Rockstar Games have slyly mocked Twitter (currently known as X) with the GTA 6 trailer after a small rift began on the platform. From rumours of petty shadow banning to subtle dig humour, it was another eventful day on the social media platform.
The GTA VI trailer was a historic moment in entertainment and naturally the conversation was extremely polarising on Twitter (currently known as X). The site owner Elon Musk even claimed he can’t play GTA V due a strange anti-GTA reason.
Feud timeline
Around 15 hours or so before the GTA VI trailer was due to be officially released by Rockstar Games, a Twitter account posted the trailer in full with a watermark over it. The account was suspended after about an hour or so but by that time the trailer had gone viral.
This forced Rockstar Games into abandoning it’s original plan of releasing it on Tuesday and pushing it our 15 hours earlier than everyone expected. This ruined an historic occasion for the developers working on the project and fans who built their Tuesday around the trailer’s release.
Rockstar Games issued a Tweet saying “Our trailer has leaked so please watch the real thing on YouTube:” with a link to the full trailer on their YouTube channel.
Typically, trailers for new pieces of entertainment are uploaded in full on Twitter along with YouTube but for some reason Rockstar Games decided not to. A few fans have speculated it was because the trailer leaked on Twitter but that is just purely speculation based on these events.
It is worth noting they did not upload the trailer on Instagram either until late yesterday, two hours after Twitter. This suggests Rockstar’s strategy was always to focus on getting the YouTube version out first.
Twitter/X CEO calls for Rockstar to post the trailer on her platform
When the GTA 6 trailer was blowing up on YouTube, one Twitter user said “They should have uploaded directly on this platform for maximum distribution.” Many users including highly respected content creator Marques Brownlee responded with “Impressions are not views”. Which is accurate.
Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X Corp, Tweeted about Rockstar Games not posting the full GTA VI trailer to Twitter saying “@RockstarGames — gaming is one of our most popular topics. Drop that trailer here — give the people on @X what they want!!”
Elon Musk can’t play GTA because you have to do crime
Shortly after the GTA VI trailer was officially posted to YouTube by Rockstar, one Twitter (currently known as X) employee said they have never played GTA 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5.
Site owner Elon Musk replied claiming he “Tried, but didn’t like doing crime. GTA5 required shooting police officers in the opening scene. Just couldn’t do it.” No words are even needed to discuss this. Many Twitter users including famous content creators called out Elon’s GTA Tweet.
Twitter users claim platform shadow bans GTA VI trailer
In a strange turn of events, Rockstar Games’ tweet linking the GTA VI trailer on YouTube started giving some users an error of “This Post is unavailable.” We personally experienced this ourselves along with many others. First noted by VideoTech, the Tweet was “unavailable” for some users for an unknown reason. It was speculated by some accounts the Tweet was being “shadownbanned” on purpose by Twitter/X however there is no actual proof of this.
Rockstar’s response
Almost 24 hours after the trailer had been on YouTube, Rockstar Games Tweeted it out as a full video on Twitter with the caption “Hello @X , watch Grand Theft Auto VI Trailer 1”. If you’re a follower of Rockstar Games, you know the “Hello @X” was out of the ordinary for them.
If we look back at what Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X Corp, Tweeted earlier, she tagged Rockstar Games and X directly. The Tweet from Rockstar has made community members view it as some of their humour coming out to play.
In less than 24 hours, Rockstar’s tweet of the full trailer has garnered over 20 million impressions, 80,000+ retweets and well over half a million likes.
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