Do you think leaking games is morally correct?

[Chairmanchuck (另一个我)]

So in the wake of E3, more and more games get leaked.
It is also not really that uncommon that a lot of people on this board know of a few projects that have not been announced while not even being in the gaming industry, but having friends and co. on some teams telling them about it or being in closed, paid beta tests (thats were Sackboy and Returnal screenshots come from).

Do you think it is morally correct to leak games or give hints or you think it will rob the developers from the joy of people seeing the game at the actual reveal via a trailer and rob the publisher or marketing team of their own business decision?

Spoiler

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[Dan Thunder]

Moral? No. But I don't think of it as illegal.

 

[XR.]

Not necessarily morally wrong, but the only one who stands to benefit from a leak is the leaker. Doesn't change much, people can do as they please.

 

[Acquiescence]

All I know is, if you're leaking games days or hours prior to their due announcement just for clout-chasing purposes or to get your name out there on the internets or whatever, then you're kind of a dickhead.

 

[machtia]

I don't think it has a moral valence.

 

[sn00zer]

lol no

Game devs, how do game leaks impact your work?

Game devs, What's it like in the office when your game's announcement leaks ahead of time? How do leaks impact your work? We regularly see the leaks but rarely understand what's happening in the studio when a leak happens. Previous thread (2019)...

www.resetera.com

 

[Cheesetriangles]

It's okay to leak an Ad.

 

[Windu]

Idk about you, but I always call the Police when I see a video game leak.

 

[Hektor]

secrecyandhype-culture is unhealthy for everyone involved, so yes

 

[GhostTrick]

Yes. It's just a product lol.

It just "ruins" the surprise.

 

[Animismus]

I do not think that you keep games secret to make the develores happy when the company decides to announce it. Think of it as a way to control the game's image and consequently as part of a advertisement strategy.

 

[chalkitdown]

I'll never understand why there's such a big secrecy around the announcement of games. Imagine if every movie's existance was only brought to the public's attention with the release of the teaser trailer mere months before launch and not years out with casting announcements and such. It's bizarre practice.

Why do people care if they know about a game's existance ahead of seeing the trailer of it for the first time?

 

[AstronaughtE]

I consider it buffoonery.

 

[Deleted member 93062]

Probably not morally incorrect, but you should allow developers the time to make the game and show it off how they want to. I understand people really prize secrecy but looking at dev streams of games that are obviously still in development and developers say it's WIP and seeing the outrage targeted towards them online when something isn't perfect, is wild.

People often compare video games to movies, but I don't think they're the same thing. We hear so much concern trolling about all the games Xbox has announced that might still be a few years out. It's probably better to just give developers the time they need and let them show it when they want to.

 

[shaneo632]

At the end of the day it can impact a lot of people's work, and the marketing rollout for games are very carefully organised. On the flip side the extreme secrecy of the games industry compared to other media (especially movies/TV) is very strange.

 

[Haze]

There's no real mora imperative to leak things like video games but it's literally nothing to care about.

The game's industry is a uniquely secretive one and it's good to get information drips.

 

[Qassim]

It's not moral, it's not immoral, it's amoral.

 

[Caspar]

In a way it makes little sense.

Everything will be revealed before a game comes out, nobody gains anything from leaks. There's just greater chance of spreading inaccuracies that end up dissapointing people.

Ultimately it's "I know something I shouldn't, and I'm going to use it to bring attention to myself and feel cool".

On the other side of things, I think it's a little ridiculous how secretive publishers feel they need to be about what they're making. Like, it's a fucking video game, not a military exercise. We know what movies film studios are making pretty much before a rough script has even been written and it doesn't take away from the full release.

 

[julia crawford]

it's not very nice i guess, but i don't consider it a moral quandary

 

[JusDoIt]

I don't think leaking information about a commercial product is immoral.

I feel bad for the people working on it, but it is what it is.

 

[| TrusT |]

It's a little bit selfish for sure.

 

[SarcasticRobot]

I don't think it's a moral question at all, so no. It could be ethically wrong, but that's only if someone is, by their profession or word, bound to not leak and they do anyway. Otherwise, if someone not in that position learns something they have no ethical obligation to not leak. But either way, not a moral question at all.

 

[SCUMMbag]

I think both the video game industry and fanbase have bigger ethical issues than the leaking of announcements.

 

[raspberrymousse]

What's morally wrong is people leaking entire albums from musical artists weeks to months in advance. Leaking a name of something that some game developer is working on with three bulletpoints about what this game might be isn't.

 

[JigglesBunny]

Truthfully, I think the problem could be partially solved if game development was a more transparent and well documented process, including cancellations and project overhauls, and people were generally kept abreast of the goings on inside of their favorite development studios. The whole "secrecy until we're ready for a marketing blitz in the summer" shtick is wholly unnecessary and feels dated in a time where some companies have pushed to be more transparent about what they have in development.

Leaks mostly hurt the marketing department, and I think that's simply because we've collectively endorsed games being these mysterious things while in development. If we open up the development process a bit to the public, the marketing department no longer thrives solely on maintaining secrecy until they saturate every marketing medium with advertisements for the product, gamers get a better understanding of the work that goes into making these products they consume and leakers are naturally discouraged from acting as they currently do, inflating their own egos and fancying themselves as outlaws because they told people about a new Layers of Fear game a week before it's set to be officially revealed.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

Oh Father, what can I do? Betray every of my virtues, lay to the wayside all your teachings? Can an evil deed be good if it is an act of love? Can love even exist in the shadow of such evil? To leak a video game is a profane sin, but my children are so hungry. Only by leaking a video game might they be nourished, and only by their nourishment may I still say I have acted righteously. The duty to faith is meant to be the strongest of all, but what of my duty to my family? Oh Father in heaven, please have compassion for me, as I do what I must in the name of love. I risk my very soul and pray in your wisdom you might see my actions as moral, in spite of it all--

 

[Deleted member 543]

I don't think it's immoral.

I do think there's a tendency for unhealthy cults of personality to arise around certain leakers. And they always turn sour.

 

[SoneaB]

I don't like it in the same way I don't like gossip. Let people give their own news in their own time. It isn't immoral per se, but it is rude.

 

[Stowaway Silfer]

Ehhh, hard to see it as immortal.
Even as a "hype can suck and can even be unhealthy" kind of person, I do feel for developers because they don't want their shit leaking. And announcement leaks don't do the kind of good that bad workplace culture leaks do. But it's hard to see them as immoral.

It isn't immoral per se, but it is rude.

Click to shrink...

Yeah maybe rude is more accurate. It's like "Duuude woah!" lol

 

[JusDoIt]

Whoever leaked the SF6 roster deserves a raise.

 

[CupOfDoom]

The extreme secrecy of the video game industry is so dumb. I genuinely wish it was closer to the film/tv industry where what is in production/pre-production at any given time is public knowledge.

 

[Stowaway Silfer]

Whoever leaked the SF6 roster deserves a raise.

Click to shrink...

This tho, Capcom's angel for real.

 

[Tavernade]

It doesn't really benefit anyone but the leaker, especially if it's leaked so early that large parts of it change before the intended reveal date. I don't think it'd cause a particular moral stain, though.

I think leaking the existence of games is more morally dubious than leaking the existence of movies, though, just due to the culture of how gaming announcements work. Movies tend to get announced super early, while games usually get announced with a trailer at a big event.

 

[AshenOne]

The only way it is morally incorrect for me is when people can lose jobs over someone else leaking stuff. Thats just unfair.

Otherwise yeah it is morally fine. Publishers are use shock impact as 'marketing' so commonly that its frustrating to wait till the actual day to hear anything about the game so i loathe this total secrecy.

 

[shintoki]

No, but its a nothing burger.

 

[TSM]

All of these reveals are part of marketing planned out to maximize hype and sales. Before we get to asking if interrupting a marketing plan is moral we'd first have to cover a lot of morally questionable practices that the video game industry indulges in on a regular basis.

 

[Lashley]

It's amoral

 

[Glio]

You are just being a jerk seeking attention.

 

[Roubjon]

People who leak stuff are total jerks. Let the team of people who've spent years working their butts off show their game when they want to.

So yeah, it's morally scummy as hell.

 

[Leafshield]

I don't see it as a moral issue. A leak, which is often a tiny fragment of info about a project plus confirmation that said project exists, is nothing in the greater scheme of things. All it affects is the publisher's marketing campaign that would otherwise want all information and reveal planned to the nth degree for maximum financial effect. There's no great morality at stake with the secrecy there.

I do think a lot of leakers do it for online clout, often when it's utterly pointless (such as leaking something a day or two ahead of a reveal). But I don't think a leak about 'x project is in development' is really much of a problem, I find the whole secrecy around it just weird compared to other industries.

 

[Switters]

Is ruining a 5 year old's surprise birthday party immoral?

 

[Brat-Sampson]

I think it's highly unnecessary and has an overly negative impact on people's perception of the leak and the actual reveal as well as on the creators.

'Immoral' seems strong though. I'll stick to 'Unnecessary and kinda shitty'.

 

[PLASTICA-MAN]

They are many cases if controlled leaks (if not the majority of them are) to create buzz and to test reactions of players but the majority of you won't know they are so they assume all of them are morally bad deeds from leakers.

 

[Lemony1984]

Yes it's morally correct. Literally nothing immoral about it.

 

[War95]

I think the overall secrecy of the industry is detremental to it tbh

 

[Glio]

Truthfully, I think the problem could be partially solved if game development was a more transparent and well documented process, including cancellations and project overhauls, and people were generally kept abreast of the goings on inside of their favorite development studios. The whole "secrecy until we're ready for a marketing blitz in the summer" shtick is wholly unnecessary and feels dated in a time where some companies have pushed to be more transparent about what they have in development.

Leaks mostly hurt the marketing department, and I think that's simply because we've collectively endorsed games being these mysterious things while in development. If we open up the development process a bit to the public, the marketing department no longer thrives solely on maintaining secrecy until they saturate every marketing medium with advertisements for the product, gamers get a better understanding of the work that goes into making these products they consume and leakers are naturally discouraged from acting as they currently do, inflating their own egos and fancying themselves as outlaws because they told people about a new Layers of Fear game a week before it's set to be officially revealed.

Click to shrink...

Gamers as a collective don't have the emotional maturity for something like this. Just look at the replies there are every time something leaks in early development and half the comments are "Yikes". Or when something is canceled and they cry for years.

 

[Greywaren]

I wouldn't say it's morally correct or incorrect, but it's a bit of a dick move on the leaker's part to ruin the surprise.

Even if I do enjoy leaks from time to time, I wouldn't miss them if they were completely gone.

 

[Glio]

They are many cases if controlled leaks (if not the majority of them are) to create buzz and to test reactions of players but the majority of you won't know they are so they assume all of them are morally bad deeds from leakers.

Click to shrink...

There was a thread about this and it's basically a lie. The percentage of controlled leaks is negligible.

 

[MouldyK]

I think the overall secrecy of the industry is detremental to it tbh

Click to shrink...

I think this post from the other Thread posted above is a good explanation of why there is some secrecy:

It's complicated because game development is far less straightforward than movie development. Unless it's a movie caught in development hell, I suppose. Imagine that and you would have your standard game development process (this is actually not entirely applicable, but a good reference to the amount of moving pieces).

The most important factor is the fact that games have interactivity. And design work essentially consists of turning theory into practice while adapting the inevitable fact of eventually finding out that there are technical limitations that have to be kept in mind, optimization needs change everything, what made logical sense in theory feel shitty when actually playing (happens VERY often), interaction between varying systems doesn't work as expected, promising prototypes don't manage to actually reach the best quality because of some seemingly little details that weren't considered on prototype stage when the feature or core gameplay itself was approved, etc.

This is also what leads to things like games cancelled early (and late), games that started as one thing eventually turning into a different thing, etc. etc.

And I absolutely would prefer, on a personal level, to be open about all that with everyone.

But I understand why this is not usually happening because that's not how collective Internet memory works. Collective Internet memory turns things that had to be cut or changed into 'lies', and imagination makes people go 'oh just think about what could've been' based on vague concepts that didn't work out and let the unlimited human processor create the greatest image in their minds that in reality has 10 million ways to go wrong, and a result of hundreds of iterations and compromises to make sure that everything can actually work in as proper and best way possible is turned into uninformed 'why did they do this instead of this' YouTube video that is then heralded as the 'truth' of why devs are wrong. And then players hold grudges.

The truth is that any piece of information the developers release can be used against them later due to a HIGHLY increased likelihood of things changing, at a much higher frequency that it usually happens in other mediums. Hence, sadly, the secrecy.

Click to shrink...

 

[sn00zer]

They are many cases if controlled leaks (if not the majority of them are) to create buzz and to test reactions of players but the majority of you won't know they are so they assume all of them are morally bad deeds from leakers.

Click to shrink...

Yeah pretty sure this isn't true at all. If you look at any dev talking about leaks no one has ever seen a controlled leak. They could happen but it's outside the normal dev and marketing loop.