Hack Attack!
E93: Rockstar's GTA 6 security breach and Twitch nonsense.
Good morning gamers! Last week a hacker known as “Teapothacker” illegally accessed and leaked screenshots, videos, developer notes and source code from Rockstar’s upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 game. This is considered as one of the video game industry's worst ever security breaches where the perpetrator found a way to access and download all the content via Slack. Rockstar Games was quick to DMCA most of the content that was shared online but later made a public statement expressing their disappointment in what happened while also reassuring fans that they “do not anticipate any disruption to our live game services nor any long-term effect on the development of our ongoing projects”. Thanks to the quick involvement of the FBI, the London Police arrested a 17-year-old “linked to recent suspicions of hacking” a few days later. According to sources, this arrest is indeed related to the Rockstar intrusion.
Diablo IV was the second game to fall victim to illegal sharing when 43-minutes worth of test footage was leaked online revealing combat, quests, the map and character classes. The gameplay was streamed on a private Discord server from an early test build of the game, likely related to Blizzard’s “friends and family” alpha test. The recorded videos are extremely watermarked so Blizzard likely identified the culprit.
A major video game insider accidentally revealed his own identity last week. Known as “TheRealInsider” on Twitter, this account quickly gained popularity after accurately revealing Assassin’s Creed news days before the Ubisoft event. In a turn of events, YouTuber DanAllenGaming accidentally replied to a tweet intended for his “insider persona” with his personal account - effectively unmasking himself. Dan quickly deactivated all his social channels before returning to Twitter apologizing for his actions. This will likely open the door to multiple lawsuits since Dan shared information in which he signed NDAs agreeing not to.
Twitch - Big Changes
Last week, Twitch addressed two major topics of discussion, the new revenue split model with their partners and the gambling content on their platform. Both announcements received backlash from their community and partners.
Dan Clancy, the President of Twitch released a letter to its streamers addressing the changes to the new subscription revenue split. Clancy says they made the decision to stop offering premium agreements to new streamers and will now use a baseline revenue share of 50/50. Streamers who currently have premium deals will have a 70/30 revenue share split for the first $100,000 earned and then it will change to the 50/50 split starting on June 1st, 2023. Clancy says 90% of streamers are on standard agreements and the change won’t affect them. Clancy still believes that they have the most compelling offering for streamers.
Gambling websites and games, including slots, roulette and dice games have taken over Twitch in recent months. Twitch says they’re updating their Gambling policy as of October 18th and streamers will no longer be able to play games unlicensed in the United States and other jurisdictions. Streaming of websites with a focus on sports betting, fantasy sports and poker will still be allowed. Twitch says the policy update will help their community avoid potential harm.
The top 10 most watched channels that streamed slots are:
Trainwreckstv
Roshtein
AdinRoss
xQc
ClassyBeef
DeuceAce
Xposed
CasinoDaddy
VonDice
FrankDimes
Esports Corner
🥇Congratulations to OpTic Gaming for winning the HCS Major Orlando.
The Call of Duty League has announced the upcoming 2023 season will be a “new era of Call of Duty League”. Roster Mania is still on-going but the 2023 CDL season will kickoff on December 2nd, two months earlier than previous years. There will be five Majors hosted throughout the year (Raleigh, Boston, Texas, New York, TBD) and a Call of Duty Champs weekend. During the Major 1 event pro-am teams will be able to join the 12 CDL teams and compete against the big boys starting with bracket play, while the other Challenger teams will have their own separate event.
The ESL have officially confirmed the details around their 2023 flagship CS:GO Majors, IEM Katowice (January 31st to February 12th) and IEM Cologne (July 25 to August 6). Both events will host 24 teams and consist of both a play-in stage and a group stage before leading into the playoffs and grand finals - with the ultimate winner of each event taking home the $1,000,000 grand prize.
Riot Games finally revealed the list of 30 partnered teams that will represent the premier level of Valorant esports in 2023. Teams from each of the three International Leagues will receive a 6-figured stipend towards their rosters, are safe from relegation and at least four of the five main roster spots must be taken up by players who reside in their own region. The partnered teams include;
Americas: Sentinels, Cloud9, Evil Geniuses, LOUD, KRÜ, 100 Thieves, NRG, FURIA, MIBR and Leviatán
EMEA: FNATIC, Team Vitality, Team Heretics, NAVI, BBL Esports, Team Liquid, Karmine Corp, GIANTS, FUT Esports and KOI
Pacific: ZETA Division, GEN.G, DRX, Paper Rex, Talon Esports, Detonation Gaming, T1, Team Secret, Rex Regum Qeon and Global Esports.
Gaming Roundup
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales will be released on PC in Fall 2022. The game will be available on Steam and the Epic Games Store.
Cyberpunk 2077 has recently had more than one million players daily and reached their highest peak concurrent players count since January 2021.
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell’s original script will reportedly be modernized for the remake. Ubisoft announced the project in December 2021.
Iron Man is getting a single-player game from Electronic Arts’ Motive Studio. The third person action-adventure game is in pre-production.
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus celebrated its 20th birthday this week, it was originally released on September 23rd, 2002 for the PS2.
Respawn Entertainment says there’s been an increase in harassment towards members of their development team and that it’s not acceptable.
Logitech G Cloud gaming handheld will launch in North America on October 17th and Xbox Cloud Gaming will be available on it.
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