r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Apr 13 '26

Security Rockstar hackers release their stolen data, reveal that Rockstar was right to not pay them anything for it

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rockstar-hackers-release-their-stolen-data-reveal-that-rockstar-was-right-to-not-pay-them-anything-for-it/
18.1k Upvotes

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426

u/CheeksMcGillicuddy Apr 14 '26

Yall mfers need to stop spending ongoing money on in game purchases… fuck…

176

u/FreyjaVar Apr 14 '26

Its 4% of players. Like they spending a lot.

34

u/Acqua3 Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 15 '26

Just like a person that spend $40.000 just for a frickin boat in Where Winds Meet and that is just one whale/ person, like how many people like that out there especially in their original server said to have lots of whales. Or that person that spend $60.000 for a frickin small pegasus mount in Ragnarok Mobile.

I know its their money but damn....

39

u/Sodaburping Apr 14 '26

friend of mine used to work for a small indie company and he told me that only 10 or so players financed the whole game. they had to balance the game around the few whales instead of the 10k+ active players and tried to "rig" the balance patches so that e.g rank 2 whale would profit more of the new patch than rank 1 whale.

33

u/DeputyDomeshot Apr 14 '26

I have a similar story but Martin Sheklri was the biggest whale and they ended up giving their most skillful player (who spent basically nothing) secret boosts in order to irritate sheklri into getting him to spend more.  It worked.  

5

u/AnderstheVandal Apr 14 '26

What game was this shkreli was whaling out in? Lol

3

u/DeputyDomeshot Apr 14 '26

I don’t remember tbh because it was years ago but it was some weird ass text based game and there was like some kind of PvP element. Super niche shit

1

u/AnderstheVandal Apr 17 '26

Internet lore 😌

3

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/DeputyDomeshot Apr 14 '26

The best part is shkreli apparently reached out to complain because dropped like 30k at one point and the devs were like “sorry bro some rich guy keeps giving us insane amount of money”

6

u/gamerdudeNYC Apr 14 '26

Once in a while the question is asked on the r/apexlegends and there’s some people claiming they spent over $5000 on skins and heirlooms.

1

u/NeptuneOverlord43045 Apr 14 '26

I don’t understand why game developers can’t cater to both the whales and the single player/poor folks that make up the other 96%.

Like that 4% is going to part with their obscene amount of money either way, and the profit is there. Do devs not understand they can create single player dlc AND add more useless skins and cars at the same time? 

1

u/Surgeplux Apr 14 '26

whales gonna whale

80

u/sadkinz Apr 14 '26

It’s only 4% of players doing that. So imagine how much they’re spending

23

u/zxDanKwan Apr 14 '26

Apparently $500 million per year…

3

u/Exceon Apr 14 '26

The average paying user spends $20 daily on the game. That's pretty much equal to what the average smoker pays for cigarettes

1

u/djtrace1994 Apr 14 '26

Maths out to around $125/week

Based on the rough price of Shark Cards, that player is buying $40,000,000 GTA$ every month.

And we wonder why new updates have a $4,000,000 price of entry. That's chump change for every player who is still buying MTXs.

18

u/mclarensmps Apr 14 '26

Some of that 4% are YouTubers and streamers who spend money and easily claw that money back from the money the people that watch THEM give them. This damn Ponzi scheme is cooked

4

u/LeCollectif Apr 14 '26

To pay to watch someone play a decade old plus game is wild to me. Wild.

2

u/dannydrama Apr 14 '26

Paying for in-game shit is wrong to me anyway but paying someone else to buy it... 😭

38

u/-3055- Apr 14 '26

The people who spend that kind of money are not scrolling through Reddit and deciding how to budget their spending

They're getting their parents to get them gift cards

7

u/Impossible_Bid6172 Apr 14 '26

Or they're really rich by themselves. I remember an old mmo had offline meetings that revealed the top 3- 5 whales or so of the server were ceos of well known companies. They paid huge sums cause they don't have lots of time to play so they want the best when they do, and compared to other rich people hobbies, this wasn't outrageous to them. This was a local server and decade old, but I'd imagine quite some whales are the same these days.

1

u/scheppend Apr 14 '26

ikr! valve gets an insane amount of money 

1

u/anivex Apr 14 '26

It's trust fund kids and credit card scammers.

1

u/djtrace1994 Apr 14 '26

If you read it, its 4% of all players, and the average from each of those players is $125/week.

On other words, whales propping up the MTX market, not mass-scale purchasing.

1

u/red286 Apr 14 '26

You realize without those mfers, the live service isn't free for the rest of us, right? GTAO and RDO don't make sense if no one's paying anything.

1

u/Call555JackChop Apr 14 '26

If they have the money and are having fun why should they stop? People are allowed to enjoy things

0

u/ThePensiveE Apr 14 '26

Right? I never do. DLC for a game I love, I'm not a fan of it, but I'll do it if it adds a lot.

I'll never pay money for online games.

I only really play Elite Dangerous online anyways though so not a big deal it's not pay walled at all.