Like many people, the first thought I saw Grand Theft Auto 6 Leaks are “fuck”.The second is a flashback of the protocol that happens when I have a leak or security breach (no matter how minor) in the development side of the industry: usually, angry men storm a room and ask anyone not to touch anything. what are the three ideas rock star, the king of image control and information flow, is now available. I’m reminded of that sequence in “Bourne Identity” where an embattled CIA station chief asks the agency to “get everyone up.” In this case, everyone is a bunch of assassins with cool names and even colder intentions.
As far as I can tell, Matt Damon wasn’t involved, and Rockstar’s upper echelons didn’t send Clive Owen into a heated philosophical conversation with the person responsible for the leak, as it might have hoped. However, it works with the FBI, so maybe I’m not far off. Either way, the response will be swift and all-encompassing, like the closest thing I can think of to this, the Half-Life 2 leak. (We all know what happened there.)
The reason for this reaction is obvious. There is a huge financial factor at play here. Security concerns about source code and other exposures are likely to derail the entire project. Then there’s reputation damage, which has already happened. Seconds after the leak, the internet was flooded with people disappointed by how it looked. It looks like shit. It would be a huge disappointment if that was what it was like, and, just quietly, what have the (lazy?) developers been doing?
These are some of the clearer points: at least the words make sense in order. Others seem to just be rushed into the universe without thinking about sanity or sanity, contrary to their reality. So what is reality? Mainly, I’m amazed that any video game releases, and if you could see what all your favorite games look like three months before release, you’d insist that some sort of arcane magic has been performed to get them done.
I know this because since 2007 I have worked directly as a writer on the games themselves, high-profile or visible franchises/brands (including Battlefield, Harry Potter, Burnout, Half-Life, Total War, etc. )work.In that role, I saw them in pre-release, mostly when a very nervous PR guy begged you to remember It’s not done yet. As part of my current role, I advise and consult on the mechanics and patterns of high profile releases. No matter what I’ve worked in this industry for 15 years, one thing has stayed the same: making games is hard, and it either ends up all coming together or it doesn’t. The gap between success and failure, especially for the so-called AAA grades, is almost minuscule.
For example, in a wildly popular shooter you’ve probably played, these guns didn’t work until about two months before release. gun. In another shooter, the weapon didn’t have a crosshair until it was very deeply developed, so team members had to stick a little blue light in the middle of the screen to aim the gun. I should add that this is a port of a game that has been out for years.
In an admirably ambitious and utterly overextended open-world racing game, people were desperate for a sequel (I’ll never play it again), even letting it go just a few months before its E3 playable demo. Getting it working – which in itself caused many, many crashes – was a challenge. Especially on PS3, it was like trying to program advanced graphics onto kazoo. Eventually, when a teammate and I broke the E3 demo, which caused the entire PS3 itself to go into a state of tension, a wail of pain would make Michael Corleone blush.
There are many more such stories. Once, I got a Battlefield promotion a few months after the release of an ambitious turn-based strategy game, and when I was working the night shift (people were on 24/7 trying to determine a release date), my boss said ‘you ‘ has been promoted. I quit my job and just walked out of the office.
Why: The much-vaunted naval battle, the key selling point, simply doesn’t work. Every morning, at the end of my shift, I have to write a handoff report (to the incoming test team as well as the development and production teams), tell them as slickly as possible, and yes, we’re sorry to inform you that it’s still completely screwed up.
guess what? Each of these games came out with more or less little resemblance to what they were a few weeks ago. (Some games, especially sports games of the year, change dramatically even between the review phase and release.) Some of them scored very well, most of them you’ve played or heard of, and at least one of them was on review day Caused real problems. In August, a major magazine gave the game an 8. One of the developers of the project said “I’ll give it a 10”. Someone replied, “That’s why the people who make the games don’t censor them.” Cue the battle music in the saloon bar.
Fortunately, it calmed down before getting out of control. But this emotional response isn’t necessarily unexpected either, it’s another part of a GTA 6 (or any game, really) leak that could have dramatic and unseen consequences: these things aren’t made by bots, they’re made by Made by a group of people whose motives are varied, but their commitments and sacrifices are usually not.
It’s exhausting to spend years working on these things, especially when it doesn’t look like it’s making any progress to the outside world (even some bean counters in the production office).
So I guess 90 or so videos are going to be a blast — especially when people who don’t know anything about it start to support it. (An example of how online opinion can change in seconds: The top-secret E3 trailer for a game I was following was live at the show and didn’t leak. It had a long intro, and everyone in the chat was saying ‘What the fuck is this lol.’ The place melted when it was revealed. It was a good line.)
Thankfully, there’s a lot of resistance on social media, with many game developers — big and small — showing what Metacritic’s darlings look like in development. I don’t know if that’s enough for the Rockstar team. However, in my own opinion, what I’ve seen looks very, very suitable for its place in the development cycle.
With that in mind, imagine what it would look like when it was released in 2148.
