Introduction
This is “What Just Happened?,” the podcast that looks at the biggest brand crises of our time, what they meant for organisational strategy and behaviour, and their lasting impact on our approach to crisis communication.
I’m Kate Hartley. And I’m Tamara Littleton. And together, we’ll delve into what happened, why it mattered, and whether it could happen again.
Episode
Tamara Littleton: Welcome back to What Just Happened?, and we’ve got a really interesting one today, haven’t we, Kate? Do you want to share what we’re talking about today?
Kate Hartley: We really have, and this has just taken me into a whole series of rabbit holes that I didn’t expect to go into. I’m not a gamer. I’m going to say this up front because it may become very clear. But this is about the leak around the Grand Theft Auto release.
That’s probably the most anticipated video game ever, and it’s due for release on the 19th of November. And it is expected to make between three and a half and $5 billion globally in launch week. I mean, can you imagine? That’s incredible.
It’s been on pre-order for about five months, since 25th of June, and apparently it’s one of the most expensive games ever made. I mean, this is all new to me. But the development costs were around $1 billion on development. I mean, that’s comparable to some of the biggest films, isn’t it?
TL: Yeah, that’s like massive film studio costs, I’m guessing. And do you know what? Back in the day, I was a gamer.
I remember playing the first Grand Theft Auto, in, I think it was, came out in ’97, ’98 or something like that, on the early PlayStation.
KH: When you were a child.
TL: Exactly. Too young to play it, probably was. But, yeah, I mean, it’s changed a lot.
It’s such an anticipated game. I know that people are taking, you know, planning to take days off for the launch. There was something about the army, actually, wasn’t there?
KH: Oh my God! So, one of the incentives in one of the infantry divisions in the U.S. Army said that they would give their soldiers four days off to play the game if they then signed up for a contract for two years. Which, to me, four days off, you could just take four days’ holiday, couldn’t you?
And anyway, anyway, but apparently people have done it. I mean, it’s such a big thing that people have actually taken them up on that. And there was some research done by our brilliant copywriter, Gemma Story, who is also fascinated by this whole area of gaming and is a gamer herself.
And she said that she’s found that around one and a half million Americans are going to take the day off when it launches, just to play on launch day.
TL: Well, Gemma, you can have the day off.
KH: Oh, wait, hang on a minute. There’s even a, there was even a 30-minute, or roughly 30-minute, Netflix programme called an extended look, which literally was a trailer on the game. And that had 31.1 million views in the first week it came out on Netflix, and that put it into the top 10 programmes on Netflix.
TL: Okay, so just amazing. Massively overhyped, very, very exciting launch. People looking forward to this. People taking days off.
Yeah, it’s been years in development. What?
KH: 2013 was the last release?
TL: Wow, that’s amazing, isn’t it? So, what has just happened?
KH: Well, there was a bit of an issue because details of the game started leaking. And I know that we talk about leaks, you know, a lot, don’t we, when we run simulations and crisis exercises on this podcast? But I think this one is massive because of the absolute secrecy that surrounds these games.
I mean, they’re so well controlled, how they’re released, but a lot of the details of the game started leaking ahead of this Netflix extended look. And there were clips that showed new features of the game and new kind of parts of the Grand Theft Auto world, and they were leaked by either an individual or a group. We don’t know, but somebody calling themselves CyberLeak.
And there was a huge amount of speculation about whether these clips were real. But it, I think, the general consensus now is they were. And Take-Two Interactive, which is the company that owns Rockstar, which is the company that makes Grand Theft Auto, has gone after CyberLeak in a big way.
So, they’ve started by taking down some of these clips on copyright grounds when they were being shared on social media. But now they’re going after sites like Discord and GitHub to get them to reveal user details of people that they think might be involved in the leaks. But what I think is interesting is people are saying they don’t think it’s somebody, an insider per se, but they do think it’s somebody who has access to a playable build version of the game.
TL: Yeah.
KH: So, it could be. I guess that means it could be somebody. I don’t really know how it works.
Maybe it’s somebody who’s trialling it. Maybe it’s somebody who’s hacked it, or maybe it’s somebody who legitimately had a copy. We just don’t know.
TL: Yeah, because they were getting access to, like, an early development site. I guess, you know, we’re not going to know whether that’s an early version or the, you know, the real version that is being launched. But something that was really interesting in this story, so there’s the leak, which is, well, as you say, a little bit of a problem.
I would say a major headache. Yeah. And obviously, there’s so much secrecy in the launch. That’s kind of the way it works in the gaming industry.
You know, everything is kept secret so that the launch day is the most exciting thing. So, I mean, this is big enough in its own right, but then there was a sort of a side quest in that the actual hackers, or the leakers, are also trying to extort money from people.
KH: I know. This is, this is, this is absolutely fascinating. So, the first thing was they had a manifesto against the company. So, apparently, this was a kind of disgruntled thing.
They said they didn’t think that game companies should issue digital pre-orders because they were saying, basically, people are buying a licence, not a copy of the game, and there’s too much content behind paywalls. And apparently they had beef, basically, with Rockstar, but the twist, as you say, is that they were trying to make money off the back of that.
So, they set up their own crypto meme coin, which was based on Solano, the cryptocurrency. So, they were getting people to pay for tokens to vote in polls on which content should be leaked next. And that cryptocurrency then, or the crypto meme coin, then had a valuation of anywhere between $3 million and $5 million, depending on what you read and where you read it and who you believe.
But it does seem that they didn’t necessarily make all that money. So, it looks as though whoever’s behind that cashed out at around $225,000. So, they probably didn’t make that. But it’s really hard.
You know, this is crypto. This is really, really hard to kind of get a sense of how much they made. But it is fascinating.
TL: Yeah, I think there was something about trying to show that it was a real game or a real version that they’ve got by showing content inside a strip club or something like that, which is very Grand Theft Auto.
KH: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. It’s amazing, but it has had an impact. Take-Two’s market cap dropped around $2.8 billion, so that’s significant.
I mean, this is a $40 billion company. You know, it’s not enormous in the grand scheme of things, but that’s not an insignificant hit. That is, that is, and there are a lot of users who are really upset and angry and say that it’s, what, the surprise and all that kind of stuff.
But I think insiders generally say it’s not going to have a long-term impact on Take-Two’s valuation as a company. And Rockstar were really quiet about it initially, so it might be worth looking at their response a bit because they really, the initial response was just legal. It was like, get this stuff taken down. And I think that’s probably the right thing, isn’t it, in this situation?
TL: Yeah. Well, I suppose it’s indicating that they are taking it seriously. It does show that it’s real as well.
If they’re getting legal involved, you know, it’s not just a rumour. Actually, because there was also something really interesting about, there’s a lot of misinformation going on because there’s some AI versions jumping about as well.
KH: Yeah, and again, the trouble is so much of this content is not on what you or I would call traditional media, so it’s really hard to know what’s verified and what isn’t. But there were certainly rumours going around that there were clips that couldn’t be taken down because they were AI-generated, possibly taken from some of the genuine clips that have been leaked.
But then there are AI-generated clips that are not real representations of the new game, and so therefore they can’t really be taken down on copyright grounds, or there’s some grey areas here. That’s a discussion that’s going on. How much sort of legal accuracy there is is hard to know. But that’s a discussion that’s going on.
TL: And in the gaming industry, again, you know, because I’ve sort of, I’ve got a personal interest in this, having been a gamer once upon a time, but also worked with massive gaming companies, and, you know, the comms style is much more guarded. And often, you know, things will just be released there. It won’t be a big fanfare.
There’s not really sort of spokespeople going online, for example. It’s such a different approach to comms. So, what you’re seeing is that they are just being quite quiet. Do you think that’s working?
KH: I, well, I don’t know what they can do. I mean, they have put out a statement quite a long time after all this happened, but they did put out a statement saying it was heartbreaking, that the leaks were heartbreaking. And there was a line in the statement that said, “Unfortunately, it was unfortunate that the intended game experience may now be impacted by some spoilers.”
So, they are acknowledging the impact on people who are paying them not insignificant amounts of money. I mean, I think it retails for around £70 or $80 if you buy the standard edition, and then it goes up about £20 or $20 if you get the ultimate one with various add-ons and things. So, it’s not an insignificant amount of money that you’re asking people to part with.
TL: Yeah. And some people are signing up to the army, so, you know.
KH: Yeah, for two years. Amazing. It’s not insignificant.
Yeah. So, I think it probably, I don’t really know what else they can do. I think what will be really interesting is whether they find the identity of the person behind it, or whether they’re just, maybe they don’t. Maybe they know that they won’t find their person, but they just want to put off other people.
There might be a little bit of a kind of deterrence thing going on here, and I think that is sensible.
TL: And what we’re not seeing, because, you know, sometimes when there’s a breach, a leak, ransomware, you know, the brand affected can be, you know, becomes the centre of the story, and people get very angry with them. Of, like, you know, you released our data, and, you know, there can be a bit of a backlash.
I’m not seeing the backlash against the company for this happening. I think there is, there’s probably more just sympathy, and also people complaining, you know, about the breach, the leakers. You know, there’s more sort of focus on, aren’t there terrible people out there, rather than Rockstar has done a stupid thing.
KH: Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. And I think there will be a backlash against CyberLeak, especially as this CyberLeak person or group has attempted, as you say, to extort money out of people for it. I think that kind of puts a very different spin on it for me.
TL: Yeah, definitely. Well, we shall watch with interest how this, absolutely, how this carries on breaking, and, you know, the launch is happening in November. So, good luck to Rockstar.
KH: And it does look amazing. I mean, the graphics and stuff look incredible from the bits I’ve seen. It looks absolutely amazing.
TL: Well, we’ll see. We’ll see how this pans out.
KH: We will indeed.
Outro
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