Of Course There Would Be a Stock Manipulation Scheme in Grand Theft Auto V

• There are two playable stock exchanges inside GTA V: LCN and BAWSAQ. On each of these exchanges, you can buy and sell stocks using the virtual cash you amass during the course of the game. (This cash has no real-world value, but it can be used to buy houses, airplane hangars, and other cool things inside the game.)

• Most of the time, these stock prices appear to move randomly. But in certain missions, your character is given a tip that, due to an in-game event (usually, an assassination of a CEO), a company’s stock is about to rise or fall precipitously. When this happens, you’re supposed to load up on the stock (or its competitor’s stock), kill the CEO, then profit from your trades.

Kevin Roose gives us a rundown of the stock manipulation scheme that players of Grand Theft Auto V planned using the game’s stock-trading feature (apparently this exists!). Some players wanted to know if they could somehow game the stock market to make billions of dollars, and went on GTA V forums and a subreddit to hash out a plan to do it. Their scheme did not go exactly as planned. Thank god that this is just a game and none of these kinds of stock manipulation schemes happen in real life.

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