Yuku free message boards

Grand Theft UPS: copies of GTA stolen en route to retailers

By Ben Kuchera | Published: April 28, 2008 - 08:13AM CT

After reporting on the hype and controversy surrounding the Tuesday release of Grand Theft Auto IV, I can't believe I'm going to write a "this game causes crime!" story, but here we go. I spoke to an employee of UPS over the weekend, and he told me that a surprising amount of workers were getting busted stealing the game from the shipment boxes. In one 24-hour period, three workers were fired, and more interviews were scheduled for today that would likely end in termination.

I asked if this was common when big-name games were released, and he told me no; the situation was novel, or he wouldn't have brought it up at all. The game was enticing enough for many workers to risk losing their job and, in typical fashion for low-level crimes like this, it has been easy to identify the workers stealing the games.

"They're not selling them, these people are stealing one copy," he told me-all of the thefts seem to be for personal use. It seems many people think stealing a game a few days before release is worth it, and this is far from the perfect crime.

"As long as the people loading the packages are doing their jobs, it's easy to track down," our source told Ars. "It's kind of funny, isn't it? It's a game about theft, and people are stealing it." His eyes began to shine as he said, "and I get to terminate them."