Recently a group of hackers (presumably from Russia) breached a database from a Louisiana-based ID verification service called IDScan
Over 150 million government issued IDs and driver's licenses have been stolen and were put up for sale on the darknet until the darknet service selling this stolen information pulled the plug
These hacks are usually coming from inside of the building. They 'hack' themselves, claim on the insurance and then sell the data through nefarious channels, the funds of which find themselves back into the pockets of the owners of the company.
Almost every data hack is the same as this.
Sound too crazy to be true? It isn't and it isn't new. The Somalian pirates era of ships being hijacked was a coordinated effort by large cargo ship operators (Maersk et al) and goods transporters. A ship would be worth £100 million, for example, and be insured for £500 million. When it came to the end of its life, repairs would be running beyond £50 million for a full repair+downtime. So the companies paid some poor somalis to 'hijack' the ships, knowing full well that Maersk et al would be paid insurance for the boat that they don't want anyway.
It will probably sell 200-250 million copies over the next decade and be one of the highest grossing video games ever.
It won't. There's too many reasons why this game will fail financially by R*s own standards and measurements and how they've backed themselves into a wall.
With only 100 million consoles, at best, in customers' hands, a launch weekend of 30-40 million copies would break all records, which is pausible, but which customers willing to and wanting to play GTA6 will wait a month or two or until Christmas to buy it? Very, very few. 95% of all sales will happen within the first month (due to various timings of payday's) of which, 80% will happen on the opening weekend.
The game is never launching on PC, according to T2 - which we all know to be bullshit.
With a $2 billion cost of development, and further lost revenue due to bringing GTA5:Online players over to GTA6 - who contribute nothing beyond the first purchase because there's no online mode, selling 200-250 million copies is wishful thinking.
I know GTA5 sold a shit load but it was a different time, a different game and a differently shaped industry and therefore sold 100+ million units in its life time.
That's before we get to the sticking point that R* fired or replaced everyone who made GTA5 what it is, that 5 was detached from 3 and 4 in terms of humour and world-building, leaning more into the edgy-black/wannabe-wigga normie jokes.
On top of all of that, the game looks bland and they haven't released details of if there are restrictions to zones when it comes to mayhem. I hope, though cannot see, T2 allowing people to mow down African Americans and Cubans on Miami beach in the stunning graphics of GTA6.
Any controversy will compound the current issue surrounding the no discs/no physical approach of launching this game, which financially is fucking retarded because T2 has to pay Microsoft and Sony a digital cut - typically 30%, for using their services.
Said services are usually shite when under load and 30 million people downloading and logging on to the digital service day one won't go down well.
In all, a game releasing on a lower console count than the predecessor, with the highest cost of development ever, releasing only on digital services known to fold under pressure, made by a company a shadow of its' former self, releasing in a climate of heightened racial tension, with the culture wars coming to an end - which makes the grifters more desperate, launching when Youtube rage bait and million waiting to hate the game for clicks, with the possibility that the game is bland, lacking humour and overly sensitive.
I don't see how this game can succeed. Either it crashes the industry, or we witness the enshitification of the future of the industry worse than anything we've seen because the cattle will eat any slop fed to them.
