Even though the hacker group ShinyHunters successfully broke through (part of) Rockstar Games’ security and extracted internal data, the developer and its huge publisher, Take-Two, haven’t minded the unfortunate event much. In fact, it seems they’re coming out on top.
Earlier this week, we learned GTA Online was still making Rockstar around $1.3m per day, with annual estimates hitting nearly $500m from microtransactions alone. For an online mode which has been around for over a decade now, it’s stunning data and the kind of lasting, constant revenue many big-name publishers can only dream of.
Unsurprisingly, shareholders like this information. Take-Two’s stock has shot up since yesterday (hat tip to VGC), confirming an upward trend since Rockstar came out to say the security breach wasn’t a big deal. For reference, the stock was valued at $195,12 last Friday. It’s now sitting at $205,10, up from $202,26 when the market opened yesterday. The biggest jump happened over 30 minutes early in the morning EU time.
Nothing is known about the (likely) next iteration of GTA Online yet, but considering the games industry is still waiting for more details on Grand Theft Auto 6‘s 19th November release, it might be a while before the powers that be are ready to unveil what the next multiplayer GTA looks like.
Meanwhile, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick recently commented on the current AI craze and stated “no creativity… can exist by definition in any AI model.” Moreover, after some internal work done around AI tools, the company has just laid off its entire AI team.
