You guys might recall a story from a couple of years ago when a TV presenter showed off his bitcoins live on air, only to have it stolen as the details of his bitcoins were shown in the process. This is similar to users who flash their credit card details online where the credit number and other additional details can be saved and used by thieves.
It seems that this applies to game keys as well, as some Twitch streamers found out when they happily began to stream their session of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V which was recently released for the PC. It seems that some of the streamers forgot that their game key was being broadcasted to thousands around the world when it was shown on the splash screen when the game loads after it was installed.
It seems that there were some opportunistic thieves in the audience who quickly took advantage of that momentary lapse and used their keys for themselves, and safe to say when that happens, the key is no longer usable by anyone else meaning that the streamers effectively had their game stolen right under their noses.
It is unclear as to what Rockstar will do with the stolen codes or if they will compensate these streamers with new codes. After all some of these streamers are pretty prominent gamers with hundreds of thousands of followers, but for the rest of us, hopefully this is a lesson we can take away with us for the future.