Ever thought some video game 'leaks' were just a form of marketing

[Sheentak]

So have you ever seen some leaks that you think could be a type of marketing? The thought recently came into mind due to some magic the gathering leaks of new interesting cards.
Basically magic has some really overpowered cards in standard right now and everyone is complaining about then suddenly cards from the new set are leaked that's not out till January.
I mean they could be genuinely leaked but it's awfully good timing to switch the general conversation.

This then got me thinking a out blizzard and how after the Hong Kong stuff all of sudden were hearing all about blizzcon leaks.. Now knowing current blizzard I belive the leaks are legitimate but it does make you think.

So has a game leak ever been a legitimate marketing tactic or do you have any theories?

 

[Glio]

There was once a thread in which industry professionals spoke and in 99% of cases, no.

 

[Bass2448]

100%. I even think some leaks and responses to them can cause a project to be re-worked, canceled, or even fast tracked.

There was once a thread in which industry professionals spoke and in 99% of cases, no.

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lol Anyone from Sega or EA in that thread?

 

[gunlovefiction]

Deffo

 

[LoneWolfHunter]

There's no doubt about it. Some of the most obvious, almost cringe inducing ones, were from Ubisoft.

There was once a thread in which industry professionals spoke and in 99% of cases, no.

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I don't believe this for a second. You can say that most of the time it' s not, but it isn't 99% of the cases.

 

[Terbinator]

Probably more so now.

Legendary stuff like Tom Morello and barns/sheds is just too good.

 

[Glio]

There's no doubt about it. Some of the most obvious, almost cringe inducing ones, were from Ubisoft.



I don't believe this for a second. You can say that most of the time it' s not, but it isn't 99% of the cases.

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Ok, 99 is perhaps an exaggeration, but it is extremely rare that a leak is on purpose.

People simply like to see narratives where there is usually only incompetence.

 

[ILikeFeet]

No

 

[Rotobit]

Most of the times when it's deliberate it's incredibly obvious. Like The Pokémon Company was very tongue-in-cheek referencing leaks here -

was it because farfetch'd uses a leek because wow the pun

Most of the time though it seems genuine, not a marketing stunt. But I do wonder if very early concept/pre-production leaks are sometimes on the part of frustrated devs/playtesters wanting to essentially give the audience a chance to speak out against certain decisions before the final product is announced. It's basically a free, global user interest survey at some point.

 

[blueredandgold]

I saw so many instances where a game got 'censored' or refused classification in some markets and the publisher definitely seemed to leverage that fact. For every one time though, I probably had the tin-foil hat on for every three other times.

 

[F8RGE]

100%. I even think some leaks and responses to them can cause a project to be re-worked, canceled, or even fast tracked.

lol Anyone from Sega or EA in that thread?

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In all the titles I've worked on, never have leaks been used as marketing.

Edit: from experience, leaks are a major pain in the ass to deal with.

 

[Lord Vatek]

Depends on the leak. If something is legit but still vague enough that it doesn't actually say anything major, it might be marketing.

But in cases where a ton of genuine information is leaked, then no it's not.

 

[Deleted member 5129]

Leaks suck.

 

[Paertan]

I think it is rare. Not 1% rare but rare. But yes most definitely it does happen.

 

[Bass2448]

In all the titles I've worked on, never have leaks been used as marketing.

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Fair enough. Has there been any case where a weird unique game was in the making and the concept was leaked for marketing research rather than promotion? Or would EA simply bring people in, sign an NDA, give opinions then leave?

 

[Kyrios]

I would say it definitely happens but a majority of leaks are not of the company/dev's doing.

 

[N64Controller]

Never ever seen that being the case or heard about it being the case. Leaks suck to deal with.

 

[higemaru]

It happened so often with Ubisoft titles for a bit that I felt like it had to be the case, but probably not.

 

[ScoutDave]

Wouldnt be surprised if some of the Blizzcon leaks are controlled to take away the attention from the Hong Kong drama.

 

[Wackamole]

In some instances. But not that many i think.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Wouldn't leaks as marketing be illegal since you have to disclose if you are marketing in most cases?

I guess leaks would be plausible deniability. But that's more work when companies have no problem spending ass loads in the first place

 

[show me your skeleton]

this blizzard crap has made me think so, yeah.

 

[Yossarian]

Sometimes. If it isn't, it should be.

 

[Surakian]

Ubisoft and Kojima make me believe plenty of leaks happen internally or purposefully

 

[AnnoyingSensei]

From experience I can say no one leaks things on purpose. It messes with basically everyone's plans and is a huge pain in the ass.

 

[nillapuddin]

Halo 4 barn leak.

The most polarizing and spectacular leak of all time.

 

[Praglik]

It happened so often with Ubisoft titles for a bit that I felt like it had to be the case, but probably not.

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Ubisoft has more "cogwheels" than any other developer, most if not ALL their games are multi-studios - sometimes up to 10 or 12 working on the same game at the same time. That's bound to create leaks, but it sucks for everybody involved.

Devs hate leaks.

 

[psychedelic]

Assassin's Creed comes to mind

 

[N64Controller]

It happened so often with Ubisoft titles for a bit that I felt like it had to be the case, but probably not.

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Ubisoft is a huge company that deals with a shit-ton of playtesters pretty much every day for the shit-ton of projects they are working on. The sheer amount of people that know details about each projects going on there is insane. It's bound to happen, but not at all a form of marketing.

 

[F8RGE]

Fair enough. Has there been any case where a weird unique game was in the making and the concept was leaked for marketing research rather than promotion? Or would EA simply bring people in, sign an NDA, give opinions then leave?

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I don't think we'd ever leak anything on purpose, especially that way.

 

[daybreak]

Almost certainly not. In the case of larger companies it wouldn't fly for many reasons, not the least of which is that budget likely isn't allocated towards marketing a product at the time leaks would be even potentially "valuable" (that's just my guess, though). What's more, it would be difficult to measure the effectiveness of a leak as a marketing tool - how do you justify such an early marketing push in terms of sales generation? The money is better spent on marketing that directly leads to an increase in sales or builds awareness (to lead to increased sales) later in the development cycle.

There's something to be said for the possibility of leaks happening for market research purposes, potentially in the form of rogue leaks that are intentional but not approved. I guess an example like this would be the 'leaked' Deadpool test footage, which was totally, absolutely, definitely not leaked by Ryan Reynolds to prove interest in the brand on a wider scale. Even at that point, though, I'd be relatively surprised to learn if there was any plan behind the leak. I could see some 'rogue' leaks having occurred in the gaming industry that lead to the realization that brands have a higher interest than originally expected, but I would consider it very unlikely.

I'm sure intentional 'leaks' have happened with smaller/indie companies before, but they should be fairly obviously done as a marketing promotion. Marketing a product is all about controlling the message and presentation, and generally leaks don't showcase the product in the ideal light. It'd be a tough sell to convince a company that showcasing their product in bad quality screenshots, cherry-picked photos, or text-based leaks would somehow improve reception or sales.

 

[Deleted member 2254]

I can't think of a single case where the leak seemed controlled, no. If anything, I could see some companies using such leaks for services they are considering but aren't actively working on. Let's say Nintendo is considering changing their approach to software and hardware by selling a monthly see which includes both. 25-30$ bucks per month but you get the latest Nintendo hardware and software day 1. Sending out such questions in mails and such is something that may be answered by people who are already invested in Nintendo and chances are they'd stay no matter what, likewise if they give out this question to a research center it's possible they can't properly tune the audience of people who might be interested in gaming and Nintendo to those levels. With a controlled leak they could see what the public is thinking around social media, gaming websites, communities like this, and it would be free. If the response is positive, enjoy the free word of mouth and get to work. If it's negative, come out 24 hours later to claim you aren't considering anything of the sort and bam, idea shut down, faith in Nintendo restored.

I'm not saying it's happening. All I'm saying is that it sounds reasonably useful.

 

[Messofanego]

I think insiders that claim to leak or have rumours can be part of marketing.

But leaks themselves, I don't think so.

 

[Tygre]

If they're not, developers and publishers need to hire more creative marketing guys.

Guerilla marketing has been around for a long time, and videogames / the internet are the perfect formats.

 

[Dinobot]

I feel like leaks are a good form of player feedback when you're in the designing and planning stage.

Like if Nintendo releases a leak of a DLC fighter for Smash and reads the feedback to see if it's worth pursuing the licensing deal.

Or Assassin's Creed leaks of the next setting and seeing player reactions before settling on a location.

It's almost like free survey data. Of course it would have to be done in the concept phase.

"PersonaFan46: I'm hearing rumblings of the next Persona game being action based"

*outrage ensues*
*Atlus boardroom meeting*

"Yeah we should stick with turn based*.

 

[Deleted member 8593]

Ubisoft has no marketing budget that's why they put interns with powerpoints on planes

 

[Nuclear Muffin]

Trial Balloons are a very common technique used throughout tech industries, but are actually not common with game development.

Games are not mere pieces of technology, they are an entertainment medium like TV and film. As such, game-related leaks are not beneficial in any way and are unintentional 99% of the time.

It happened so often with Ubisoft titles for a bit that I felt like it had to be the case, but probably not.

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It happens so commonly with Ubisoft because they have literally thousands of people working on their own titles that are spread, literally, across the entire world. They are bound to have leaks, its inevitable.

Coincidentally, Ubisoft are also responsible for almost every single leak that we get about new Nintendo consoles prior to their announcement and release.

 

[CyborgNumberBlue]

That's exactly what they are.

 

[Viale]

I feel like leaks are a good form of player feedback when you're in the designing and planning stage.

Like if Nintendo releases a leak of a DLC fighter for Smash and reads the feedback to see if it's worth pursuing the licensing deal.

Or Assassin's Creed leaks of the next setting and seeing player reactions before settling on a location.

It's almost like free survey data. Of course it would have to be done in the concept phase.

"PersonaFan46: I'm hearing rumblings of the next Persona game being action based"

*outrage ensues*
*Atlus boardroom meeting*

"Yeah we should stick with turn based*.

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Guess I should go post in that persona thread to give some counterweight then lmao.

 

[Linus815]

most leaks tend to be unflattering so...no.

 

[Bear]

As someone who works in games PR, no.

 

[808s & Villainy]

A very tiny fraction maybe are, but most are just forum users believing dumb theories for no reason other than it's more exciting than the boring truth that these leaks were unplanned

 

[Duffking]

Nope. Almost 100% certain leaks are leaks.

 

[SABO.]

NDAs are real and breaching them has consequences.

We may not see those consequences cause we're busy absorbing the leaked info

 

[Dinobot]

Guess I should go post in that persona thread to give some counterweight then lmao.

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If Persona 6 ends up action based I'm blaming you.

 

[GranddadFreeman]

In all the titles I've worked on, never have leaks been used as marketing.

Edit: from experience, leaks are a major pain in the ass to deal with.

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I can't even imagine. Especially in the fast internet age where one leak is micro-analyzed until people come to an agreement of what it's about then get angry when the thing they made up isn't true.

 

[signal]

I could see the answer being yes. It's one thing if it's a totally new project that is literally unknown prior to some major leak, but if it's something dumb like new art or a new expansion detail or something then why not?

Probably has zero impact on the final release and it just gets people guerrilla marketing the game for the devs for free on social media.

 

[Dongs Macabre]

You can't tell me the Halo 4 barn leak wasn't staged.

 

[Lokimaster]

i think we would be surprised at how many "Leaks" are just marketing.

 

[Kewlmyc]

I didn't think so until this Overwatch shit.