Why You Shouldn't Believe the Recent GTA V Rumours

04
Jun
2012
By Chris | 4th Jun 2012 at 17:31 GMT in GTA V | 17 Comments

Making the rounds in the news today and this past week have been stories regarding the supposed release date of GTA V, following the leak of a Rockstar North employee's CV. Understandably this spread like wildfire after the CV revealed GTA V's release date to be October 2012. Why is this a problem? Well, the CV isn't real. We've heard from an actual Rockstar source that it's a falsified document. And upon further investigation this appears to check out. The "leak" appears to originate from a so-called "fansite", which consists mostly of completely made up information on GTA V.

The site in question is GTA-V5.com, owned and operated by one Dan Neil. Before moving to this domain, Neil had previously written at least two articles on his blogspot site consisting of fake information and claimed it was leaked from Take-Two [1] and [2]. We should point out that Neil's blogs are plastered with advertising, including promises of a free copy of GTA V, alongside other questionable affiliate based adverts from a UK company called JeebiesFreebie.com, which we would advise you all to stay away from; we don't think you'll be getting any free games. Update: Another site, GTA5videos.com, may also be responsible for some of the rumours being created.

Creating a CV containing non-public information and using a real employee's name and details is a downright stupid idea. This could easily land the employee in hot water with Rockstar, who at the time of the leak, may not be aware it's not actually real.

Unfortunately given the nature of this information, a number of major gaming news outlets picked it up causing it to spread even more. Rather amusingly, Neil also reported on his blog that Rockstar Games took down GTANet, the largest GTA fansite, following the leak being posted on GTAForums. It is laughable that anyone would believe this - Rockstar would never take down legitimate GTA fansites, especially not those they officially recognise and invite to events. The real reason the network was down was simply due to some issues that occurred from a server migration, nothing more, and at the time of posting this, appears to be back online. The likes of OXM and MCV and indeed a number of other reputable networks don't seem to care much for journalistic integrity these days, and it seems that sadly they'll post anything any random newly created blog gives them.

So folks, if you do see some rumours being posted that are reported to have been "leaked" from a Rockstar/T2 employee, please apply some critical thinking and look at who originated the leak. Hint: If it's from some ad-filled blog, it's not going to be real.

And one final note, Take-Two are at E3 mainly for the new Borderlands game, not GTA V.

Red_91's photo
Red_91 4th June, 2012 @ 18:16 - Permalink

I very much doubt a Autumn release now for GTA 5 since hardly any information has been out since the November Trailer.

There have been other rumours too, apparently about the GTA vehicles list being inside the code of Max Payne 3, which I don't know if it's true.

TBH though a lack of information is probably going to see a lot more rumours until the second trailer comes out.

Chris's photo
Chris 4th June, 2012 @ 19:44 - Permalink

To be fair, Rockstar did say they would start the GTA V stuff after MP3 had been released. So, it's out now, yes they've still got DLC to come but for the main part marketing is all done for that game. So we can expect some real information to come in the next couple of months I think.

The October release, while still possible, does look extremely unlikely. It only gives 4 months for R* to market it and release new trailers etc. I'd expect them to want to take more time with it. Also, Take-Two have Bioshock Infinite being released then, and although it's not direct competition, they probably don't want the two titles competing.

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JustADummy 4th June, 2012 @ 22:11 - Permalink

It's been said on the Take 2 financial conference that they're expecting GTA V this fiscal year, so before April 2013. Bioshock Infinite is in the end of March, so that would leave room for Rockstar between today and March... To allow for Bioshock marketing they would use maybe a month, so I'd guess January/February.

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GrimmestDays 4th June, 2012 @ 22:43 - Permalink

Excellent write-up, Chris! :)

Huckleberry Pie's photo
Huckleberry Pie 5th June, 2012 @ 03:04 - Permalink

That's why I prefer to wait for any official statements from R*.

Red_91's photo
Red_91 5th June, 2012 @ 11:13 - Permalink

It could be possible of a Christmas type release, like maybe late November/early December. There is still a lot of time left for it, plus serious marketing won't start up until a month before release in my opinion.

I guess we will just have to wait and see.

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amazingdude 5th June, 2012 @ 22:03 - Permalink

Yeah, the most legit site for news and updates is Rockstar games official site ( http//rockstargames.com ) . Although many analysts and fans these days are creating their own mindless blogs and websites relating to GTA V almost like each day and i'm surprised that people even believe all this shit.

Source : for examples of such blogs and websites Google in "GTA V" in the News section.

BlackListedB's photo
BlackListedB 15th July, 2012 @ 04:01 - Permalink

A few people do expect them to get it out this year, but I'd say that won't change how Rockstar plan to treat the franchise, they may have internal AND external pressure, but quality is job one at Rockstar Games, so the work will go in as best they can before they release this baby

Huckleberry Pie's photo
Huckleberry Pie 15th July, 2012 @ 07:50 - Permalink

A few people do expect them to get it out this year, but I'd say that won't change how Rockstar plan to treat the franchise, they may have internal AND external pressure, but quality is job one at Rockstar Games, so the work will go in as best they can before they release this baby

Agreed, as they prefer to spend time perfecting their work rather than annualizing their games just like what Activi$ion does on their Call of Duty IPs.

BlackListedB's photo
BlackListedB 15th July, 2012 @ 17:35 - Permalink

Ah, but if as someone Q'ing Rockstar said, they have oodles of cash and enough people working there, why not make more GTA games, one big one, some off-shoots using more of the same elements that are already a hit, just as they could have done more PS2 games using Renderware, it worked, it didn't require state of the art NASA computers, so.... it would benefit a lot of base already there!?!

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Spaz The Great 15th July, 2012 @ 19:34 - Permalink

Yeah, but that's practically considering milking a franchise, which some of their actions already could be labeled as such. Pumping out games like that is looked at as a way to drain their fans pockets, which is frowned upon. It's about making a solid product that not only did you enjoy creating, but your customers will also enjoy using. If you're looking to pump out as much as possible or make as much money as possible, you're doing it wrong.

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MrLlamaLlama 15th July, 2012 @ 19:48 - Permalink

At Rockstar they have an incredibly powerful creative force, and a superbly talented team of writers. If R* wanted to make games at, say double the speed they do now (with release timings similar to NFS or CoD) they'd either end up having to compromise the amount of time that talent could spend on a given product, and ultimately inhibiting it from becoming the best it could be, or they would have to go through the time consuming and costly (not to mention difficult) task of employing writers, animators, voice actors, illustrators and 3D artists of the same calibre as the ones they already employ, and who have a style befitting and that would do ample justice to the franchise.

I'll buy every single GTA game without fail, because I know I'm being delivered the best work by a studio I love and respect. I fail to believe that NFS, CoD or, more recently, Assassin's creed have the same amount of doughy-eyed love poured into them by the team involved, and that's why I fucking sigh and my heart sinks a little every time I see filler-news stories on gaming sites with 'Day one DLC for Call of Duty 3 spec ops black warfare 2 world war zombie pew pew guns oh no this time it's the Russians 2: Modern Warfare'.

Red_91's photo
Red_91 15th July, 2012 @ 20:01 - Permalink

At Rockstar they have an incredibly powerful creative force, and a superbly talented team of writers. If R* wanted to make games at, say double the speed they do now (with release timings similar to NFS or CoD) they'd either end up having to compromise the amount of time that talent could spend on a given product, and ultimately inhibiting it from becoming the best it could be, or they would have to go through the time consuming and costly (not to mention difficult) task of employing writers, animators, voice actors, illustrators and 3D artists of the same calibre as the ones they already employ, and who have a style befitting and that would do ample justice to the franchise.

I'll buy every single GTA game without fail, because I know I'm being delivered the best work by a studio I love and respect. I fail to believe that NFS, CoD or, more recently, Assassin's creed have the same amount of doughy-eyed love poured into them by the team involved, and that's why I fucking sigh and my heart sinks a little every time I see filler-news stories on gaming sites with 'Day one DLC for Call of Duty 3 spec ops black warfare 2 world war zombie pew pew guns oh no this time it's the Russians 2: Modern Warfare'.

Yeah I agree with most of what you said. Apart from AC, the games were actually did quite well, story wise especially, but releasing 4 games for 4 consecutive Autumns is milking it a little bit, and I thought that showed with some of the buildings in Revelations. I'm glad GTA is not like that, but doing one every 2 years would be better imo.

Plus releasing GTA every year will damage it, tbf I think it's already getting a bit damaged since the last two games have timelines that will be post 2000, which is a bit of a disappointment. My dream of a 1970s GTA will probably never happen now.

MartiniFK's photo
MartiniFK 17th July, 2012 @ 05:17 - Permalink

There is still a lot of time left for it, plus serious marketing won't start up until a month before release in my opinion.g.gif

BlackListedB's photo
BlackListedB 17th July, 2012 @ 14:04 - Permalink

They could be promoting AGENT, it's the lack of news that really brings rumors into focus, but Rockstar says 'discount all info NOT from Rockstar', which makes sense IF there are no leaks! haha

Regarding response about more GTAs in less time, I maintain my idea doesn't mean ANNUALIZING it in the same context, but that a PS2, Renderware GTA in the same ilk as Vice City added San Andreas (size and complexity) in that same space of time, no more then three years, basically, put out a new GTA to play. The portable versions were OK, but something on PS2 with the same speed, just isn't happening in RAGE on this gen of consoles. People are growing tired of having the consoles eclipsed by PC hardware ever innovating

The game just won't run to full effect on PC as expected. On the console, for me, I see everything react with the speed at which I operate the controller, on PC, that rarely happens, and using keyboard and mouse never works well for me, so I put a controller on my PC to play games, if it's mapped good enough, it works alright, but I'm always loving the Q and D that consoles offer, and the main complaint is not enough RAGE content in the space of 10 years time

Spaz The Great's photo
Spaz The Great 17th July, 2012 @ 18:21 - Permalink

Uh.... If you're having troubles running it, then your PC just isn't good enough. If there's lag, it really isn't the game's fault.

BlackListedB's photo
BlackListedB 17th July, 2012 @ 19:07 - Permalink

Nah, there is fault in a console engine lacking enough PC optimization, we're all hoping for improvement. Remember the time frame GTA IV was made. It's suspected that GTA V looking like GTA IV, I'd say Episodes Ballad of Gay Tony is your best PC gaming benchmark, since it demands the most. I went into that with regard to my own testing, with PCIe and dual core... add to that Hyper Threading, it will make a difference to 3D gaming

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