Big Video Game Leaks Like 'Far Cry 6' Are Nearly Impossible To Stop (axios.com) 23
Big games beget big leaks, especially this time of year when the gaming industry's porous promotional machinery is revving up for the E3 trade show. From a report: It happened again Thursday when eight minutes of Ubisoft's upcoming "Far Cry 6" leaked online, a day before it was supposed to appear. It was deleted in minutes, but thousands still saw it. Big video game leaks are nearly impossible to stop. Companies have tried many things to tighten the pipes, including blacklisting press outlets and suing leakers. But the more prominent the upcoming game, the more people involved, and the higher the public curiosity, the more likely the leak.
"There's just too many opportunities for a mid level employee to have their laptop open on a plane in games," former Ubisoft creative director Alex Hutchinson told Axios, citing the notorious way the name of a previously-secretive mega-game leaked in 2013. (Sometimes those open laptops are on a subway.) The "Far Cry 6" incident appears to involve confusion over a coverage embargo date. The footage was posted to YouTube by Polish YouTuber Patryk "Rojson" Rojewski, who told Axios that he had been provided the clips by Ubisoft under an agreement that said they could run on May 27. Rojewski said he had not been told that Ubisoft changed the date. "I approach my work professionally," he said. Several minutes of video of another upcoming Ubisoft game, "The Division: Heartland," leaked two weeks ago.
"There's just too many opportunities for a mid level employee to have their laptop open on a plane in games," former Ubisoft creative director Alex Hutchinson told Axios, citing the notorious way the name of a previously-secretive mega-game leaked in 2013. (Sometimes those open laptops are on a subway.) The "Far Cry 6" incident appears to involve confusion over a coverage embargo date. The footage was posted to YouTube by Polish YouTuber Patryk "Rojson" Rojewski, who told Axios that he had been provided the clips by Ubisoft under an agreement that said they could run on May 27. Rojewski said he had not been told that Ubisoft changed the date. "I approach my work professionally," he said. Several minutes of video of another upcoming Ubisoft game, "The Division: Heartland," leaked two weeks ago.
Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
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The game did not "leak", since "8 minutes" is not a measurement of code size. What leaked was a video of gameplay or such. And really it's that big a deal for leaks of that sort, it just builds up the hype.
3rd party not told of an coverage embargo date cha (Score:2)
3rd party not told of an coverage embargo date change can they be sued or not paid for doing that?
Why so many secrets? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why are Triple-A games considered top secret classified black site projects anyway? What's the problem with details being leaked? Maybe we're better off fostering a culture where people get to see the progress and understand that what they're seeing probably isn't going to be the final product. This pointless insanity around total secrecy makes no sense whatsoever.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why so many secrets? (Score:4, Insightful)
Marketing departments have their own schedule with teasers, feature reveals, hiring famous youtubers, posting memes, etc. If something leaks prematurely, that messes up those plans and can reduce the impact of those events.
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Marketing departments have their own schedule with teasers, feature reveals, hiring famous youtubers, posting memes, etc. including supposed "leaks"
FTFY.
This is Far Cry *6* for crying out loud. After seeing the 5 previous Far Crys which are more or less the same game in different locations, few people except diehard fans are looking forward to it. A supposed "premature leak" draw more eyeballs than any teaser marketing can come up with.
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Planted leaks could indeed also be part of it. However, I was answering the question "What's the problem with details being leaked?" by the OP.
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Why are Triple-A games considered top secret classified black site projects anyway? What's the problem with details being leaked? Maybe we're better off fostering a culture where people get to see the progress and understand that what they're seeing probably isn't going to be the final product. This pointless insanity around total secrecy makes no sense whatsoever.
You're 100% correct, but I lack mod points at the moment, so a reply will have to do.
In some cases of physical manufacture, keeping product R&D a secret makes sense. You might not want your competitors to know you're working on a new product, for fear that they may take the idea and beat you to market. In the case of entertainment, that's meaningless. If someone finds out Stephen King is working on a new novel or Disney is planning a new Star Wars movie or the remaining living members of Pink Floyd
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Knowing that Random Video Game XVII is being worked on won't ever help another studio to beat you to market with a competing game.
If the leaked video is crappy though. Some potential customers may not wait to see the final result and could buy something else instead. Lost sale. Competing game gets the money.
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Whatever it is, it certainly isn't new technology, new gameplay ideas or innovation, hardware partnerships, artist partnerships, etc.
Imagine if they actually had something they should hide because it would take a few months to clone. Wouldn't gaming be not ha'f a step from a second Atari crash? Well, it's not. It seems that the allure of bitcoin speculation is more appealing to cash-farming dev studios then making a game with new mechanics that a single developer can achieve financial freedom with. Why
Re:Why so many secrets? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've worked at a videogame company that had an unauthorized leak for their upcoming game. It really sucked. The marketing team had a big plan for teasing the release of information through a planned campaign, then a big reveal event, and followed by a series of more detailed trailers, articles, etc. A lot of people spent a lot of time planning this out for maximum media exposure and impact among fans, and a giant spoiler-ific leak torpedoed the entire thing. It's disheartening because it's quite fun and fulfilling for us devs to see the excitement the marketing generates among fans.
Remember, these games may cost millions of dollars on the low-side, hundreds of millions on the high end. They're *massive* investments, and game companies need to do everything they can to recoup that huge investment. A big part of that is generating hype for the game for its release date, after which sales tend to drop off fairly sharply, and then hopefully a long tail. Yes, making a quality game is of primary importance, but great marketing can also be a sales multiplier. Great games don't necessarily guarantee great sales all by themselves. There's a lot of high quality competition for gamers' limited dollars and time.
This particular leak didn't seem quite as bad as the one I was involved in, where some insider leaked a ton of info before anything else was known at all. This was apparently just authorized info leaked a day early. But some leaks can be fairly damaging, even though you as a consumer might not see it directly.
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I've worked at a videogame company that had an unauthorized leak for their upcoming game. It really sucked. The marketing team had a big plan for teasing the release of information through a planned campaign, then a big reveal event, and followed by a series of more detailed trailers, articles, etc. A lot of people spent a lot of time planning this out for maximum media exposure and impact among fans, and a giant spoiler-ific leak torpedoed the entire thing. It's disheartening because it's quite fun and fulfilling for us devs to see the excitement the marketing generates among fans.
Remember, these games may cost millions of dollars on the low-side, hundreds of millions on the high end. They're *massive* investments, and game companies need to do everything they can to recoup that huge investment. A big part of that is generating hype for the game for its release date, after which sales tend to drop off fairly sharply, and then hopefully a long tail. Yes, making a quality game is of primary importance, but great marketing can also be a sales multiplier. Great games don't necessarily guarantee great sales all by themselves. There's a lot of high quality competition for gamers' limited dollars and time.
This particular leak didn't seem quite as bad as the one I was involved in, where some insider leaked a ton of info before anything else was known at all. This was apparently just authorized info leaked a day early. But some leaks can be fairly damaging, even though you as a consumer might not see it directly.
Yeah, it's only a "leak" if the video game is shite.
I suspect far more "leaks" are just deliberate releases dressed up as a leak to create a pretty much free ad campaign.
But on the budget side, that really is the problem. Games with hundreds of millions in a budget, most of it spent on marketing. You can produce a good game for US$200,000, plenty of indie studios do it on less. Few of the multi million budgeted games produce anything of note these days, Another Modern Snorefare of Battlefield: Pay to
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Doing a lot of to-the-minute planning before a release is frankly a waste of time.
If your marketing department is not tied into the community in ways that let them monitor the impact of advertising and adjust it during the course of a campaign, they are incompetent.
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Marketing is a waste of money. If you game is good, people will know. If it sucks, people will know as well. The time where that was different is long over.
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Marketing-morons are control-freaks. No other reason. They are deathly afraid people could notice their contribution is pretty worthless. So they insist in a big show and like to claim it is only their efforts that make a product a success. With the Internet, that time is long past.
Yeah (Score:3)
If you bought the leak story, call me. Iâ(TM)ve got the Brooklyn Bridge available to you for purchase at a discount price.
Suing leakers and blacklisting the press (Score:2)
Imagine lashing out over someone spoiling parts of your shitty rehashed game.
Evidence against massive conspiracies (Score:2)
Hume's riddle of induction works backwards for us here: Whenever a group of people tries to hide something but fails, we can update our estimates for whether it's possible for folks to pull off massive conspiracies.