There are plenty of diversions in Grand Theft Auto V's Los Santos, from playing golf to surfing the internet. But, as New York magazine reports, one that has really grabbed players' attentions is the in-game stock market. The feature lets players buy and sell stock on two different exchanges — Liberty City National and BAWSAQ — in order to earn extra in-game cash. Stock prices are often influenced by events of the missions you take on, and sometimes you'll even get a tip on whether a company will see a sudden rise or fall. Over at the GTA Market subreddit, some users have been speculating that the BAWSAQ is dynamic, and can be manipulated by players if they work together.

Players are already thinking up new schemes

To test this, users attempted a "pump and dump" scheme. The idea was to both buy, and then sell, a particular stock collectively in mass quantities: the theory was that the initial buy would drive up the price, while the sale would cause it to drop drastically. Players could then re-buy it at the reduced price and sell (and profit) when things went back to normal. Unfortunately for those involved, the get rich quick scheme doesn't appear to have worked, as the stock price wasn't obviously influenced by all of the activity. But while the first experiment wasn't a success, that hasn't deterred virtual insider traders from thinking up new schemes, turning their attention to the just-launched GTA Online. As one hopeful user wrote, "doing this with online will probably be a different story."