Credit: Rockstar Games
The hackers’ blackmail, demanding $200,000 from Rockstar to keep confidential data confidential, turned into a triumph for the publisher. After the hackers published the stolen financial statements, the shares of parent company Take-Two soared. It turned out that the figures in the documents—in particular, GTA Online’s weekly revenue of approximately $8 million—impressed investors far more than the hack itself.
As a reminder, ShinyHunters hacked Rockstar’s data vaults using the third-party AI analytics platform Anodot and, after the studio refused to cooperate, released the stolen information publicly.
The leak did not contain assets for the hotly anticipated open-world crime action game GTA VI, currently in development at Rockstar, but rather data on the performance of the multiplayer action games Red Dead Online and GTA Online.
ShinyHunters’ publication of GTA Online financial results boosted Take-Two’s stock price, rising from $202.20 (at the start of trading on April 14) to $211.70 (at the time of publication).
Thus, thanks to the hackers’ actions, Take-Two Interactive’s market capitalization increased by more than $1.5 billion. At the time of publication, it exceeded $39 billion.
Although stock prices haven’t yet reached last year’s record highs, this surge demonstrates a tremendous vote of confidence in the franchise. With GTA 6 approaching release, the market is clearly betting on Rockstar’s real-life hits, not the fuzzy prospects of neural network simulations.