GTA: San Andreas Leaked

[OniNeko]

"Less than a week after a pirated version of Halo 2 began appearing on the Web, another of the year's most sought after games has been stolen. Ironically, it also happens to be a game titled after a larcenous act itself. That's right. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has become the latest victim of piracy, with illegal copies of the game, its manual, and its cover appearing on various Web sites."

[Seraphim]

.... Holy crap. This is just getting rediculous. Why is every damn game getting leaked?

[Felan]

The wonders of over hypness, people get too edgy and impatient and a) somehow grab a copy or b) company "leaks" it to stimulate mroe over hypness (ok b is a theory but its happened before)

[Blackjack]

Stop with the leaking already!

[GoalieIDS]

I'm not much for conspiracy theories but look at the major games coming out, and look at four that have been "leaked". Doom 3, Halo 2, Half-Life 2, and now GTA:SA... seems fishy to me. All four of those have had veritable crapton of hype (in my opinion). I'm going to go ahead and agree with Theory B of ZenGyro's.

[Randomality]

Just adding another theory into the fray...

Wall Street Journal. October 19, 2004. p. B3

"Microsoft is trying to stop the spread of the Halo 2 copy, which is believed to have been stolen from a European factory pressing the game onto DVDs."

As far as I know, there's no confirmation that the factory is the leak source yet, though. But GTA:SA could be leaking from a similar source.

[Amanalphion]

I'd download this and play it, but I'd rather wait for the leak of Metroid Prime 2 or Metal Gear Solid 3.

[Rembrandt Q. Einstein]

These games don't need more hype, the reason they are leaked early, is because these are the games people want to get their grubby little hands on. There's no need for someone to build hype for Half-Life 2, but there is a demand for it as soon as one can get it.

[Raven]

There's pretty much been a demand for Half-Life 2 since the original came out, people have just been waiting until then. I figure people can make lots of money if they can steal games and sell them illegally to others if they managed to do it even a day before the game was supposed to hit shelves. Some people are just that desperate I guess.

(I had a bad experience with Half-Life, my first encounter with it being with the PS2, which made movement that much more difficult and angrivating, although on the PC I loved it. CS has stolen most of my childhood memories as well.)

[Mo0]

In the acase of Halo 2, it was an important leak because it came out so early. This one is so close to the release date that it doesn't matter.

Besides, it was originally supposed to come out this week, not the next. For all we know, someone just accidentally shipped a few copies by mistake, and called it a leak.

[KaymeeraUnleashed]

I have a feeling this is all just a marketing act... cause REALLY no-one can personally confirm the leaks publicly...

[MasteR]

Ya'll act like this is a unique occourance. Games get leaked all the time. Nearly every game that is hyped gets leaked. Get over it.

[KaymeeraUnleashed]

It just can't be a coincidence...Two leaks in less than 2 weeks? I think Microsoft pulled up so much attention with the little scene that Rockstar decided it wants some of that too. Half-life will be next, you mark my words!

[Hatsumi]

Let's face it. All publicity is good publicity, and publicity sells your product.

Having worked at a video game retailer before my current job, I am very aware that it's all about the number of copies sold. It doesn't matter how. Just sell them. What better way than to give some people a way to taste it? While there are those who will simply play the leaked version and not buy the real thing, a good majority of gamers will buy it anyway. Why? Because they like it. Because they collect these things.

GTA:SA is going to have some really stiff competition pretty soon in the release of Halo 2. There's a bunch of other stuff coming out in the next couple of months, too, although I can't really think of them off the top of my head. (All I know is that by the end of the year, I'm going to be totally broke!) A lot of people can't afford to buy every new game they want, so they wind up feeling that they have to choose. I saw this a LOT at my last job. By giving people a taste of GTA, it will encourage consumers to save up or do extra chores at home for the extra money they need to buy it, when they may have previously decided to just borrow their buddy's copy.

[billf]

KaymeeraUnleashed wasn't Half-Life 2's source already leaked?

If these leaks really are from the developers trying to get some publicity (which I really doubt), then they are doing one thing right, most of them aren't leaking anything useful. The HL2 leak was of nonplayable source code, The Halo2 Leak required a hacked XBox and knowledge of the French language, and the GTA leak, although I'm not hugely familiar with it probably requires at least a DVD burner.

But really, I don't think this is the work of the developers at all, I think it just has to do with how easy it is to steal such technology now.

Any office this kind of media is passed through is going to have CD and DVD burners as well as high speed internet. All these things make it very easy for someone to quickly, cheaply, and inconspicuously grab a copy of whatever they want.