Almost every major video game developer and publisher finds themselves more and more dealing with the problem of the biggest problem, well actually second biggest problem… perhaps third. It’s definitely up there in the top ten. When you have hundreds if not thousands of people on your payroll and sometimes that’s just for a single game, the likelihood of at least one person thinking it would be great to just toss out there a leak of whatever upcoming game onto the internet just for clout becomes that much more likely. The reality is there’s very little the developer or publisher can do until it actually happens.
However, as has been seen with the likes of both Rockstar and of course Nintendo, they are often incredibly quick to take action and widespread take downs happen almost immediately. The problem is that once something is on the internet, it stays on the internet forever. And unfortunately you can’t just pull the plug and wipe the entirety of the World Wide Web. I know, I tried when I turned off the router. Just doesn’t work. Feel like I’ve been scammed.
It can be incredibly hard to determine whom is responsible for the leaks although I’m sure when you have billions in your pocket, money can get lawyers to find anything out. Unfortunately I found out they don’t take kindly to Monopoly money, so I’ll never know who stole my milkshake that one day. Biggest upset of my life.
Sometimes the leaker reportedly makes themselves known, such as the recent GTA VI leak that took place just a couple of days prior to the forthcoming coming trailer going live. It seems that according to a post on Reddit that the one behind the leak was the son of a Rockstar employee. Now, I’m not going to show anything or bother opening up Reddit to look into the post. I have way too much stuff to do such as find the person who stole my milkshake all them years ago. But I’m sure if you really wanted to, the leak is certainly going to be out there somewhere. Now, as to how Rockstar would deal with the employee of the son who allegedly leaked the footage, I’m sure shining a bright light into their face while playing good cop bad cop would work. It definitely has for me in the ongoing search for the one who stole my milkshake.
Unfortunately, I doubt it’s always this easy to just slap a few people into crying and telling all. If it were I wouldn’t be hear typing away. Although, perhaps dressing up as the Tango man and then slapping people into submission is legal? Hmm… Anyway where was I? Oh yes, rambling on about leaks. Gotta make the article seem longer than it needs to be.
We have seen Nintendo take a very different approach to working out leakers in the past. They created fake details about a Star Fox Racing game complete with logo and naturally that thing went viral. I’m assuming Nintendo had a good idea of the area in which the leaks were coming from within the organisation and so probably produced multiple false games to see which would leak and thus narrow down their field of where to send the ninjas. Or perhaps lawyers.
Ubisoft are always getting their games leaked early. In fact it happens so frequently I don’t know why Ubisoft bother with official announcements or anything. Sometimes these things go one step further and although not a leak, making a game fully playable at the same time. Beyond Good and Evil 20th Anniversary Edition was kinda leaked early and then somehow an early build of the game found its way onto Xbox for people to actually play. This naturally forced the hand of the publisher to go and make an early reveal that yes this remaster of a remaster of a PS2/Xbox/Gamecube game does indeed exist. Now I’m not too sure which publisher managed such a feet, but it must have been… oh. It’s Ubisoft. Well, that closes that particular chapter.
So yes, with thanks to the internet and more so social media, leaks are here to stay. At least until AI takes over everyone’s jobs. Though perhaps AI will still leak everything if it is indeed going to learn how to do the jobs correctly. I’m sure Ubisoft are testing this theory out as we speak.
