QAA Podcast - We Got This Episode Before GTA 6 (Premium E288) Sample

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

There is no bigger franchise in the video game business than Grand Theft Auto by Rockstar Games. So naturally, fans of open-world criminal mayhem descend into wild dot-connecting in the years before each hotly-anticipated release. The next installment, GTA 6, has been delayed and is now slated for release on May 26th of 2026. This is despite many assurances from Rockstar that everything was on track for the game to come out in 2025. Alas, this will be another Christmas without an ultra-violent crime simulator wrapped beneath the pine tree. Sad! But at least Rockstar’s long silence gave us some great theories. Rockstar’s trademark hush-hush routine has turned GTA fandom into a sweaty detective bureau: Reddit sleuths pore over patent filings, numerologists map release dates to moon phases, and anonymous “insiders” drop breadcrumbs. In this episode we sift the signal from the speculation and ponder whether weaponized silence is part of the new marketing playbook. Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/qaa Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com) https://qaapodcast.com QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast. /// SOURCES: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5584612/ https://www.pcgamer.com/grand-theft-auto-6-fans-have-become-so-desperate-for-information-theyve-convinced-themselves-that-the-moon-is-teasing-an-upcoming-reveal/ https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/gta-6-fans-are-convinced-that-a-new-trailer-is-going-to-release-on-december-27-because-the-moon-and-a-license-plate-told-them-so/

I think of it. If you're hearing this, well done, you've found a way to connect to the internet. Welcome to the QAA podcast, Premium Episode 288. We got this episode before GTA6. As always, we're your host, Jake Rakutansky, Julian Field, and Travis Vue. Has an empire in decline ever been this entertained, this stimulated? As the calendar of things falling apart extends before us, so too does the calendar of video game releases. And there is no bigger franchise in the business than Grand Theft Auto by Rockstar Games.

GTA 5, the last game in the series, was released in September of 2013. In the nearly 12 years since then, it has generated over $8.6 billion in revenue and sold more than 200 million copies aided in large part by GTA Online. It's wildly successful multiplayer mode that let Rockstar get in on the microtransaction racket. Have you ever bought a shark card or whatever? Oh, I've spent hundreds. I've spent, yeah. The trick that they really, I think, accomplished is like,

I feel like everybody with any platform has bought this game at some point, maybe even on multiple platforms, because they've released, like, remasters, and I don't know. Like, I myself, like, replayed this video game from beginning to end, which I had not done the original time, I think, like, two years ago or a year and a half ago or so. And it's so fucking good. Yeah, it's a blast.

The only game that competes with GTA5 in terms of popularity is Minecraft. And you cannot wantonly beat an old lady to death with a baseball bat in Minecraft, so it's for babies. Recently I wrote for Jacobin and argued that the QAnonization of American culture would continue as long as the ongoing social and economic crises provide fertile ground for it. QAnon is in the groundwater, and video game marketing schedules are not exempt from the endless

conspiracy theorizing and baking that have become a choice national pastime. And hands down the most anticipated game of all time is the sequel to Jeeffe. GTA 5, which, you guessed it, is going to be called GTA 6. So, this week, we'll be diving into the feverish, covetous madness of a fan base on the precipice of getting what they want. And if you're wondering why we're covering this particular topic, I'll just mention that Jake Rockatansky in the QAA 2025 yearbook was voted, most likely to pitch an episode about video games.

You know, oddly enough, Travis actually pitched this episode idea. Yeah, you know, I'm excited because I used to play a lot more video games when I was a kid and then you know get a job in the family and then uh my priority shift i suddenly uh you know learned the value of an hour of of my day and so i wasn't able to do as much but i still play the big ones like i've played like red dead redemption two my pandemic game was witcher three and i played that and both the expansions heart of stone and uh blood and wine all very good yes it was lot of fun. I had a pretty solid Gwint deck. I used

the, uh, I got the, the, the Feline Grandmaster armor set. Oh my God. Same. I'm like, yeah, same. I'm like, yeah, same. I maxed out Gwent and also went for the feline. Yeah. I mean, it's a lot. I mean, what I love about that game is that like lots of, there are lots of like open world games, but I feel like this is the one that really felt like you were really rewarded

for meandering around the map with just, just a delight. But so yeah, so I mean, I also played like, I mean, just about all the GTAs. So this is probably going to be the game I play during the year, by one yearly game, once it's released now, you know, next year. Hell, I played GTA before it turned 3D. Like, I played the top down one. It was really fun. Mm-hmm. I remember playing that in my neighbor's house. He had a computer and he had GTA. And it was like so taboo that you could run over people and see little bloodstains where, you know, where they had been and the tire marks were red.

It felt like we were doing something real naughty. But already they had that amazing format of like you go get a mission. from a guy or a phone, and then you kind of drive around, you've got to get to this place and this time, you know, there's, it's a format that's now super, super common, but yeah, you know, they were the pioneers. So funny that Travis is like, you play like the best games, like, that everybody agrees. It's like, these are the best games. That makes sense. Like, he's a smart gamer.

I've wasted so much time on crap. Oh, man, and I have made you waste so much time on crap. I mean, I like the more broken and clunky a game is, the more I will try to find the beauty in it. It's absolutely absurd. It's true. You bounce off like any good game in the genres you like. You know what I realized? It's actually how I was brought up. I mean, if we can go on a little tangent here before we get to your section, Jules, when I was a kid, the way that I experienced video games was that my dad would rent one or two games at a time from Blockbuster, and we would play it over the weekend, and then it would go back to the store. It was very rare that my brother and I

would rent the same game again to the point that we completed it. So, you know, my introduction to playing video games was playing something for a couple of hours and then it just like went away and I would find something new to play the next weekend or, you know, a couple weekends afterwards. So it kind of makes sense, you know, as I've thought about it more, my sort of bounce around, sort of hapless gaming style. Travis, as an appreciator of just great games that are fully completed, you should play cyberpunk. You should play cyberpunk. That, that'll hold you over actually probably until gta six in its current state it is a mind-blowingly good game like it's release date it was not good but now with the expansion and all the work they did on it it is

insanely good yeah you know i'll give that a try so one thing i always appreciate about these like really expansive like you know billion dollar games was the fact that you know you're able to like drop in and like if i had like 20 minutes to spare i can play something i could do a mission and it's satisfying and if like on the rare instance where i had i don't know an hour a half to kill. I thought I could do something more expansive in the game. So, yeah, I'll give that a try. Okay, now that we got rid of every single listener who's a fan of a musical theater.

Hold on, I can bring them back. Hold on, wait. Yeah, you can do it, man. Trying to think. Try not to be worried. Try not to turn on to problems that upset you. Jesus Christ, superstar. One small girl in a tree.

once on the silent. That's quite enough. That's, I think we can, we're moving on. The first and so far only trailer for GTA6 was released all the way back in December of 2023, and there was no word on a release date for a second trailer, or the game for that matter,

until very recently on May 2nd, 2025. And folks, it's bittersweet, no word on a second trailer, but we now have a release date. And, unsurprisingly, the game has been delayed and is now slated for a release on May 26th, of 26. This despite many assurances from Rockstar that everything was on track for the game to come out

in 2025. Alas, this will be another Christmas without an ultra-violent crime simulator wrapped beneath the pine tree. Sad, but at least Rockstar's long silence gave us some great theories. In December of 2024, PC Gamer published an article entitled, GTA6 fans are convinced that a new trailer is going to release on December 27 because the moon and a license plate told them so. This theory even has its own cue, an anonymous Twitter account called GTA 6 Plus that specializes in leaks and deranged hopium. And of course, that very clever trick that people do on Twitter of resembling an official account, but not being one, which leads to a lot of community notes going like, do not fall for this. This is not a real. I love it. You've been listening

to a sample of a premium episode of the QAA podcast for access to the full episode as well as all past premium episodes and all of our podcast miniseries, go to patreon.com slash QAA. Travis, why is that such a good deal? Well, Jake, you get hundreds of additional episodes of the QAA podcast for just $5

per month. For that very low price, you get access to over 200 premium episodes plus all of our miniseries. That includes 10 episodes of Man Clan with Julian the Nanny. 10 episodes of Perverts with Julian and Liv. 10 episodes of the Spectral Voyager with

Jake and Brad, plus 20 episodes of trickle down with me, Travis View. It's a bounty of content and the best deal in podcasting. Travis, for once, I agree with you. And I also agree that people could subscribe by going to patreon.com slash QAA. Well, that's not an opinion.

It's a fact. You're so right, Jake. We love and appreciate all of our listeners. Yes, we do. And Travis is actually crying right now, I think, out of gratitude, maybe? That's not true. The part about be crying. Not me being grateful. I'm very grateful. Oh

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