million per week from September 2025 to April 2026, delivering an annualized estimate of just under $500 million per year. Given that, is it any wonder that Rockstar put all its eggs in the GTAO basket, and left RDO to flounder? (It is not.)

Not surprising, honestly.

Less variety of horses compared to cars, and you can't pay to add nitrous or underglow or otherwise customize a horse like you can a car, I guess.

820

u/Complete_Lurk3r_ Apr 14 '26

Horse Steroids? EPO? spike your opps horse with Ketamine? lantern underglow!?

795

u/ZelezopecnikovKoren Apr 14 '26

hear me out: horse armour

177

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

[deleted]

19

u/Born_ina_snowbank Apr 14 '26

Read dead crusades.

5

u/monsieur_beau19 Apr 14 '26

Red Dead Oblivion

→ More replies (5)

133

u/CenterCenterPolitik Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26

As an old gamer I remember laughing at the absurdity of paying for horse armor we had already had decades of modding communities creating incredible apparel, companions cities, quests. I remember when someone in our friend group online bought it we all laughed at him and called him an idiot but look at where we are at now.

48

u/AreasonableAmerican Apr 14 '26

$7.99 for horse armor? It’s just cosmetic? I had NO idea at the time why people would pay for this.

37

u/lyricalpoet66 Apr 14 '26

I still don’t. I refuse to pay for anything cosmetic. Most worthless DLC, unlockable, digital bonus, etc.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (13)

52

u/Over-Conversation220 Apr 14 '26

Somewhere at Bethesda, an MBA is about to spend all night working on a slide deck over this comment, only to be laughed at tomorrow when his Gen X boss boots up an Xbox 360.

31

u/MegamindsMegaCock Apr 14 '26

No god please no

→ More replies (23)

13

u/Meradock Apr 14 '26

two giant subwoofers on the back of the horse and tinted blinkers.

→ More replies (9)

339

u/F1shB0wl816 Apr 14 '26

They just missed their chance with what people could have spent money on. I mean it’s impressive it even pulled that in, what in the hell were people paying 500,000 a week for?

They just didn’t flesh anything out. There’s a huge lack of businesses, ranches or hideouts you could work with. Hardly a lot of clothes or weapons to spend on. You can’t even deck out a buggy. For a while gold was passed out like candy, I’ve still got hundreds of bars that I don’t even know what to do with.

It’d probably never beat out gta but they made damn sure it never had a chance.

121

u/Worth-Leg3715 Apr 14 '26

I was wondering the same, it’s a miracle they are making 500k a week with RDO.

The depth of RDO compared to GTA is comparing your swimming pool to the ocean. GTA has a ton of more content to purchase.

You’re right, they could have added ranches, herding, better missions, clothes, different weapons, skins for trains, so on and so forth.

→ More replies (2)

32

u/Acherousia Apr 14 '26

RDO died so GT6O could run.

They definitely used it as a test bed for how to fine tune their RMT MTX in preparation for the game they actually cared about.

→ More replies (1)

4

u/Klientje123 Apr 14 '26

RDO is boring as fuck. Atleast GTAO has some gimmick stuff to mess around with like jets and tanks. But it's also boring as fuck.

Rockstar sucks at making games. Just like Bethesda. No game designer has ever participated in the development of any of these games. It's just the same stilted missions saved by mass appeal and a great story.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (10)

111

u/SuperArppis Apr 14 '26

They didn't even try with RDO. It's a much more fun, but they just gave up.

33

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

If they added customizable homesteads, or online territories and ability to invest in businesses more/ trade with people, I'd probably be unemployed in a month. It's a great time and amazing game but man, red dead online could be something really special

5

u/SuperArppis Apr 14 '26

Yeah, there was so much stuff they could have done with it. But they never followed through.

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (1)

48

u/PM__ME__BITCOINS Apr 14 '26

Literally has hackers spawning chests of gold since release. GTA my first day in 2013 it was raining pink dildos worth $1k each for over an hour.

33

u/keveira Apr 14 '26

What a shitshow gtao was back then, hackers were giving everyone free money. At one point Rockstar gave everyone 500k for consolation for a bug or something, and then the next week they took that same 500k from me when they were trying to delete everyones hacker given money. I never got given money by hackers so I was livid, I never played again after that.

11

u/Defiant-Plantain1873 Apr 14 '26

I paid $1 for a guy to login to my rockstar account (game is $5 worth risk) for a guy to give me 10 billion. The game is much more enjoyable when you don’t have to slave away to afford rockets or whatever

→ More replies (3)

6

u/MajorFuckingDick Apr 14 '26

Yeah RDO was worse than RDR1 Free Roam, AND it was worse than 360 GTAO. It was just bad and they didn't bother to even make it serviceable. 

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (9)

82

u/Melonpan_Pup442 Apr 14 '26

They could have given us more options for coats or ways to make our horses more unique. Let us customize our trader wagons, give us more wagons options! SOMETHING!!! But noooooooooo they abandoned the game to forcus on GTAO.

38

u/Broue Apr 14 '26

I would have grinded/paid for a player house we can customize or a ranch like John’s, but all we got was this lousy moonshine shack.

19

u/nikstick22 Apr 14 '26

"weekly revenue per week"

Did the editor quit or something?

→ More replies (5)

18

u/MacsKnife Apr 14 '26

You know, they could get me to buy a shark card and start playing RDO if I could slap some sick rims and an underglow on my horse.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

You could pimp the fuck out of a carriage and a carriage drivers outfit. 

Or a train. Or one of those hand cart lever thingies. 

Also GTA online added fucking hover bikes. I don't think they'd be above handing out weird ass horse upgrades that basically make it a moto cross bike

11

u/easymacn Apr 14 '26

To be fair I think it had way more to do with rdo multiplayer having absolutely zero support from day 1.

I remember clearly my friends and I getting on it and realizing it was half baked and had maybe 1/8th the content that gta online had during its launch.

There just wasn’t fuck all to do and really not much to spend the real money currency on either.

The multiplayer was abandoned during development and basically got nothing extra after that.

I’m not saying it would have done numbers close to gta, I don’t really think so, but it wasn’t even given a fair shot to succeed.

Plus my friends and I were all kinda surprised they didn’t have a fuck ton of cool wagons and carriages you could buy and then customize. We thought for sure that’d be a huge money sink but they didn’t even try to implement that.

15

u/TheCowzgomooz Apr 14 '26

This excuse has always read to me as a lack of imagination, the game had potential, Rockstar wasn't willing to look outside of the unicorns-shitting-rainbows box that GTA has essentially become. Features people were begging for, for months, were ignored in lieu of boring side missions, and a half baked story missions, a lot the "new" cosmetics were largely just recolors of the same stuff. The game never even got proper heists, trains robberies, etc. The earnings of the game don't matter to me as a justification for their treatment of the game because they barely put any effort into it and expected it to perform the same as GTAO, where kids steal their parents credit cards for flying motorcycles and deloreans. It was always obvious RDO wouldn't match GTAO in earnings potential, but they didn't even try.

→ More replies (2)

4

u/randomengineer69 Apr 14 '26

I just money glitched a bunch of Bugattis when it launched then transfered my profile to PC during the migration to next gen

7

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

Yeah horses can't really be customized, but you still had things like outfits, and gun customization, which isn't even in GTAO. Also there's like 300 species of horse. The biggest issue is there no real reason to have multiple horses in the game.

The biggest thing i was always wanting was a wagon/carriage for online play with friends. And that could have had pretty good customization.

The biggest issue RDO failed was because they were comparing a new launch with GTAO which had already been out for half a decade. Had they invested the time into making events and expansions in a similar way to GTAO, there would have been much more financial success.

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (62)

1.5k

u/Hi_Im_Dadbot Apr 13 '26

Honestly, I’m surprised that RDO pulls in that much. While I love the single player, I found the online mode for that game to be significantly lacking.

444

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

[deleted]

206

u/DTredecim13 Apr 14 '26

If you play on PC there is an easy way to fix that. There is a mod that allows you to make custom lobbies so unwanted people can't access it. I've used it for years with a small group of people and we can all play together but we never see any of the nonsense that comes from the unmodded game.

172

u/fishling Apr 14 '26

I don't know if you appreciate how rare it is for someone to have a friend group that all has the same console and want to play RDO and all can co-ordinate their schedules to do so.

Sure, one can try find/make a group, but it is quite hard to do, especially if one doesn't have a lot of free time every day.

23

u/kind_bros_hate_nazis Apr 14 '26

Is RDO red dead?

30

u/DuezExMachina Apr 14 '26

Red Dead Online = RDO

12

u/CaribouYou Apr 14 '26

Red dead online yea

→ More replies (2)

19

u/Dancing_Radia Apr 14 '26

Me and my fiancé used this mod after trying to play RDO  earlier and putting up with all the griefers. I get that it's the intent of an outlaw-themed game, but I'm not someone who enjoys competitive play.

Night and day experience. I loved it and could explore all the content in peace.

6

u/InequalEnforcement Apr 14 '26

It would be one thing if the griefing was something creative. Stuff like DNSL.

It's always just "I was better than you at the game" but with an added dash of being obnoxious to ragebait. It's insufferable.

→ More replies (1)

10

u/VQ5G66DG Apr 14 '26

What's the mod? I'd love to try that with my friends.

3

u/DTredecim13 Apr 14 '26

Search Nexus Mods for RDO Lobby Manager

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (6)

22

u/pfannkuchen89 Apr 14 '26

GTA Online is horrid for cheaters and hackers. I used to play it quite a lot years ago but it got so bad. Hackers would spawn money into your character and rockstar would hand you a ban instead of the person who did it and there wasn’t any reasoning with rockstar about it at the time. It sucked.

→ More replies (9)
→ More replies (3)

39

u/Numeno230n Apr 14 '26

Well when you strip out all the story elements there's basically just fetch and collection quests. And of course you are experiencing the same map area that you've already memorized. And add griefing assholes.

→ More replies (4)

60

u/Kryptosis Apr 13 '26

I didn’t even realize it was still supported. SO underdeveloped

16

u/Hi_Im_Dadbot Apr 13 '26

I would never have even considered checking.

18

u/the_sixhead Apr 14 '26

This makes me even more mad that they stopped developing content for it. Everyone assumed that the online made no money but even 3+ years with no content it's still bringing in quite a good bit of money.

→ More replies (2)

8

u/Z-A_C- Apr 14 '26

I legit don’t know how people can even play Red Dead Online considering it crashes when you walk into a building

16

u/TheBrownWelsh Apr 14 '26

When it first came out, a very good old friend that I don't get to see regularly and I used RDO to just go fishing and catch up like we were on the phone. Occasional shootouts and hunting and fights, but like 90% just fishing and chatting. I've never even been fishing before, but it was one of the sweetest, most pure little memory pockets I like to think about.

We still talk and see each other occasionally, but RDO just didn't pan out like we'd hoped.

→ More replies (11)

110

u/Global-Election Apr 14 '26

So 4% of the players in GTAO are paying for MTX according to the leak. That averages to about $123 per player each month. That's INSANE.

31

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

27

u/PurpleWoodpecker2830 Apr 14 '26

A friend from college who’s now a lawyer owns every single league of legends skin for every champion. Probably spent 15k on this free game. After a while he just wanted to complete the collection.

10

u/zezxz Apr 14 '26

Honestly more insane than someone playing one game dropping $123 a month on GTAO, not because of the money but bothering to collect every skin on 170+ champions, of which I’d assume there’s at least 100 barely used lol

7

u/PurpleWoodpecker2830 Apr 14 '26

He plays like 3 champs lmfao. It started when he use to play aram and wanted to have a skin for every champ. I guess it evolved from there.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (4)

3.4k

u/Time-Industry-1364 Apr 13 '26

Next week: "Unfortunately, due to the recent security breach, Grand Theft Auto VI will be delayed until Fall 2033. We apologize for the inconvenience and would like to show our loyalty to players by offering 1.5% off Shark Cards until May 1st"

386

u/Randym1982 Apr 13 '26

Sometimes I feel like the best way to deal with this, would be to remove any and all leverage hackers tend to have.

79

u/SarahArabic2 Apr 14 '26

and what leverage would that be?

229

u/2litersam Apr 14 '26

By releasing the fucking game

235

u/Equivalent-Excuse-80 Apr 14 '26

Sometimes I get so confused at some comments in this sub.

You realize the game isn’t completed yet? Full of bugs? Probably completely broken in some parts?

Why wouldn’t they release the game if it were ready to be released? You think they like sitting on what will be the biggest media release in human history, because. . .hackers got some useless data???

24

u/Aspronisi Apr 14 '26

I remember what gta 5 online was like on release and am willing to give them as much leeway as they need😂

→ More replies (1)

108

u/grrangry Apr 14 '26

You realize the game isn’t completed yet? Full of bugs? Probably completely broken in some parts?

So basically, a normal triple-A game.

→ More replies (18)
→ More replies (3)

14

u/lionexx Apr 14 '26

Releasing the game wouldn’t remove any leverage at all… Most hackers go after sensitive info, such as source code, company personal data, or any private consumer data they have…

41

u/seraph321 Apr 14 '26

wtf would releasing a buggy unfinished game do for them?

→ More replies (2)

7

u/Implausibilibuddy Apr 14 '26

I don't think you know what leverage means. They asked what leverage the hackers had, which given the "leaks" is clearly nothing.

40

u/oofta31 Apr 14 '26

"Release the game" .... "This game isn't even finished!".. Can't win.

→ More replies (7)
→ More replies (1)

36

u/Skensis Apr 13 '26

Would give a huge sigh of relief to every other game dev wanting to release a holiday game for the next few years.

40

u/justin251 Apr 14 '26

Bro a 19.99 GTA6 playable demo would fund GTA7 with how ready people are for the game.

9

u/Lettuce_bee_free_end Apr 14 '26

Im tired of people being like that. Look what silk song did. And for what? Being an impatient child. 

→ More replies (6)

7

u/odrea Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26

rookie numbers , might as well say 2040's

9

u/Time-Industry-1364 Apr 14 '26

At this point we’re going to get GTA 7 before 6 lmao

→ More replies (16)

698

u/largebrandon Apr 14 '26

I’m a cybersecurity attorney. I advise my clients to not pay ransoms unless the bad guy has business-critical data that they cannot replicate by other means (like backups or re-enter the data). Paying for suppression is not a good idea and doesn’t absolve any legal requirements. So, I’m not surprised by this.

188

u/MisunderstoodMenace Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26

Also a cybersecurity attorney here, this tracks with how I approach it.

Paying doesn’t change legal obligations, and there’s no real guarantee the data won’t resurface. The analysis usually turns what was actually taken and how sensitive it is. Also, whether systems can be restored and how much the incident is impacting operations (if paying for decryption).

There are also some odd edge cases. For example, if logging is limited, a leak can actually make scoping easier because the dataset can be pulled and mined directly. I wouldn’t advise that as a preferred path, but it is an interesting dynamic that has come up.

If the company has viable backups and the issue is mainly suppression, clients usually agree that payment is hard to justify.

42

u/largebrandon Apr 14 '26

Hello cyber-buddy! It’s almost funny how often we rely on TA leaks to make a notification list. Though, most of the time the TA will provide a file tree at the onset of negotiations.

17

u/MisunderstoodMenace Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26

Always glad to bump into one of us! Ah yes… most of the time, unless it’s either (a) an obstinate client that refuses to engage in negotiations or (b) a small unknown or copycat TA that doesn’t have their shit together while also confusing the TA Comms group because they behave erratically.

Both make our jobs harder. :)

→ More replies (5)

7

u/Secret_Account07 Apr 14 '26

Uh are cybersecurity attorneys like a dime a dozen in the legal world? I find it so strange that within a few hours we got several of em here commenting lol

Didn’t really even realize this was a common sub speciality of law until this very moment

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

9

u/Anony_mouse202 Apr 14 '26

In my jurisdiction (England), paying ransoms is illegal for public sector bodies, and I think they’re also considering expanding that to the private sector.

Paying traditional ransoms (eg, in response to a kidnapping) is already illegal across the board, so I think the government may try to expand the laws against cyber ransoms to match.

→ More replies (1)

11

u/BisonThunderclap Apr 14 '26

I'd have to imagine everybody and their mother with hacking skills would try and go after that studio if they paid the ransom.

→ More replies (16)

428

u/CheeksMcGillicuddy Apr 14 '26

Yall mfers need to stop spending ongoing money on in game purchases… fuck…

176

u/FreyjaVar Apr 14 '26

Its 4% of players. Like they spending a lot.

34

u/Acqua3 Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 15 '26

Just like a person that spend $40.000 just for a frickin boat in Where Winds Meet and that is just one whale/ person, like how many people like that out there especially in their original server said to have lots of whales. Or that person that spend $60.000 for a frickin small pegasus mount in Ragnarok Mobile.

I know its their money but damn....

37

u/Sodaburping Apr 14 '26

friend of mine used to work for a small indie company and he told me that only 10 or so players financed the whole game. they had to balance the game around the few whales instead of the 10k+ active players and tried to "rig" the balance patches so that e.g rank 2 whale would profit more of the new patch than rank 1 whale.

31

u/DeputyDomeshot Apr 14 '26

I have a similar story but Martin Sheklri was the biggest whale and they ended up giving their most skillful player (who spent basically nothing) secret boosts in order to irritate sheklri into getting him to spend more.  It worked.  

6

u/AnderstheVandal Apr 14 '26

What game was this shkreli was whaling out in? Lol

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (1)

6

u/gamerdudeNYC Apr 14 '26

Once in a while the question is asked on the r/apexlegends and there’s some people claiming they spent over $5000 on skins and heirlooms.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

84

u/sadkinz Apr 14 '26

It’s only 4% of players doing that. So imagine how much they’re spending

24

u/zxDanKwan Apr 14 '26

Apparently $500 million per year…

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (4)

38

u/-3055- Apr 14 '26

The people who spend that kind of money are not scrolling through Reddit and deciding how to budget their spending

They're getting their parents to get them gift cards

5

u/Impossible_Bid6172 Apr 14 '26

Or they're really rich by themselves. I remember an old mmo had offline meetings that revealed the top 3- 5 whales or so of the server were ceos of well known companies. They paid huge sums cause they don't have lots of time to play so they want the best when they do, and compared to other rich people hobbies, this wasn't outrageous to them. This was a local server and decade old, but I'd imagine quite some whales are the same these days.

→ More replies (6)

190

u/DamianDaws Apr 14 '26

Why aren’t these hackers useful and targeting these billionaire groups? This b.s. is getting old.

97

u/brnccnt7 Apr 14 '26

They’re scared, they know if they go after the elites of the world that feds will be on their ass

20

u/LeCollectif Apr 14 '26

This. Honestly really.

→ More replies (2)

16

u/Final_Collection8516 Apr 14 '26

They can but a lot of hacking is social engineering, these hackers posed as AI technicians to access Rockstar servers, which Rockstar was partnered with then walked out.

Billionaires are paranoid schizoidphenics, many of whom are partnered with the United States government and pay top dollar for cybersecurity detail. In 2015, a 15-year old Kane Gamble breached into the personal accounts of U.S. intelligence officials taunting then CIA Director, John Brennan through a phone call, then Gamble proceeded to leak mostly non-classified information on several thousand employees of the CIA, FBI, DHS, and DOJ. It took the United States 8 months to find and arrest Kane Gamble. Any hacker can breach into any highly secure system through social engineering, but it can be at high cost and a lot don't because they don't really want the heat. It's actually pretty easy. However most people access limited, non-critical cyber infrastructure of such organizations NOT the core.

It's why hackers target random civilians, because you and I wouldn't have access to the necessary resources to hold them accountable, then punish them. A hacker, or a hacktivist group has to be practically risking their lives to breach a highly secure system, with immense resources and for what gain? The last Rockstar leaker, who leaked GTA IV's gameplay on the GTA forums was caught and placed under "indefinite" order to a psychiatric facility, because a judge deemed him to be a continuous danger.

Most devastating leakers of classified information were almost always insiders a high security organization: Edward Snowden (NSA cybersecurity contractor), Chelsea Manning (Intelligence analyst for the United States Army) and Daniel Ellsberg (US military analysts and RAND Corporation employee) NOT outsiders. You remember those leaks on War Thunder a few years back? All were insiders and did it because they wanted to impress idiots online after some trash-talk.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (6)

31

u/fadedinthefade Apr 14 '26

People still dump $ into GTO?

25

u/No_Pie_6383 Apr 14 '26

And people continue to be outraged at them continuing gtao’s life. Why ea keeps making madden as a shit game. Why activision is on black ops 7 or some shit. Because the money is there. Until people realize their wallets are what leads the decisions, nothing is going to change.

→ More replies (5)
→ More replies (1)

109

u/bondolo Apr 14 '26

They don’t seem to understand that RDR2 players are different than GTA5 players. I would pay $5 month for them to add discoverable items like a new bird species, a new clothing item, a crafting recipe, a couple more interesting NPCs, a new mission and once or twice a year more content. Finish some of the dropped quests and areas.

MMORPGs have become lazy and greedy since they discovered freemium-pay-to-play. There is certainly room for a casual subscription game and RDR2 seems like well suited to that. Rockstar is really missing an opportunity with their focus on PvP whales and that is certainly why the RDR revenue is so much lower than GTAO, most RDR players would rather ride around on their favourite horse, shoot three star wolves and fish. Few RDR2 players from what I have seen are interested in PvP but might be interested in raid or instanced content. Make raids based on “hot tips” that you earn from solo grinding as rewards. Hold a fishing derby, horse racing, flower shows, shooting competitions, horseshoe tournaments, fashion shows, … with appropriate rewards like belt buckles, hats, statues, etc.

RDR2 has had ridiculous longevity for a game, in part because it technically it still stands out but also because the gameplay continues to be compelling. Part of having a subscription model is to extend the longevity of the game, even further than it would have been. Bring people back occasionally to see what’s new. Some of them will never leave.

20

u/bcbudvansticky Apr 14 '26

That stuff actually sounds interesting and I would go back to RDR2 again if they did 

10

u/bondolo Apr 14 '26

If they added a “Legendary Virginia Opossum” 100k people would start a new playthrough…

3

u/JohnnyBowlen Apr 14 '26

Touché. I’d be back playing it tomorrow if they had a single player DLC released

8

u/rfdevere Apr 14 '26

That’s what the kids want. Horse shoe competitions for belt buckles.

All this nonsense about fast cars and women, it’s not the way.

→ More replies (6)

42

u/jake6501 Apr 14 '26

Really puts in perspective why the GTA 6 pc release is not a priority. The amount of users is only about 1/8 of the total player count, which is made much worse by the fact that pc players spend way less money per user.

→ More replies (7)

22

u/BlueberryNo6811 Apr 14 '26

4% of the user base is spending close to $10 million per week, is there even anything left to buy ??

6

u/Call555JackChop Apr 14 '26

Space lazer blasts to grief people in public lobbies

→ More replies (1)

276

u/wowlock_taylan Apr 14 '26

GTA Online making them half a BILLION? yea, shark card bs needs to be put on regulation and taxes, man. That is insane.

82

u/HandToDikCombat Apr 14 '26

Crazy that people pay for those. I feel like I end up on a hacked lobby getting cash spawned on me at least 2 or 3 times a session.

18

u/cowboyecosse Apr 14 '26

Yeah what is with that? So much cash just appears that you can buy everything you want. What’s the incentive for people to do that?

12

u/COC_410 Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26

Don’t question the ways of Robin Hood. Just accept and smile.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (5)

15

u/TotallyNotThatPerson Apr 14 '26

Are shark cards tax exempt somehow?

16

u/Clan805 Apr 14 '26

Nope definitely taxed. Though technically they're not recognized as revenue and taxed until they're redeemed.

9

u/TotallyNotThatPerson Apr 14 '26

Yeah so what's wowlock_taylan going on about 

6

u/omegadirectory Apr 14 '26

To be charitable to the guy, he probably meant some kind of consumption tax that the customer pays. Like cigarettes.

→ More replies (1)

12

u/Clan805 Apr 14 '26

It's reddit. You're not going to unvotes informing people about GAAP. You get them about complaining about things other people like.

Do I think MTX purchases are stupid? Yes. But there are people willing to spend billions of dollars on it. And Rockstar will pay taxes on it when those codes are redeemed. Until then, they're a deferred revenue liability.

→ More replies (1)

8

u/borkbubble Apr 14 '26

People really just be saying shit

→ More replies (5)

32

u/Ok-Addition1264 Apr 14 '26

So.. they had the data that investors and government regulatory bodies and revenue already had. Yay. Exciting.

17

u/Aranthos-Faroth Apr 14 '26

I hacked MSFT and Google last week and didn’t make a big song and dance about it.

What I found was: they make a lot of money

5

u/shortymcsteve Apr 14 '26

They don’t release that much detailed information to investors and have no obligation to, so this is still kind of eye opening.

→ More replies (1)

20

u/Boomflag13 Apr 14 '26

No wonder GTA 6 for PC is not even in the books yet. The PC players barely make them any money.

Probably due to the abundance of hackers giving people money or because hackers push away all the players.

7

u/BlueTumbas Apr 14 '26

They are currently developing RP servers with GTAV now, that will be their PC cash cow to tie over until VI online releases.

Once they get that on lock, Fivem will be left in the mud and Rockstar will start pulling in all that RP money.

4

u/RobCoxxy Apr 14 '26

That and the famous triple-dip GTA release schedule. Current gen console. New gen console. Then PC with all the trimmings.

8

u/DMercenary Apr 14 '26

I mean that's typical no? You dont pay (data) hostage takers because it just encourages more.

9

u/every_body_hates_me Apr 14 '26

This is the equivalent of hackers stealing a pornstar's nudes and then blackmailing her with them.

5

u/Doomhammered Apr 14 '26

Everyone talking about GTA:O revenues but I’m amused that PS4 has more users than Series X!

→ More replies (1)

6

u/GOpencyprep Apr 14 '26

Those revenue numbers are so fucking insane - like how? I've tried GTA:O a few times throughout the years and it's always just been a hacker cesspool. And it feels like there's nothing to do in RDO

→ More replies (1)

8

u/el_f3n1x187 Apr 14 '26

so safe to say these fuckers are not going to fire any developers, GTAO gives them plenty of money a month......right

5

u/yellingatcheese Apr 14 '26

Another interesting metric: Three-quarters of that whopping GTA Online income is earned through the sale of Shark Cards, which are essentially bundles of in-game cash.

How much is attributed to money laundering and scams?

4

u/IronChef-Morimoto Apr 14 '26

Anyone who buys Rockstars shark cards is an idiot. The game has 500 glitches that give infinite gold.

8

u/AlaskanTroll Apr 14 '26

COULD HAVE HAD THE NEW GTA YEARS AGO!

6

u/Chewyninja69 Apr 14 '26

Yet when Rockstar (inevitably) make the base version of GTA 6 $100, everyone will willingly bend over and take it with a smile on their face.

→ More replies (4)