What could possibly be worse than footage of the world's most anticipated video game leaking onto the internet early, in an unfinished state? A game with a similar cultural footprint becoming playable ahead of its release. It seems unthinkable now in the age of Denuvo, but this exact nightmare scenario happened for Rockstar ahead of the release of Grand Theft Auto 5.
The leaks began a few weeks before GTA 5's official launch, after a snafu with the PlayStation Store allowed players with pre-orders to access some of the game's files. At first, the leaks didn't seem like such a big deal. The files told fans how much space the game would take up on their PS3 hard drives, and listed specific songs from the game's soundtrack.
Another leak stemming from early strategy guides also showed players the game's map sooner than intended. To be sure, the leaks didn't make anyone working on the game happy. A blog post from Rockstar said, “As you can imagine, we are deeply disappointed by leaks and spoilers being spread in advance of the game's launch.
GTA V represents years of hard work by many people across the world, and we all couldn't be more excited to finally share it with you properly this September 17th.” Sony, for its part, subsequently pulled the preload and apologized profusely to fans and Rockstar for the gaffe. Compared to the GTA 6 leaks, where players were able to see the main characters naked, this data breach sounds quaint. It's less common these days, but there are plenty of modern examples of major games being pirated early.
Heck, nearly every big Nintendo game of the last generation was pirated well ahead of launch. Back in 2013, however, digital games had just entered the mainstream — and leaks of this magnitude weren't a regular occurrence. The situation worsened quickly after players began sharing information about the game's story and ending.
Rockstar and Sony alike had to warn players that they could be banned for spoiling the game early. While we've seen glimpses of GTA 6's story and have some educated guesses about its ending, Rockstar has managed to keep such details under wraps so far. None of these events were nearly as significant as what came after: the game was uploaded to torrent websites.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
