The person responsible for leaking more than 90 unfinished videos alleged to be from production of Grand Theft Auto 6 less than 24 hours ago seems to be trying to come to an agreement with the game's publisher, Rockstar Games, and its parent company, Take-Two Interactive.
According to multiple sources, the leaks sprung from GTAForums.com around midnight Sunday Eastern Standard Time, when forum user teapotuberhacker (who created their account the same day and claims to be from the United Arab Emirates) posted a message reading, "Here are 90 footage/clips from GTA 6. Its [sic] possible i [sic] could leak more data soon, GTA 5 and 6 source code and assets, GTA 6 testing build." The link to the files no longer appears on the forum post, and the alleged hacker claims to have obtained them from the development team's Slack employee communication program.
Since the initial leak, teapotuberhacker has continued to comment in the forum, posting a link to a New York Times article on the hacking of Uber's computer systems and claiming responsibility for that online security breach; sharing more than a dozen screenshots of what they claim to be source code for Grand Theft Auto 5 and 6 and the Uber computer system, and posting images alleged to be from Grand Theft Auto 6. An administrator or moderator at the forum site has since temporarily restricted posting privileges for new members "Due to an influx of spam posts," and many other forum users have remained skeptical that the uploaded images of code are legitimate.
Sometime after 11 a.m. EST, the alleged hacker claimed to have woken up with more than 3,000 direct messages on Telegram and urged interested Rockstar and Take-Two employees to contact them using the commination app or to send them an email from a corporate address. The Telegram account has since been deleted.
Additionally, someone has apparently attempted to buy the GTA5's source code for $100,000.00 using a Bitcoin transaction, but according to gaming news freelancer Tom Henderson, teapotuberhacker has denied that the money was sent to his account, meaning the attempted purchaser may have been scammed. Multiple users on Twitter have created accounts claiming to be teapotuberhacker, with at least one requesting payment of a small amount of cryptocurrency for further information on the upcoming title.
Rockstar Games' official Web site and Twitter page have yet to acknowledge the leaks at this time, with both continuing to promote The Criminal Enterprises expansion for Grand Theft Auto Online as their latest updates. However, several news agencies have reported Take-Two has begun sending out requests for the removal of the leaked materials. The company has earned a reputation for being highly protective of its prized series, having a history of exercising power under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to force GTA modding enthusiasts to remove their content as well.