Game leaks. Good or bad?

I’m working on a video about whether or not leaks (information leaks pertaining to in-development and forthcoming games) are good or bad. Of course, there are both good and bad aspects, and that’s what I’m hoping to get from everyone here.

Give me your thoughts on leaks.

So far, here’s some logic I plan to use:

• Before the ubiquity of the internet, I can see how it would be important to time PR beats just right. Owning the narrative was much harder to do before the internet. Or, at least, reigning in an escaped narrative was harder to do.

• Now, with the internet and the mass audience around tentpole events like E3, it seems better to “crowd source” the narrative. If something leaks, the organic nature of narrative creation takes over, and whether or not that’s good or bad is debatable. It does, however, extend the PR beat, which is likely great for a game company.

• How often are leaks intentional (meaning, the game company higher-ups approved the leak)? I would guess, probably 99% of the time, the leaks are intentional. I have no data to support this. Only my assumption that if jobs were truly on the line, then we’d see fewer leaks. The leaker never has anything to gain, I wouldn’t think, so why risk your job?

• Does a leak--depending on how in advance--allow developers to fix issues before release. Almost like a “rumor beta.” Beta testing a game is good. Beta testing the conversation around a game can be helpful as well, right?

Personally, I generally like game leaks. Even when the leak goes against my hopes (Fallout76) I love the information. I like being excited about something, and leaks let me align that excitement appropriately. Rather than continue to wonder about a game, I’m happy to have some information, even if that information is faulty.

It does make E3 press conferences less exciting for sure, so in that way, I don't like it. However, the information one way or another is going to come out, so it probably doesn't matter. I just like getting the information in a big way, rather than some article on a game site that says something is coming.

I'd say it varies wildly depending on perspective. There are so many ways you can approach this that trying to unanimously judge them as good or bad seems pointless. Personally I'd be more inclined to discuss the bigger issue of industries driven by hype culture. I get that it's more profitable etc, but it says something about the product when marketing is as important (if not more) than the development of the product itself. We might be experiencing another golden age in gaming, but at the same time I wouldn't be surprised if in 10+ years we'll look back and think of this the same way we think of the uprising of girl/boy bands in the 90s.

I think reporters (actual games reporters like Schreier at Kotaku and Patrick at Waypoint) should report on things if they find them--after all, that's the reason they have sources and do that digging. It's also nice getting "real" information about a game, since PR cycles tend to hide important stuff like gameplay details until far too late, in my opinion. Just announcing a game exists does very little for me, except in extreme circumstances such as a new Nier game getting revealed out of nowhere. I want actual particulars about what kind of game is being made and real gameplay footage, not another meaningless CG trailer.

At the same time, I don't like all the E3 surprises getting revealed before the actual show, as it takes away from a lot of the magic of that show. Those "Holy shit, they're making...?!" moments are some of my favorite historically, and I'd hate to see them disappear entirely due to everything leaking early and being reported. E3 is already becoming a less interesting show with companies doing their own events, and the lack of impactful reveals might just kill it off entirely.

I guess I'd like to see more companies reveal their games earlier, before leaks can happen. Also, they need to do it in more honest ways: showing actual gameplay, giving actual details about what games are (looking at you Fallout 76), and not leading consumers on with strings of pointless teaser trailers and non-information. Lots of things would have to change about the culture around publishers showing their games, mostly in how skittish they are with showing anything before the game is actually out, but it would only benefit the actual paying customers, in my opinion.

In most cases it doesn't matter at all. There's typically plenty of time between announcement and launch for the marketing to kick in and replace any bad sentiment created by a half-cocked announcement or leak.

The only time I'd say it can cause an issue for a game is when a game is doing something different and the details leak out without an explanation. Take Black Ops 4, for example. Having the "no single-player campaign" bit leak out on its own probably doesn't sound like a good thing, but if paired with the rest of the info, there's at least some explanation. Actually, they barely explained that one and their messaging wasn't great, so maybe it's not a great example, but hopefully you get my point. At the end of the day, a leak just screws up a coordinated rollout campaign... and that stuff barely matters by the time the game actually goes on sale.

I don't think i ever enjoyed a leak. I rather see a well orchestrated demo + trailer 1-2 punch than having to read a list of bulletpoints of features that the leaked game might or might not have. Like should we be surprised that there's a new assassins creed coming? Oh it's Greece this time, okay. It's not something that excites me greatly. And i am someone that LOVES greek mythology. The lackluster presentation of a leaked game just doesn't hit the hype-sensitive part of my brain. Getting the announcement as you are faced with footage of the game is just a better experience i find.

I get that when a game leaks it's 'hot news' and a spotlight moment for that game that gives great exposure. If it was announced amongst 100 other games , it might not get the same amount of attention. That said, the IP and / or the developer needs to be quite hot already for people to care enough about it leaking out. And when your game doesn't translate well to a list of bulletpoints, people might just shrug at it. Imagine if State of Decay 2 leaked. What would that even look like? ` Takes place in a mostly suburban area , systems are better presented , new zombie type added ` Yeah nothing that would make me stand on a chair :D

If your IP is hugely popular already, why not just try to aim for the stars and woo people with a super slick well organized presentation? If it's interesting enough , people will declare it as one of the best games of the show and your exposure will be through the roofs. Suddenly people can reference cool stuff that they saw happen in the game, gifs can be shared and you can rope people into preordering your game as they're still hyped from what they just witnessed.

So weighing it all, i feel like leaks don't actually benefit anyone. But hey, the idea of knowing something is happening before they want you to know it holds some appeal. It makes sense that leaks are pursued and that game enthusiasts want to read that news. Just like how eating sugar is not always good for you, but you still do it.

i think i'm cribbing it from the splitscreen podcast (schreier/hamilton of kotaku)- but i actually think leaks are generally good, because i'll take anything that knocks a brick out of the supposed wall that's intended to lockdown game info. they make a comparison to the movie industry- where the whole notion of production-secrecy is preposterous. we hear about scripts, casting, and broad-stroke plot info YEARS before movies go into actual production. does it cause any real damage? box office numbers seem to be chugging along just fine.

IMHO the less cloak-and-dagger the industry gets, the better off the audience (and devs in the trenches) will be. expectations would move in a direction closer to planet earth. and really a complete lockdown on info only seems to build irrational hype- which plays directly into the marketing department's hands. and their interests are not directly aligned with those of the savvy consumer.

I do miss proper marketing hype and genuine surprises.

I like leaks when a game is already announced/under development or close to release and it gives an indication of what the game is actually like. This is especially true close to release if a publisher is trying to outright mislead about the nature or quality of a game (e.g Battlefront beta and leaks prior to release last year were very helpful in warning me off)

The issue is games go through phases and sometimes don't even come out, so when info gets released early it maybe or real rough build or it gets fans hopes up and never comes out.

Also early leaks give the competition a heads up and they could start working on their own version of a similar game in design.

I think leaks are fine. I think that the video game industry relies too much on secrecy, which in my opinion hurts the game industry in the long run. Finding out that a game I might like exists does not ruin me liking that game, if anything it might get me more excited. I wish it worked more like how the movie industry announces its projects (EX: Marvel announcing their phase rollouts) where we know actors, script writers, directors way before the movie is made. The less secrecy around video game projects, the more the audience can educate themselves about what goes into making a video game, which helps the audience be more understanding when delays have to occur.

The amount of secrecy in the video game industry is silly sometimes. Like, Ubisoft could just come out say, similar to Marvel, that Watch Dogs 3 will come out in fall of this year, Far Cry 6 will release fall of 2019, Assassin's Creed is annual again etc. It would surprise no one. Other companies could do a similar thing by giving just the most basic of info on what studios are working on next.

It’s only a bummer when it takes away from the surprised reactions of GB during their E3 live streams.

I work in game localization and have to sign non-disclosure agreements with some regularity when registering my information with new clients and whatnot, so I think I can speak to this topic with some amount of personal experience. (Not in terms of leaking information, just with respect to handling sensitive information as part of day-to-day work.) While I can certainly see some leaks being specifically approved or at least known about by management under really specific situations, I wouldn't go so far as to argue that the vast majority of them are implicitly approved of in such a manner. Publishers do very much so still appreciate having control of the pre-release narrative surrounding their games, for better or for worse, and leaking information is generally going to be more obtuse and less indisputable upfront than going through a more traditional PR cycle.

If it happens too early in the development cycle, it can potentially be damaging to that game's image if it appears in a noticeably incomplete state without proper context and knowledge about game development. Extended marketing can potentially fix this once a game is ready to be more properly revealed, but it's still the sort of fire that ideally publishers don't want to have to worry about putting out in the first place, given the frankly lacking grasp that most of the general public has about game development at best.

In any case, I would argue that jobs are absolutely on the line when leaking information and that people can and do incur consequences for them. Not hearing about said consequences doesn't mean that they haven't occurred; if the source for a leak was anonymous to the public anyway, how is the public going to be able to confirm what happened to said leaker after the leak anyway? This is especially true where the leaker might well not have been a public-facing employee and may have limited or no social media presence, keeping any potential punishment that may take place behind closed doors. There are definitely very real stakes for people who leak. Patrick Klepek wrote a good story about how a rookie mistake handling a source almost cost someone their job here that's worth a read.

In my line of work specifically, the biggest stakes are usually reputational. A lot of times, people like me handle other types of legitimately sensitive documents in addition to just normal game scripts, so leaking information without good reason and then having it traced back to us would hurt clients' abilities to readily trust us with work assignments and have ramifications in terms of being able to line up future translation work, at least within the industry. (Obviously this isn't to say that there aren't ethical reasons where leaking information can be justified, such as when discussing occupational abuses and the leak, but primarily I'm talking about leaks of a less serious nature.) In fact, in the sorts of NDAs I sign specifically, there are often clauses that discuss my obligations in terms of network and data security that require me to keep things secured so that other people hopefully can't go snooping around and steal or leak information/data. I don't know if anybody has ever been actually sued for failing to live up to such a clause if information gets out because of a hacking or something, but the importance of that security in general is something that gets hammered into you very quickly when you first start this line of work.

I'm sure someone somewhere suffers when game info leaks. But from my POV, they're interesting. PR cycles for games seem so meticulously planned, so it can be fun to see what happens when a leak sends everything spiraling out of control.

There are cases where I'm desperate for information about a game and looking for leaks (well, singular case, From Software) but the first case that popped into my mind was the big Fallout 4 leak, and even at the time I thought it was super shitty. Like, there's no real journalism there - I guess they tracked down sources, but in effect all they did was put a bullet in their marketing strategy. Which accomplishes what, besides pageviews? So when Bethesda came out and was very angry, understandably so, and they doubled down on 'journalistic integrity' it made no sense to me. Its just a videogame, and all it accomplished was make the marketing people miserable and make some of that sweet pageview money, and Bethesda PR suddenly had thousands of people complaining they didn't like a game that not only had they never played, but had only seen a half finished PR packet.

And if you look at Hello Games with No Man's Sky and Peter Molyneux, both have been vilified to no end for speaking about features that weren't implemented yet. You can't talk at length about the gameplay until very late in the process because there's a very good chance it doesn't exist yet, and if it falls through, you just look like an ass or are called a liar. The folks at Frictional Games didn't plan on Amnesia not having combat, that was something they pulled out relatively late in the development process, and as a cost cutting measure. Bioshock didn't start implementing their story until months before they went gold. And gameplay demos take a ton of time and resources to build, because you have to polish up a false vertical slice to complete, even worse if you want to play it live. Remember the Uncharted demo mainstage at E3 and it didn't work, and they had to cut to prerecorded footage after a few seconds? Naughty Dog is not a small studio and pretty great at what they do, and even they didn't get it to 100% stable. Any time spent working on fake gameplay examples just takes away from resources that should go to working on the actual game. And when shit leaks, it throws a monkey wrench in the process because now suddenly the team is getting feedback on stuff that wasn't ready, or hadn't gotten the opportunity to be proven yet. Look at Doom, leaks and rumors about that game killed any excitement anyone had for it and then the multiplayer demo put a final bullet in anyone's hope that it was going to be good, until it actually came out and was amazing. Jeff and Brad have talked about learning to judge a game you see early on in the process because lots of it could change, so you can't make any real judgment calls about it until its actually out.

In contrast, stuff like youtubers publishing footage too early or someone breaking embargo are still technically leaks, but don't really affect anything besides giving some people an unfair advantage (I've heard that review embargoes were useful for reviewers because it meant they had a window to beat the game and write the review, instead of mad dashing and throwing something together so you're first). When things are in a near-final state and the differences are a matter of polish, then leaks don't matter, but by that time the marketing machine is usually spun up and you start seeing stuff about the game without leaks. They make less of an impact on both sides, really only bothering people trying to implement a marketing strategy and giving some youtuber asshole a bunch of views on a video for free because he broke embargo.

Take From Software's Shadows Die Twice thing - they released a trailer, and that was enough to get people hyped. But the number of rumors and speculation have inevitably turned people into thinking it's Bloodborne 2, despite producers at From repeatedly saying they're stepping away from that formula, at least for now. But the most recent leak is something completely different, and inevitably people are going to be angry because they put their hopes on Bloodborne 2 or something from another leak. In effect, the people who got their hopes up for something are going to be dissapointed, and the people who just want another From Software game and didn't put any faith in leaks are going to be happy no matter what they announce.

Leaks are garbage and just make people's lives harder, and in some cases people could lose their jobs over something they had no control over. Call of Duty WW2 leaked from that Gamestop dude taking a picture of a flyer to promote preorders, but I bet somebody's head rolled on that one. And all consumers get out of them is inaccurate information.

The increasing volume of leaks year after year seems to be finally chipping away at the absurd level of secrecy surrounding the games industry. I understand that games development is much more unpredictable than the film industry, but come on - Disney not only has no problem telling everyone the title, release date, and actors involved 3-5 years before a new mainstream movie is released, they're enthusiastic about it! How many times have we seen a movie studio announce a sequel immediately following a record-setting opening weekend? Meanwhile Ubisoft has to shift their reveal plans for Assassin's Creed because someone found a promotional key chain a week before the arbitrary announcement date. Keep in mind: game developers only have the opportunity to be frustrated by leaks because the games industry values and rewards secrecy and obtuseness.

I don't think they're good or bad. Imo they're pretty worthless. Telling people BGS is making a new Fallout and leaking all the info doesn't do anything for anyone in the end except for the website that leaks it and profits off the traffic. To the consumer it changes nothing.

That's why I laughed when kotaku got blacklisted by Ubisoft and Bethesda and they wrote this big article whining about it trying to garner support and acting as if they were doing some public service by announcing games that were going to get announced anyways.

I like surprises but in a world where reading a Tomb Raider script on your lap top on a plane could lead to leaks, i am not surprised stuff is leaking this fast. And i am kinda surprised that big company's who work with consultants don't get stuff leaked as fast, sure they need to sign NDA's. But it's easy to be anonymous on the interwebs.

I don’t like all the fandom around leaks and spoilers. Hell, I seldom look at preview coverage or trailers of games are movies.

Ideally, stuff just comes out. It seems cool or not. I check it out or not.

I’m not going to die on a hill over it, it just seems like there’s this insatiable need to know what’s coming and that the hype is more than the product will ever be.

Its fun for consumers (I LOVE this time of year), but bad for the companies/people that worked on it. They spend a lot of time on these things especially the timing of announcements and its gets undermined and the impact is lessened when it leaks

Neutral. I like it when there are left-field surprises at press conferences, but there's also a certain charm to games leaking in weird ways too; the annual tradition of Assassin's Creed games leaking because of random merch or posters getting sent out early never fails to entertain.

I think it depends on the scale of the leak, really. I like hearing small bits and pieces come out about the development of something, but when it's a full reveal of something we weren't expecting at all, it definitely bums me out a little and takes the wind out of the sails bit.

Like BaneFireLord said though, when it's the annual tradition of AC leaking, I kinda can't help but laugh. You'd think they would have gotten better at this by now. Then again maybe it's just part of their official release strategy at this point - let news leak out and watch as the press freaks out to give them extra attention it otherwise might not have got.

For me, I kinda dislike leaks because of things like E3 where surprise announcements are a way to generate massive hype. Like I remember going "Oh Sh*t" when God of War (2018) got revealed.

I don't like leaks when they are announcing/revealing a game early both because it sucks to get a surprise ruined but also because it doesn't even mean the game is being made.

Several times a game has been 'leaked' only for nothing to ever come of it.

Seeing the Bioshock Infinite reveal trailer, the Sony E3 with Shenmue/FF7/Last Guardian, Halo Wars 2, etc etc are all great big surprises and to have them leaked before hand lessons the fun.

Most leaks are no approved by higher ups, it’s really easy to leak and not get caught. My buddy worked at Nintendo of America and I got the scoop on things as the Switch came about. I never shared them but could easily have without it not being traced back to me or him.

And Nintendo is very strict with their stuff. They don’t allow phones to accompany some contractors/employees in most areas of the building, seem to compartmentalize many of the lower level/contract employees, etc.

A lot of leaks also just come from retail and ratings partners, which has nothing to do with the folks making or publishing the games.

It’s more likely that people leak because they are either negligent with data security or because they are looking to hurt a company, or just because they are impatient to tell people about a project they are stoked for. That’s just my opinion.

As for good vs bad I usually enjoy them because you get some info while still having some mystery in there and I don’t see a “bad side” to it other than mucking with marketing but that’s a part of the business and a lot of marketing teams seem to handle it pretty well these days, understanding it’s a real possibility.

I really only care about leaks if they come out of left field (Rage 2) or include more than just a title (Blops 4 has no campaign). Most of the time it's hard to call it a leak. "Sources told me Ubisoft is making a new Assassins Creed;" no shit, I could have told you that without a source.

I think leaks coupled with good background reporting are important. For example, Activision wants to push the narrative that the campaign was cut because the narrative is woven into other modes and now those other modes will be better. The actual narrative (based on the little bit of reporting I've seen) is that there were problems with the campaign's development and Activision cut it to avoid delaying the game. That kind of leak gives insight into game development and how a large publisher makes decisions.

I dunno, though... if they had come right out with what Fallout 76 is we might have gotten a priceless reaction like the one to Artifact last year. Point being, I'm not sure if just the fact that there are leaks that's robbing people of that "holy shit" moment. It's just that what's leaking isn't that exciting anymore.

I don’t see any benefit to leaks. You find out a game is in development, but rarely get anything more than a couple of images that tell you nothing about the game, and you can tell that some of the wind has left the sails of the spokesman that actually gives you the info at the event they had carefully planned.

Either way you still have to wait for the release. So I would say leaks are on average a bad thing. Sometimes the developers are responsible for the leaks, and in those instances leaks are usually used as more of a way to gauge reactions, which are the only cases where leaks don’t really harm anything.

I selfishly like to read leaks, but overall I can't think of anytime when a leak directly benefited a game.

Even if your premise is that bad press on a leak can cause the game to be made better before the release, my belief is that most of the time the changes would have been made anyways once the game got to proper testing, or "testing the conversation around a game," instead of the game itself can be more harmful since people naturally default to tried and trusted approaches, which kills innovation.

Thi sis the way I am too. I like the behind-the-scenes aspect of it. I'm a bit of a wannabe dev, so a leak, even if not very substantive, intrigues me.

I read something a while ago (I cannot find the source, though) that spoke to the impact leaks (or, perhaps it was official "early announcements") have on the developers. Developers, especially during crunch time, don't often get public recognition, and most certainly don't get public feedback. Early announcements sometimes keep the devs going and get them re-inspired. I know early announcements and leaks are different, but in this context (how it helps a dev in the trenches), I think the comparison is apt.

@pepsiman: Amazing response. Thank you!

Bad. I want E3 to be the biggest present for me of the year. Spreading it out sucks.

Whether you know something from a source or not does not make it okay to report on it without your sources consent. You can easily know or hear something report on it and cause damage to you or your source. This ACTUALLY happened to Patrick a long time ago which he wrote a good article on about on Waypoint. https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/9kwq3a/ten-years-ago-i-almost-got-someone-fired-while-reporting-a-story

Personally I don't give a shit about leaks but I think it sucks for a company planning marketing around leaks. It's like going to a surprise party, which I hate, and being told as you are on your way there that its a surprise party. Sure it's nice that the party still happens but the moment of the surprise is gone.

I prefer leaks, at least over E3 pressconferences wich is a shitshow of buzzwords and "fans" talking about some feature we've seen thirty times before. I quit caring for E3 news some years ago and my life got instantly better. Tell me a game is coming, give it to me when it's out. Everything inbetween are just useless Commercial blabber and fans going either way to hard into it or way to hard away from it.

Leaks are good. If I already know everything that will be revealed, I can just skip watching the E3 conferences entirely.