Preloading the core framework of the update (hence leakers being able to deduce the exact nature of the content) gives Rockstar's engineers a good month or so to iron out any bugs they might catch, as well as fine-tune the various aspects of any new feature added to the game with the update.
This is why, in spite of the relatively short time in between DLCs, the updates don't launch as horribly unoptimizied, buggy, literally unplayable trainwrecks. Instead, when the update launches, usually everything is up and running with no major and very few minor bugs to be afraid of.
However, this left the backdoor open to Rockstar's cache of secret content — or rendered it unguarded, at least. While on the one hand, this helped them optimize content releases, their announcement schedules didn't mean much seeing as the community was usually well aware in advance of what to expect from future DLC.
Leaks with pretty much all the details of a given update went out weeks ahead of the official announcement, and while they never contained all the info, they revealed enough to always spoil any kind of surprise the dev team had in store for GTA Online. The leak giving away pretty much all of Executives and Other Criminals was a spectacular example of this.
All sorts of info about the update, with the yachts in the foreground, was revealed by data-mining previous DLCs' game files for various tidbits of information. The same could be said about a number of other updates since, though we ceased reporting on leaks in detail some time ago.
However, something has seemingly changed. It's been a solid month since the release of the Import/Export DLC and not a single leak has sprung in that time, at least none which are backed with data from the game files. In fact, Import/Export itself wasn't leaked before release. The only leaked information we got concerns the additional cars that are being added as mini-DLC to expand on I/E, such as the Itali and the Nero before it.
As for what comes after Import/Export? Not a single clue. Of course, your typical lineup of fake leaks, people mistaking idea pitches as leaks and your regurgitated story DLC rumors are all floating about the internet, because this is still games journalism here. But nothing that seems to be legitimate information has arisen.
It is unlikely that no-one went looking though. GTA 5 is still a hot topic on the internet three years after release, and having sold 70 million copies, it should be. Anyone who discovered actual true info about a future update would be thrust into the spotlight and the discovery would generate a whole lot of clicks.
So if it isn't that, the only explanation can be that the leak was plugged. Somehow Rockstar figured out how to hide the assets related to upcoming DLC in a way that prevents data miners from extracting any useful information to be posted on sites dedicated to GTA 5.
No info about new Adversary Modes, new vehicles which aren't scheduled as minor DLC or other features have been leaked yet by anyone citing evidence from a data mine. Sure, we have that one pretty big and long-reaching leak to go on, but that doesn't have any info from a data mine backing it up.
There are a number of reasons why leakers might not have found anything noteworthy in the game files of Import/Export. Firstly, Rockstar's engineers could have hidden the files and relevant assets in new and unexpected ways, leading to them not having been found yet.
Alternatively, the "pre-loading method" might have been abandoned entirely for a different approach to testing and optimization. It's possible that they've come up with a system that does not require any content to be pre-loaded, but rather it can be tested prior to launch on Rockstar's internal network.
Whether there's simply nothing left to be found, or Rockstar has hidden the content away with such cunning that not even veteran data miners have found it, is only relevant so far as the latter indicates that eventually, Rockstar's defenses will be breached again, and updates will be leaked ahead of time, again.
On the one hand, all the buzz kicked up by the leaks always granted Rockstar some free publicity. However it also rendered their own announcement schedule essentially useless (and that schedule exists for good reason!). Rockstar didn't make a habit of keeping info to themselves simply because "it's their thing", but because their marketing experts developed a system that they thought would be optimal. In fact the lack of leaks could mean that Rockstar has decided to enforce that marketing system with added protection.
Do you think Rockstar removed any telling pre-loaded GTA Online DLC, or did they hide it really well?
