Take-Two's CEO calls GTA 6 piracy "a fact of life," but the lawyers are on standby

So Take-Two's CEO got asked about GTA 6 getting pirated and his answer was basically a shrug. Called it a fact of life. Which, yeah, no kidding. Any game this big is going to get cracked eventually, and pretending otherwise would be silly.

What's interesting is the second half of it. He didn't just wave it off, he made clear the legal team is sitting there ready to go if it turns into an actual problem. Technical protections get enforced too, according to the report. So the message is kind of two-fold: we know it'll happen, we're not panicking, but don't think we're asleep.

why this doesn't really surprise me

Rockstar games have always been the biggest target on the planet for this stuff. Every release they've ever done has been ripped apart within days. Take-Two suing people over it is practically a tradition at this point. The difference now is the scale. GTA 6 is going to be the biggest launch in the history of the medium, so the piracy conversation is going to be louder than ever.

I don't think anyone at Take-Two actually believes they can stop it. Nobody can. What they can do is make examples out of the people who go too far and hope that's enough of a deterrent. Whether that works is a whole other question.

lawyers are ready if it becomes a problem

That line is doing a lot of work. It's basically a warning shot without naming anyone.

the part I actually care about

Honestly, none of this affects my plans. I'm pre-ordered, I'm taking the day off, I'm not going anywhere near that side of things. But it does make me wonder how much of this is about protecting revenue versus protecting the launch window. A clean launch matters more than a few thousand people playing a cracked copy.

Anyway, the fact that the CEO is out here talking about this at all tells you how close we are. They're in the endgame now, doing the rounds, answering the boring questions. November 19 is right there.

Do you think piracy actually costs a game like this real money, or is it just noise at this point?

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Source: GamesRadar+ · Curated content.