According to a former Rockstar Games developer, Grand Theft Auto 6's catastrophic September 2022 leaks wouldn't have happened as much if the company hadn't kept quiet about the game all along. Grand Theft Auto 6 was severely exposed in one of the largest data breaches in the history of the video game industry when hackers broke into Rockstar's servers and took out about 90 minutes of extremely private development footage for the eagerly awaited title.

Secret information regarding GTA 6 including its protagonists, scenario, landscapes, etc was prematurely made public by the videos. Rockstar's situation was further complicated by reports that the hackers had obtained the source code for Grand Theft Auto 6 from the leaks and intended to sell it to the highest bidder. Fortunately, it didn't happen, but it doesn't change the fact that for everyone else outside the GTA 6 development team, this was how the game looked from the start. It makes sense that Take-Two and Rockstar Games moved swiftly to remove the leaks from wherever they were available.

Thankfully, many people who discovered the unfortunate GTA 6 leaks—including other game developers were sympathetic enough to not hold them too harshly. The GTA 6 leaks, meanwhile, aren't as significant as many may think, according to former Rockstar developer Obbe Vermeij, who worked on classic games like GTA 3 and GTA San Andreas. In a recent YouTube interview with SanInPlay, Vermeij said that the GTA 6 leaks were only noteworthy for fans because "Rockstar doesn't give them any news" and that, absent the studio's persistent secrecy, the leaks wouldn't be "as important as people think."

At first glance, Vermeij's comments might seem harsh, but in reality, he went on to support Rockstar's lacklustre PR strategy by saying that he well comprehends why major game companies like "Rockstar or EA or Ubisoft" decide to keep quiet about their ambitious projects. Vermeij claims that this is the case because if a "big company" releases any information or makes an official statement, it frequently gets "analyzed" and gets bad press. Vermeij argues that a developer's "best bet" under these cases is to say nothing at all. Regrettably, this can result in circumstances such as the GTA 6 leak, which Vermeij emphasizes is not the developers' fault.