Take-Two Interactive filed subpoena applications against Microsoft and Discord on Thursday, demanding the tech giants hand over account IDs, IP addresses, registration emails, phone numbers and telemetry records tied to whoever is behind the online persona known as Cyberleek. The move comes days after gameplay clips and what appeared to be the entire in-game map for Grand Theft Auto VI began circulating online, months before the highly anticipated title is due out on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
The petitions, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, set a September 4 deadline for Microsoft and Discord to turn over the requested records, according to Forbes. The filings specifically seek Microsoft's internal investigation records regarding GitHub and OneDrive links tied to the leak, along with Discord server user logs that could reveal who has been posting and sharing the material. As NBC News reported, Take-Two petitioned the court on August 20 to release records related to the accounts behind the leak, though neither Take-Two nor Rockstar Games responded immediately to requests for comment.
Cyberleek — described by NBC News as an individual or group operating under that name — has framed the breach as a protest against the gaming industry's shift toward all-digital releases, pointing to Rockstar's confirmation that Grand Theft Auto VI will launch without a physical disc option. In one message, Cyberleek wrote that publishers “sell licenses and call them purchases; they ship unfinished games and call them living services; they lock content on discs and call it DLC.” The group also warned that “no one is safe from similar breaches,” per the outlet's reporting.
A Manifesto Wrapped Around a Money Pitch
But Cyberleek's activities look less like pure activism and more like a monetized scheme. The group's website solicits crypto donations and lets visitors vote on which leak should be released next, with Cyberleek claiming the funds are meant to bankroll an unspecified “secret project” whose details “cannot be revealed yet.” In August, the site was updated to ask for up to 400 Monero — roughly $162,000 — for custom gameplay requests and ad placements, according to Mashable, while also promoting a meme coin called $CYBERLEEK. Cyberleek's most recent leaked video reportedly urged viewers to show support by buying into that token, even as the group insisted, “this is not a cash grab.”
That contradiction has drawn a sharp rebuke from Stop Killing Games, a coalition pushing for legal protections that would preserve access to purchased video games. The group said thousands of developers worked hard on Grand Theft Auto VI and are being hit hardest by the leak, and it urged the community not to send Cyberleek money. “Using illegal means to make a point is unacceptable and does nothing to protect the right to keep using purchased games,” the coalition said, according to NBC News's reporting. Stop Killing Games itself has nothing to do with the leak; its European Citizens' Initiative petition gathered nearly 1.3 million validated signatures and led to a formal hearing at the European Parliament in April, per Wikipedia. The campaign began in April 2024 after Ubisoft shut down servers for The Crew, and it advocates for requiring offline functionality once publishers end support for a game — a far cry from Cyberleek's crypto-fueled leak spree.
A Costly Week for Take-Two's Stock
The financial fallout has been immediate. Take-Two's stock plummeted Wednesday amid the leak-related chaos, and over a five-day period the company's share price dropped by roughly $15.29, wiping out an estimated $2.83 billion in market capitalization, according to TechPowerUp. The leaked footage reportedly began circulating about a week before Netflix's extended preview of the game, adding to the sense that Take-Two lost control of its own marketing narrative just as anticipation was building toward the November 19 launch.
That anticipation is backed by real money. Sensor Tower estimates from August found Grand Theft Auto VI had already generated $429 million in pre-order revenue across 4.38 million units, with PlayStation 5 accounting for 77% of those pre-orders, or $331 million, and Xbox Series X|S making up the remaining 23%, or $98 million, per TweakTown. That level of demand tracks with the franchise's history — Grand Theft Auto V, released in 2013, has sold nearly 230 million copies and generated more than $10 billion in lifetime revenue, still moving roughly 5 million copies a quarter. The wait for a follow-up has been long: the Grand Theft Auto franchise launched in 1997, and Grand Theft Auto VI's first trailer didn't arrive until December 2023.
Echoes of the 2022 Rockstar Breach
Take-Two's rapid legal response mirrors how Rockstar handled a previous security disaster. In September 2022, 18-year-old hacker Arion Kurtaj, a member of the Lapsus$ group, breached Rockstar from a hotel room using an Amazon Fire TV Stick, a mobile phone and a TV, leaking 90 development video clips in an incident Rockstar testified cost $5 million and thousands of staff hours to remediate. Kurtaj was on bail at the time for a separate cyberattack against Nvidia, according to reporting cited by PC Gamer.
A UK jury determined Kurtaj executed that 2022 hack, and he was sentenced to an indefinite secure hospital order in December 2023 after being found unfit to stand trial due to acute autism. He was held under that order after expressing intentions to resume cybercrime, but he was released from hospital care in July and placed in prison to await a criminal retrial, according to IGN. It remains unclear whether Kurtaj has any connection to the current Cyberleek leaks.
The underlying industry shift Cyberleek claims to be protesting is well documented. Sony's fourth-quarter financial report for its 2025 fiscal year showed digital downloads accounted for 85% of all full game software sales across PS4 and PS5, up from a 78% full-year average — the kind of trend that has fueled broader consumer frustration over the disappearance of physical media and permanent game ownership. Social media platforms including X and Reddit have already removed multiple posts sharing the apparent leaks, though copies continue to circulate. Take-Two has issued no public statement addressing the purported hack, and Rockstar, which has historically guarded unreleased material tightly, has likewise stayed silent as the September 4 subpoena deadline approaches.
