Leaks in the gaming industry: In the end there are no winners

The term “leak” can be read in every second news report these days. It wasn’t until September 2022 that Rockstar Games and Grand Theft Auto 6 made headlines when video footage of the game, which was still in production, surfaced on the internet. But what is actually behind it? The word “leak” comes from English and means something like “leak” or “leakage”. In our context, this is the unauthorized publication of image, video or sound recordings. But how do such “leaks” arise? The possibilities here range from “pure carelessness” and “human error” to any amount of criminal energy and cybercrime. A hacker attack, in which the secured data is hijacked and encrypted while demanding a ransom, is therefore to be classified very differently from a media employee who accidentally “activates” an article, including images and information, at the wrong time.

Be it unofficial announcements of release dates, previously unpublished screenshots or simply the next free games from Playstation Plus: Leaks are now ubiquitous and part of daily gaming reporting. But there are always leaks that make you sit up and take notice and show that even large publishers and developers are sometimes powerless against external attacks.

These leaks caused a sensation

In 2020, hackers gained access to the internal servers of the Japanese publisher Capcom and, according to their own statements, stole a terabyte of data using the ransomware Ragnar Locker. In addition to game content, this also included internal company information such as tax or accounting documents.

Biggest leak in gaming history? In September 2022, extensive video material for GTA 6 ended up online. The hackers were even able to get hold of parts of the source code. The footage shows the game in a very early stage of development.

Source: Rockstar Games

The polluters demanded eleven million dollars for decoding the information “held hostage”. In the end, however, these are made public, and so the remake of Resident Evil 4 was prematurely announced.

A similar approach emerged with the hack of CD Projekt RED. The makers of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt confirmed in February 2021that they were hacked and that the source codes of said titles and the RedEngine graphics technology were stolen.

Here, too, the perpetrators blackmailed the developer. When CD Projekt did not respond to the demands, the data ended up in an auction on the dark web. Starting price: one million US dollars. The information probably changed hands later outside of this auction and was also published on the Internet.

Probably the biggest leak in gaming history happened in September 2022, when a series of videos about Grand Theft Auto 6, which was only officially announced in the spring, circulated. This was notable in that they showed the game at an extremely early stage of development. Rockstar Games confirmedthat the leak was carried out via an external network attack by a third party and that the attackers downloaded confidential data – including parts of the source code.

Rockstar also announced that the project would not be postponed and that live services would not be affected. Furthermore, the GTA-Mascher made investigations to find the culprits. A little later, a 17-year-old hacker was arrested in Oxfordshire, UK, and is considered the prime suspect.

The young man pleaded not guilty. However, in the past he was part of the Lapsu$ hacker group, which attacked Microsoft and Nvidia, among others. At the current time (beginning of December 2022) there is no further information on the status of the investigation.

Countermeasures or pure activism?

Now the question arises: Can leaks be prevented at all in 2022? The clear answer is: No! Paradox Interactive’s Chief Marketing Officer Daniel Goldberg and Chief Business Development Officer Shams Jorjani also underline this in the in-house podcast. Assuming that no hackers are at work, they base this statement on the fact that there are too many people involved in the process of developing a game. As a result, errors are inevitable.