That's exactly it, though. If you know they're working on it, why do they have to go out and tell you (the public)? So you (the public) can berate them with questions they aren't ready to answer? I can't for the life of me understand the entitled attitude and the lack of patience to just wait. You can't play the game until it's released, and the release date doesn't change based off of the reveal date, so I just have a hard time understanding the lack of patience. It's truly illogical.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Game devs of Resetera, how do leaks impact your work?
- Thread starter sn00zer
- Start date
It's hilarious to think gamers will ever be used to huge changes in videogames in a world where Spiderman's puddlegate was a thing. And even disregarding dramatic changes and cancellations, people can only be excited about something for so long. New things are more exciting, it's basic psychology.
Above all, devs don't owe anything to anyone. There is no advantage to announcing early and multiple disadvantages to doing so. And this is already quite off-topic even as a transparent attempt to pin the blame on them.
sure, never said that but don't be surprised when people are eager to leak your stuff when you create a hungry market for it.
I guess that's the difference between a "gaming journalist" that is part of the marketing and a "gaming journalist" that got a scoop.
In a world where every click worth something, I guess the scoop is more important than good relations with the industry.
In a world where every click worth something, I guess the scoop is more important than good relations with the industry.
Stinkles already said more than I was going to say, but I'll just add a bit, speaking for myself here -
Leaks typically deny any and all context and framing from happening around a product reveal. Sometimes, that context is very important so customers understand the vision / idea behind the product. This is when teams feel it the most - when there's no context around a leaked piece, because it's not the full picture, and the interpretations of it go every which way other than the way you wanted to talk about it; the term "narrative" is frequently used because a reveal should be a story, and no one really wants the ending (or just the middle sometimes) first.
Leaks typically deny any and all context and framing from happening around a product reveal. Sometimes, that context is very important so customers understand the vision / idea behind the product. This is when teams feel it the most - when there's no context around a leaked piece, because it's not the full picture, and the interpretations of it go every which way other than the way you wanted to talk about it; the term "narrative" is frequently used because a reveal should be a story, and no one really wants the ending (or just the middle sometimes) first.
I'm not a game developer but I do work for a video game company and these leaks have negatively impacted employee morale especially in our Customer Service and other non development departments as the company has drastically reduced the amount of information shared about games in development.
Im not on the money teams so its hard to give you a detailed answer, plus, you know, cant spill the beans on this kind of stuff for all the common sense reasons.
Leaks alter spending, which alter forecasts, which alter funding (bonuses, hiring, marketing, etc) Companies like EA rely on forecasts in order to fund projects and get things done in a timely manner.
Happy to see other developers tearing apart this video games/movies comparison. From my experience and in terms of chaos and complexity, doing a video game has been closer to developing a space program rather then doing a film (with all due respect to the movie industry, I'm not saying that doing a movie is easy). You don't want your game being revealed before you have a rock-solid idea of where you're going, and a strong release plan.
Then I would say it depends on the nature of the leak. If the title of your game leaks a couple of days before the official reveal date then I guess it's ok-ish? If it's your announcement trailer/key art that is leaked then it can be very bad (because of lack of context, because the asset is not final, because of poor viewing quality from the leaked source...), and for games being leaked months before their planned announcement then it can be a disaster.
Then I would say it depends on the nature of the leak. If the title of your game leaks a couple of days before the official reveal date then I guess it's ok-ish? If it's your announcement trailer/key art that is leaked then it can be very bad (because of lack of context, because the asset is not final, because of poor viewing quality from the leaked source...), and for games being leaked months before their planned announcement then it can be a disaster.
I think the main difference between video games and movies is that most people have a rough idea of how movies are made but not video games.
If you see Mark Ruffalo in the motion capture suit for Hulk, you do not say "What a shit", instead people seeing ugly pre-alphas and terrible framerate already condemn the game.
If you see Mark Ruffalo in the motion capture suit for Hulk, you do not say "What a shit", instead people seeing ugly pre-alphas and terrible framerate already condemn the game.
I can only speak from Capcom's perspective, but it certainly would be deflating for our dev folks who have worked years on it before reveal, and it would impact our marketing plan to some degree.
Leaks for smaller titles such as port projects that tend to leak via ratings agency are relatively benign as we can't always control it. We expect some of it to happen.
But leaks for major titles that are bound for reveal during a first party press conference would really sting. For any press conference material, we bring our A game with real gameplay footage and cutscenes and want it to be a genuine surprise for everyone.
I'm sure many folks here understand, but there's lots of coordination that happen behind the scenes between the dev team, marketing, sales, PR, social, and last but not the least, first party.
From conceptualizing and storyboarding the trailer suitable for the show to coordinating specific announcement times and delivering assets so they also show up on first party channels right after announcement. Things of that sort that require months of planning, communication and coordination amongst stakeholders. ...and it leaks out of the blue. It just poo-poo's everyone's hard work who have been preparing for the reveal.
Capcom, for the most part, have been fortunate. Looking back at RE7, MHW, RE2, and DMC5 in recent memory, most of them got through relatively unscathed with just a couple that leaked hours before the official reveal.
At the end of the day, E3 is a 'show' in and of itself — an annual spectacle of showmanship and an opportunity to excite and delight fans and the media.
We get it. Leaks are fun and exciting as it stokes fire and drives conversation before the official reveal. It's just that early leaks deflate some of that excitement and eliminates the element of surprise.
Leaks for smaller titles such as port projects that tend to leak via ratings agency are relatively benign as we can't always control it. We expect some of it to happen.
But leaks for major titles that are bound for reveal during a first party press conference would really sting. For any press conference material, we bring our A game with real gameplay footage and cutscenes and want it to be a genuine surprise for everyone.
I'm sure many folks here understand, but there's lots of coordination that happen behind the scenes between the dev team, marketing, sales, PR, social, and last but not the least, first party.
From conceptualizing and storyboarding the trailer suitable for the show to coordinating specific announcement times and delivering assets so they also show up on first party channels right after announcement. Things of that sort that require months of planning, communication and coordination amongst stakeholders. ...and it leaks out of the blue. It just poo-poo's everyone's hard work who have been preparing for the reveal.
Capcom, for the most part, have been fortunate. Looking back at RE7, MHW, RE2, and DMC5 in recent memory, most of them got through relatively unscathed with just a couple that leaked hours before the official reveal.
At the end of the day, E3 is a 'show' in and of itself — an annual spectacle of showmanship and an opportunity to excite and delight fans and the media.
We get it. Leaks are fun and exciting as it stokes fire and drives conversation before the official reveal. It's just that early leaks deflate some of that excitement and eliminates the element of surprise.
I definitely don't think game footage and features should be shared until it's going to be accurate if what consumers will get.
But, releasing a project name, VA's involved, other high profile people involved and general information shouldn't be an issue. Showing pictures of people in mocap doing something isn't going to destroy the creditability of your game. There's lots that can be shared over the years of development that would be fine.
Kojima showed something every year of his games development. He also tweeted out random crap whenever he felt like it. Some might complain it was confusing or it's nothing, but I enjoyed the yearly updates.
One more thing I think that should be said is when leaks happen, then E3 presentations turn into "Man, we already knew about that and they didn't announce anything that we didn't know about." If those games hadn't leaked, then it WOULD be things no one had heard about. I don't know how many times I've seen this very thing happen after some Direct or E3 presentation happens and a lot of the games had leaked already so there wasn't a "surprise". On the dev side, this really sucks.
Another big difference is that the calendars of the films except disasters are usually quite strict, videogame developments are much more chaotic. That is problematic not only for the public but for the shareholders.
Those who defend leaks maybe don't understand how much this industry lives off of hype. Is it healthy? Maybe not, but that is the state we are in and people's jobs are dependent on it.
"Leaks/Teases" increase hype. Showing a full product (like a trailer) not in the situation that it was envisioned to be showed must of the time just damages a product.
"Leaks/Teases" increase hype. Showing a full product (like a trailer) not in the situation that it was envisioned to be showed must of the time just damages a product.
Last edited:
I am not surprised that people want to know about things early. I am surprised that (people claiming to be) devs state that there are no downsides at all to announcing games as early as possible.
OP
OP
Are there devs that do this? Seems like all the devs have a lengthy caveat what ever their answer is.
It's simply not anyone's to reveal but the studio's/publisher's. The game and its reveal are not yours, it's in the hands of the people working to show it to the world in the way they want to. Leaks are damaging to trust (internal and the trust you have in partners) and helps perpetuate the culture of secrecy within game dev, because it is needed to avoid any little thing leaking as soon as you start working on it or talking about it.
When leaks happen, the leaker is basically stealing the moment of showing all the work and passion the studio has put into something to draw attention to themselves. Often times a LOT of people's passion go into the work being done leading up to a reveal, and having it leak is a huge deflator. That leakers think they are entitled to leak, or that the people on the receiving end think they are entitled to information, is disheartening.
When leaks happen, the leaker is basically stealing the moment of showing all the work and passion the studio has put into something to draw attention to themselves. Often times a LOT of people's passion go into the work being done leading up to a reveal, and having it leak is a huge deflator. That leakers think they are entitled to leak, or that the people on the receiving end think they are entitled to information, is disheartening.
Trying to figure out where leaks come from is incredibly depressing - and I don't just mean leaks of our stuff - I mean industry wide. You have to first look at all the leaky or weak spots - external vendors, agencies, delivery services, you name it. Test in our case is mostly internal so unless there's external flighting going on, we wouldn't really consider any specific discipline as more likely than any other- and bluntly some of the beta/flighting/test software is more traceable than obvious or simple stuff - like a security guard at a rehearsal for example. Doesn't have to be leet haxorz or even people connected directly with a project.
The morale impact in the wake of a leak is horrible no matter what - being suspicious with good reason and having to investigate or track down the source is toxic for everyone involved - and there's another thing that always makes me mad when I think about leaker behavior - the leaker is creating that air of suspicion for all of his or her colleagues - and risking the livelihoods and happiness and stress levels and output of everyone they work with whether it be inside the development studio or at a bike courier service that happened to pick up a rough cut. And for what? I think it's dangerous to try and empathize with reasons people do bad stuff. But you can't help but wonder. A moment of anonymous fame? Or bragging on a subforum?
It's not whistleblowing. If you knew the government was poisoning citizens with faulty infrastructure, or illegally spying on people, or saving money by ignoring basic safety protocols, then "leaking" is a moral and ethically defensible thing. But risking the jobs and income of your colleagues to show people a new power up in a game? Or the return of a boss monster? Forget about what it does for you - think about what it puts at risk weighed against the public "good" of it.
Sure, if you're walking down a Chicago street and see thm filming a Batman sequel through a fence - or a new Corvette in test mule camo driving on the freeway that's their poor securing of what's happening and a calculated risk -- and you have no obligation to those folks. Personally I'd show my friends a cellphone pic and I wouldn't share it - but not talking about that kind of scenario. I'm talking about deliberately going out of your way to steal information or material you know you're obliged not to - ether ethically or legally - and sharing it broadly with no benefit to anyone except your ego or your "rep" - again, silly to try and consider what other people are motivated by - it's often just "I could do it and I didn't care" rather than some evil scheme, but the harm is real and can be permanent.
This is a dumb post, game journalist are nothing but bottom feeders all in a rush to get that clicks. They love leak as that's how stay in business but when it comes to the actually problematic issues at hands oh say "THQ Nortic" getting away scots free from hosting their AMA on an alt-right, lover of child porn website. They're like shoulder shug and just move on.
Game journalist are not obligated to have news presented on their terms and in this current day and age, aren't really needed anymore as the gaming company can just present the information themselves.
Sure maybe once in a blue moon gaming journalist are a great outlet when it comes to reporting terrible working condition but other than that, I just feel that they serve no purpose.
It did affect the development team.
Plus there was the whole backlash against Pokémon Ultra Sun and Moon being released on the 3DS as the Eurogamer false leak mislead people into thinking that there would be a Switch port.
Leaks are very damaging and gaming journalist are fooling themselves into thinking that they aren't and should not be spreading the false narrative that it's okay as it's a way to fight the establishment, knowing full well how anti corporate their Gamer readers are.
Please read this post: https://www.resetera.com/threads/j-...er-clarification.121718/page-39#post-21580724
My goodness. The number of willful misinterpretations of what I said here, as if I haven't written mountains of text about how I don't share everything I hear in large part out of empathy for developers who are caused real harm by these things.
My goodness. The number of willful misinterpretations of what I said here, as if I haven't written mountains of text about how I don't share everything I hear in large part out of empathy for developers who are caused real harm by these things.
Vague leaks about a project being worked on or is going to be announced don't really bother me. Leaks on specifics do (characters, features, story, mechanics, etc), we work hard for years on this stuff and usually have plans on how to give the best first impressions and present fans with nice surprises.
It's a shame when big fans don't get the planned reveals, but luckily people following leaks are a pretty small percentage of overall customers.
It's a shame when big fans don't get the planned reveals, but luckily people following leaks are a pretty small percentage of overall customers.
"Willful misinterpretations". Ok. Sorry Jason but this doesn't really wash with your original tweet which was a bit inflammatory what with the manipulative corporations rhetoric. I'd argue you didn't clearly explain your position the first go around hence your back and forth with Cory and all the other devs that chimed in on that tweet chain disagreeing with you, and the glut of responses you're seeing on Era.
When there's that much "willful misinterpretation" going on, perhaps the communication issue is on your end :)
It seems like these misunderstandings could more easily be prevented in the future if you take the time to flesh out your stance more at the outset. Twitter of course isn't the best platform for this to begin with. If only there was a site you had access to that reached a bunch of readers where you could go into more detail on the topic...hmm. Anywho, Enjoy E3!
Last edited:
There's a few different ways it can cost money, but it's mostly indirect. So it's not that money is being deducted from your bank account, but that there's a noticeable hit on your ROI, usually by comparing actual performance to projections, or by looking at the lost productivity or time spent in reaction to the leak.
- The most obvious is that modern marketing is a semi-scientific endeavor, in that there's established best practices reliant on a wealth of institutional knowledge. Campaigns are carried out to maximize efficiency and return on investment. Deviating from the plan that you've determined will give you maximum ROI will inevitably lead to lower ROI, and thus you've effectively lost money.
- For leaks of internal or WIP assets--public-facing media receives a lot of scrutiny before it goes live because you want your product to be viewed in its best light. A lot of work goes into crafting assets, especially if it involves gameplay capture. When incomplete work gets leaked, all of that dressing goes to waste.
- It screws with internal tracking of KPIs and ROI. Things like trailers are released on official YT channels so that the marketing teams can gauge performance. If it's competing for impressions with a bevy of leaks, it's much more difficult for them to see if they did their job right.
- Big news (like reveals or feature debuts) are often tied to exclusivity (e.g. with a news outlet or platform); there's a lot of planning and communication that goes into these deals. Leaks not only threaten the deal, but threaten your relationship with those parties.
- Certain types of games are hit harder than others. Check out the brilliant marketing machine of every Kojima game. Marketing and reveals done right are beneficial for both players and devs/pubs. Yes, it's "manufactured hype" and "corporate", but it can still be fun.
- There's a human cost which others have covered. Lost morale and lost productivity impose a cost on operations.
Such an amazing wealth of great information here from peers. Sucks that I bet a lot of this will likely get ignored or glossed over because people just refuse to understand the other side.
I feel sorry for others, not myself.
Any creative endeavors are fulfilling to me, whether they're leaked/spoiled, or not.
As long as people are happy and enjoy the games, then I'm happy too. Isn't that the point, anyways? <3
Any creative endeavors are fulfilling to me, whether they're leaked/spoiled, or not.
As long as people are happy and enjoy the games, then I'm happy too. Isn't that the point, anyways? <3
Im extremely gratefull that we have the chance to read what devs have to say about all this. I hope everyone can learn from this.
There are always NDA's. every person that visits our office has to sign an NDA
I wanted to be a game developer since I was 7. Unfortunately, I wasn't good at coding and I don't have good social skills. I m happy to see all the game developers in this thread and I draw a lot of inspiration from the work they do and the words they post. It must be difficult to have the project they worked so hard on leaked. So I believe as an outsider I would feel frustrated if the game I worked so hard on get leaked. I hope all the game developers in this thread realize that even though your games get leaked, it is just a video or textual data and their true artwork is realized to all the gamers that spend $60 to buy their game and enjoy it.
Im clearly referring to anyone who comes into contact with any info secondhand.
They have no obligation to stay silent.
I wanted to post just to say thanks to all the devs who have replied to this thread. It's really great to be able to get another perspective on this straight from the horse's mouth. Threads like this are why I come here, tbh.
I am just surprised everything doesn't leak every single time.
Name me another industry where 100s of people across different locations work on a single project for years without leaks that isn't some military or government shit.
It's a miracle anything in the AAA space ever gets revealed without stuff getting out.
Name me another industry where 100s of people across different locations work on a single project for years without leaks that isn't some military or government shit.
It's a miracle anything in the AAA space ever gets revealed without stuff getting out.
I haven't read the whole thread so if this has been brought up multiple times, I'm sorry-
I'm not a professional dev (I dabble when I have time), but I research games and gaming culture, and there was something said earlier that I thought relevant:
I wanted to raise this point because, as a researcher, it's really difficult to get access sometimes. Companies are so secretive. And a dev posted a twitter thread (Schreier even covered it) about why this is, and this above? That's part of it. If early footage leaks, or a game isn't presented properly... things can get really bad. And I've seen it. Honestly, the abuse I've seen devs take on social media over bugs, delays, or even unannounced dates can get extreme, so a game that people think fails or is disappointing? I can imagine wanting to avoid that. So it's fraught.
Add onto that some of the things that have been reported here, like problems between devs and publishers, and leaks can really be a problem, depending on when and how they happen. Personally, I don't think this is how I would have felt about it before I know some of the things I know now; I would have also figured it wasn't really a big deal, and I really wish it wasn't the case, because I feel like it shouldn't really be a big deal. I'm happy to learn about games whenever and however. But things can really escalate.
I'm not a professional dev (I dabble when I have time), but I research games and gaming culture, and there was something said earlier that I thought relevant:
I wanted to raise this point because, as a researcher, it's really difficult to get access sometimes. Companies are so secretive. And a dev posted a twitter thread (Schreier even covered it) about why this is, and this above? That's part of it. If early footage leaks, or a game isn't presented properly... things can get really bad. And I've seen it. Honestly, the abuse I've seen devs take on social media over bugs, delays, or even unannounced dates can get extreme, so a game that people think fails or is disappointing? I can imagine wanting to avoid that. So it's fraught.
Add onto that some of the things that have been reported here, like problems between devs and publishers, and leaks can really be a problem, depending on when and how they happen. Personally, I don't think this is how I would have felt about it before I know some of the things I know now; I would have also figured it wasn't really a big deal, and I really wish it wasn't the case, because I feel like it shouldn't really be a big deal. I'm happy to learn about games whenever and however. But things can really escalate.
Replying to this but also to everyone else who has discussed the issue - this has been one of the most interesting threads I've read on the forum. Really useful and informative responses from lots of people that have made me think a bit more about the effort and care that goes into the games I play. Thanks to all!
Kind of a side note, but the reveal can change everything about how a game is perceived. I made this mistake with my own game thinking that people would understand that it was in an extremely early state and the quality and look of it would change as development went on. Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case. If I showed my game now, I think the response would be much better, however the damage has been done and I doubt I'll ever be able to make my game more widely known since the first reveal of it was so terrible. It's a lesson learned, of course, and I'll take that into our next project. So having a game leaked without context really can mar the overall product as it can cause players to write the game off before it ever really got anywhere. It's an uphill fight after that. Not saying things can't turn around, but that's not a guarantee and there a chance the game won't recover from that initial bad look.
This sounds like a reason to have more leaks, or frankly, more information early so gamers can be reeducated to actually see how game development works. Outside of a small minority, when somebody sees somebody looking silly in a leaked set from a superhero or other CG involved movie, the vast amount of people realize it won't look that silly in the finished movie.
I have sympathy for devs who get upset their games get leaked, but in my view, the issue is the whole culture around the gaming industry, that doesn't want any information put out there ever, unless it's perfectly packaged, in a press release. If gamers can get used to an industry where announced games get cancelled, retooled, or whatever, maybe there won't be such overreaction to when games do get cancelled or changed from their initial announcement.
That is the other side of what I posted above, and it's part of why I have been working on several ongoing projects about ways to research game development that don't create these troubling situations. But I think it's difficult in the current state to make the first steps that allow this kind of thing.
And sometimes it's even just early decisions that set off crowds, and we see that in movies and things too, like with casting. I think JS isn't wrong to hit the investment angle on fans here, because people get so wildly invested and upset... and it makes it hard to fix.
Sure, but even with freakouts to announcements in movies, if the actual end product is good, people are OK with it - exhibit A is Heath Ledger as The Joker. I think people actually overreact to what are in the grand scheme of things, small scale freakouts that 98% of your possible audience never know about.
Yes, if the actual end product is bad (ie. Ben Affleck as Batman in the BvS and JL movies), you'll face continued backlash, but Fallout 76 also wouldn't have gotten the same backlash if it was announced three years ago or whenever they first started working on it.
For instance, is anybody less excited that Bethseda said, "yeah, we're working on Elder Scrolls VI" at E3 last year?