Grand Theft Auto VI

[DisturbedSwan]

 

I think Rockstar’s A team (North) will be on this and I don’t think the SP Campaign will be filled with MTX type shenanigans, I’m not interested in a GTAVI online.

 

I still have faith in Rockstar’s A team, RDR2 is an absolute masterpiece (IMHO) and proves they’ve still got it in them to put out an amazing game. 

[mmmark]

RDR2 enhanced please rockstar. I don’t want to pick it up and then be told I need to buy it again for the best version. 

[DisturbedSwan]

Rockstar Games Cleaned Up Its Frat-Boy Culture — and Grand Theft Auto, Too

 

Quote

 

In the summer of 2020, after a police officer killed George Floyd, Rockstar Games quietly shelved a mode of play it had planned to release for its Grand Theft Auto Online game.

 

Called Cops ‘n’ Crooks, the mode was a twist on the children’s game where players organize into teams of good guys and bad guys, but seemed especially tone-deaf during the global reckoning over police violence. Senior executives at the company, concerned about how the narrative might be interpreted during a time of heightened scepticism and mistrust of American police, put it aside. They still haven’t made plans to bring it back, according to people familiar with development. 

 

This was one of several politically sensitive actions Rockstar, a division of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., has taken in recent years. The company removed transphobic jokes from the most recent console release of Grand Theft Auto V and significantly narrowed its gender pay gap. Rockstar’s next game, Grand Theft Auto VI, will include a playable female protagonist for the first time, according to people familiar with the game. The woman, who is Latina, will be one of a pair of leading characters in a story influenced by the bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde, the people said. Developers are also being cautious not to “punch down” by making jokes about marginalized groups, the people said, in contrast to previous games.

 

Moves like these once seemed unthinkable for a company whose best-selling franchise is a satirical depiction of America that involves playing gangsters who kill civilians and where women are mostly depicted as sex objects. Grand Theft Auto V was a nihilistic parody that threw insults at everything, from right-wing radio hosts to liberal politicians. Inside the company, the tone wasn’t much different. Rockstar employees described a workplace culture full of drinking, brawling and excursions to strip clubs. The company was an early symbol of an industry-wide problem of long hours at the office, known as crunch, in which staff were expected to be at their desks many nights and weekends in order to keep a game on schedule.

 

That strategy was financially successful and turned Grand Theft Auto V into the second-best selling game of all time, with 165 million copies sold. It also led to burnout, attrition and a public controversy in 2018 that prompted hundreds of Rockstar employees to speak out about the difficult work environment.

Since that outcry, Rockstar has attempted to reinvent itself as a more progressive and compassionate workplace, according to interviews with more than 20 people who work there or left recently, all of whom requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. One employee described it as “a boys’ club transformed into a real company.” A spokesman for Rockstar declined to comment.

 

Can a kinder, gentler Rockstar still produce the chart-topping caliber of game the studio has become known for? Some employees aren’t sure. Morale across the company is higher than it’s ever been, according to many staffers. But the development of Grand Theft Auto VI has been slower than impatient fans and even longtime employees have expected.

 

Much of that has to do with the pandemic, but the delay is also due to some of the changes that the company implemented in an effort to improve working conditions, such as a restructuring of the design department and a pledge to keep overtime under control. Some workers say they’re still trying to figure out how to make games at this new iteration of Rockstar and wonder even what a Grand Theft Auto game looks like in today’s environment. Besides, several Rockstar employees pointed out that you can't really satirize today's America — it's already a satire of itself. 

 

Between the company’s new mandate and the 2019 departure of Dan Houser, who led creative direction on many previous Rockstar games, all signs suggest Grand Theft Auto VI will feel very different than its predecessor.

 

Rockstar Games was founded in 1998 by a handful of British game-makers as a subsidiary of Take-Two. With 2001’s Grand Theft Auto III and its sequels, the company revolutionized open-world video games and grew to employ thousands of people, with offices in California, New York, across the UK and beyond. Grand Theft Auto products accounted for 31% of Take-Two’s $3.5 billion in total revenue in fiscal 2022, according to company filings. 

 

The studio was built on a culture of seven-day work weeks, said Jamie King, a founder who left after eight years. But, he said, that sort of culture is “unsustainable.” Games like Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3 required what some employees referred to as “death marches”—months of mandatory 14-hour days and weekends that took a toll on employees’ lives, mental health and sometimes marriages. 

 

In October 2018, shortly before the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, Houser, one of Rockstar’s founders, said his team had been working “100-hour weeks” to finish the game. The comments, which Houser later walked back, were the tipping point for many employees.

Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption 2 video game.

 

Similar complaints have rippled through the industry in recent years. Game developers working at Activision Blizzard Inc., Riot Games and Ubisoft Entertainment SA have all criticized their employers for issues ranging from sexual discrimination to overwork. Activision Blizzard is being sued by the state of California over allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination. While those companies have acknowledged their issues and vowed to change, none has done as much in response to a worker revolt as Rockstar, according to people across the company.

 

The transformation of Rockstar includes changes to scheduling, converting contractors to full-time employees and the ouster of several managers that employees saw as abusive or difficult to work with. When the pandemic started, workers received care packages, cloth masks and surprise bonuses. During the protests over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was murdered by police officers, the company said it would match donations to Black Lives Matter charities. Employees have been given new mental health and leave benefits. A new policy called “flexitime” allows staff to immediately take time off for every extra hour they work. And for the past four years, management has promised that excessive overtime won’t be required for Grand Theft Auto VI, one of the most-highly anticipated games by fans and investors on the planet. 

 

Sticking to that pledge has already prompted changes to the game. Original plans for the title, which is code-named Project Americas, were for it to be more vast than any Grand Theft Auto game to date. Early designs called for the inclusion of territories modeled after large swaths of North and South America, according to people familiar with the plans. But the company reeled in those ambitions and cut the main map down to a fictional version of Miami and its surrounding areas.

 

Rockstar’s plan is now to continually update the game over time, adding new missions and cities on a regular basis, which the leadership hopes will lead to less crunch during the game’s final months. Still, the game’s world remains large, with more interior locations than previous Grand Theft Auto games, impacting the timeline.

To help avoid overtime, Rockstar has also added more producers to keep track of schedules, a move that’s mostly been positive, developers said, but one that has also caused bottlenecks. Some employees said they found themselves waiting around to communicate through middlemen or that it felt like multiple people were in charge, leaving them unsure of who should make the final call. 

Rockstar put in place a new management structure following the departure of former design director Imran Sarwar, who was accused by several employees of bullying and verbal abuse. His position was filled by three other directors, creating what several people described as a “too many cooks” situation where design decisions are frequently left in flux or contradict one another. Some core aspects of the game, such as combat, were still going through changes even as developers expected them to be locked down, employees said. Sarwar didn’t respond to a request for comment.

 

Industry analysts anticipate that the next Grand Theft Auto will be out sometime in Take-Two’s 2024 fiscal year, which runs from April 2023 through March 2024, but developers are skeptical. The game has been in development in some form since 2014. Although there are loose schedules in place, people interviewed for this article said they didn’t know of any firm release date and that they expect the game to be at least two years away. Earlier this year, a group of designers quit Rockstar’s Edinburgh office, telling colleagues they were sick of the lack of progress. 

 

Many others, however, say they’re content to work at a company where there’s little pressure to get a new game out the door. Grand Theft Auto V, which came out in 2013, is the most profitable entertainment property of all time thanks to its multiplayer component, Grand Theft Auto Online. That unprecedented financial success has given Rockstar leeway to make sweeping changes and to take its time on the next project. And, as one staff member pointed out, overhauling Rockstar’s culture could help with retention and recruitment as well as lead to games that are “better for everyone working on them,” and presumably the people playing them, too. 

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Footage of a very early version of this seems to have leaked

 

emphasis on early

 

 

Edit reading the thread i just linked this sounds like a half life 2 beta situation, where an entire build of the game leaked online

 

There are 100 other videos like this one, and more besides. The scale of this leak wrt features being shown, voice acting, source code and such points to it most certainly being real. Or being an incredible example of a fake done so well that Rockstar would have to hire whoever this is

 

Some of the footage seems to come from a ps4 devkit, so GTAVI is probably a cross gen game. Which itself is interesting in giving a sense for how long cross gen could continue. Really feels like it could be most of the gen at this point

[AndyKurosaki]

I’ve seen some people saying “Poor Rockstar/Take Two, this is awful”. 
Meh. They released GTA Trilogy: Definitive Edition as a total shitshow, and charged full price for it. 
 

While I don’t condone hacking, I’m not arsed about this. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I'd be thinking more about the devs than T2, someone(s) getting sacked over this

[Maf]

Is there any understanding of how old this build is? The bits I saw on Twitter earlier make it seem like they’re still making physics for the game and things like that. It just makes me wonder is GTA6 still that far away?

[one-armed dwarf]

I think, and I could be wrong, but people were able to figure out that some of the footage was dated to around 2021 due to being able to see the nvidia driver version indicated on some of the videos.

 

There's a lot of scuttlebutt on twitter and resetera/reddit about the hacker apparently being hacked by someone else, and GTA V source being on github and shit like that but it's hard to know what's what and who's talking shite. Definitely the worst week Rockstar has ever had though, barely a year after their last shitty week. 

 

(fyi, dont post links to github with GTA source. It is copyright infringement)

 

The postmortem on this will be interesting when things settle (as much as they can settle)

[mmmark]

I don’t see what the fuss is about tbh.

[one-armed dwarf]

There's more informed takes out there, but I think where it gets bad is IP theft. if source code leaks out for the game. Implementation details of how a game like GTAVI is built can be stolen by competitors, maybe beating rockstar to market.

 

Admittedly how you actually pull something like that off without getting obliterated by lawsuits I dunno. But the chief concern isn't the raw footage of GTA, it's leaks of the IP itself and potential consequences surrounding that. The thing is source code leaking for a AAA game in development might be unprecedented, it happened to Cyberpunk but that was way after the game had released.

 

This could also lead to a ton of friction/prejudice with regard to who Rockstar outsource to, for instance they had a Rockstar India who are also working on this game. Opportunities like this might be relinquished depending on how R* feel about external companies handling of cybersecurity hygiene. I think this situation might be watched a lot by tech industries that aren't even game related cause of this, depending on what happens over the next couple days. IP theft is a nightmare for every industry not just gaming

 

Right now it's a disaster for the development of the game cause it's not exactly safe to continue working on it until all these factors are dealt with and damage assessed/mitigated. Expect a lengthy delay to whatever timeframe it was supposed to come out.

 

Disclaimer, not a game dev, but these are fair enough generalization to make I think

 

As far as footage leaking tho there's also bad things as a result of that

 

edit

a better take here (this is a twitter thread with 4 parts)

 

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Take Two might be hinting that GTA6 is launching next fiscal year (April 2024 - March 2025), will release 'groundbreaking' titles and set new standards

 

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Looking ahead, Fiscal 2025 is a highly anticipated year for our Company," the release states. "For the last several years, we have been preparing our business to release an incredibly robust pipeline of projects that we believe will take our company to even greater levels of success. In Fiscal 2025, we expect to enter this new era by launching several groundbreaking titles that we believe will set new standards in our industry and enable us to achieve over $8 billion in Net Bookings and over $1 billion in Adjusted Unrestricted Operating Cash Flow. We expect to sustain this momentum by delivering even higher levels of operating results in Fiscal 2026 and beyond.

The article from IGN further clarifies why these details likely imply very big launches next fiscal year:

 

For one, Take-Two's net bookings this past fiscal year reached $5.3 billion - a record annual high. Notably, this record was reached thanks to the contributions of Zynga, which it acquired last year. Prior to this, Take-Two's regular annual net bookings were looking roughly in $3 billion ballpark and steadily rising - it took the acquisition of a major mobile developer to see them leap over $1 billion in the space of a single year.

So to achieve a goal of $8 billion, Take-Two would need to make significant acquisitions, or release nearly double the amount of games it historically has, or release at least one absolute behemoth of a game.

 

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Sky News: GTA 6: 'Significant' tease suggests when long wait for next Grand Theft Auto game might be over

 

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The long wait for the next Grand Theft Auto game could be brought to an end next year, its publisher has teased.

 

Take-Two has not released a new instalment in the acclaimed crime series since 2013, with Grand Theft Auto V on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Numerous re-releases for subsequent consoles have helped it become one of the most successful entertainment products ever made, with more than 185 million copies shipped at last count.

 

Its popular online mode, where players can spend real money on numerous in-game items, has also contributed to generating about $6bn (£4.7bn) in total revenue.

Speaking at an investor call this week, Take-Two executive Lainie Goldstein teased the company was preparing for "record levels of operating performance" in the next financial year - helped by a "significant inflection point".

 

Fans were quick to speculate that it could mean Grand Theft Auto 6 could finally arrive within that timeframe, which is between next April and March 2025.

Brendan Sinclair, managing editor of GamesIndustry.biz, told Sky News that Mr Goldstein's comment was "absolutely a hint" towards the game's potential release date.

"This is part of a pattern for Take-Two, because the parent company lets GTA developer Rockstar determine its own marketing plans about announcing release windows and the like," he said.

 

"At the same time, a new mainline GTA release is the sort of thing that produces a noticeable uptick in sales for the company and Take-Two definitely wants to give investors a heads up on that."

 

 

[mmmark]

That’s the same non news as the one before. 

[mmmark]

Rockstar Games, a division of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., plans to announce the next highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto game as early as this week, according to people familiar with its plans.

[DisturbedSwan]

Hype! Crazy to think I was 24 when the V came out lol.

[Pikman]

I didn't get around to playing 5 yet 😅

[DisturbedSwan]

Properly announced! Trailer coming next month

 

[Nag]

Hype....

[DisturbedSwan]

Hype thrusters engaged.

[mmmark]

Might not be called 6 then I guess the way that’s worded.