Take-Two Interactive stock tumbled 3% on Monday following a weekend leak of Grand Theft Auto 6 footage.A hacker released hours of early development footage of the highly anticipated open world game.Wall Street analysts are concerned that the hack could push back the game’s release date. Loading Something is loading.
Shares of Take-Two Interactive Software tumbled 3% on Monday after a hacker leaked hours of early development footage of its highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 game over the weekend.
More than 90 gameplay videos of the game were posted to an online Grand Theft Auto forum on Saturday night by a hacker that used the screen name “teapotuberhacker.” The hacker has since claimed that they could leak more data soon from the game, including its source code.
And according to The Verge, the hacker has also taken credit for a cyberattack against Uber last week. That claim has not been verified.
While the leak set the internet on fire over the weekend, it also created a big headache at Take-Two and its subsidiary Rockstar Games.
The headaches stem from the fact that the leak is likely to disrupt the development of the game in the short-term and could ultimately lead to a delayed release, as Rockstar assesses if any of its source code was compromised during the hack.
Jefferies analysts said the hack is “a PR disaster, possibly sets back production, and hurts morale” at the company. For one, the hack could lead to a change to Take-Two’s work-from-home policy in a bid to tighten up security on its game development.
Research firm MoffettNathanson said in a note seen by Bloomberg that while “the footage alone wouldn’t do much to harm the commercial prospects of the game,” the hack could “force a large amount of rework and in the process slow production down considerably.”
But Take-Two says development of the game will continue on as planned. In an 8-K filed with the SEC on Monday, Take-Two said:
“Rockstar Games recently experienced a network intrusion in which an unauthorized third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from its systems, including early development footage for the next Grand Theft Auto. Current Rockstar Games services are unaffected. We have already taken steps to isolate and contain this incident. Work on the game will continue as planned. At this time, Rockstar Games does not anticipate any disruption to its current services nor any long-term effect on its development timelines as a result of this incident.”
It was just a few months ago Take-Two Interactive Software confirmed that a sequel to the second-best selling video game of all time was in the works. And while no release date timeframe was revealed by Take-Two, the game is still likely years away from being released.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is a a follow up to Grand Theft Auto 5, which was released nearly a decade ago in 2013. Grand Theft Auto 5 has sold more than 160 million copies and has seen renewed life via its online gaming mode.
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