The 2022 game leaks and its relevance in the industry

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Leaks in the video game community have been common since many years ago. Usually, many leaks go unnoticed by a large part of players, but some usually have so much relevance that they become popular.

A leak is also easily credible when it is popular because numerous readers do not investigate and confirm how reliable the information they are reading is. It is easy for many users to speculate and invent leaks about a franchise they like, but when it comes down to it, there are very few users who give reliable information.

The most common leaks that we can find in the community are focused on well-known franchises and titles popular at the time. The possible leaks that we can see can be about the technical specifications of a title that is soon to be released or exclusive footage of the game long before its release. A great example we can all remember is the big leak suffered by Rockstar Games with the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6.

What other significant leaks happened last year?

Another leak that was considered important was that of the Marvel's Midnight Suns in which there were leaked images and soon deleted by Take-Two Interactive for copyright issues, confirming that the leaked footage was part of the game.

Another one of the biggest leaks in 2022 came from the social accounts of players from the Los Angeles Rams, a football team from the National Football League (NFL), when player Cameron Dicker leaked several images of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer.

Earlier we mentioned that some leaks end up being a lie, either by mere speculation without any basis or real sources or because it could be a "leak" created with elements made by the same person. Is not known for sure what the motive or source of this fake news is, but sometimes they manage to become popular as the leaks shown above.

One of these was the Lady Gaga concert in Fortnite that was announced at the end of August, since several months later there has been no indication that this will happen, but there may still be the possibility that it will happen sometime in 2023 and surprise us all.

Okay, it is Lady Gaga.... 👀 https://t.co/NlAgIN1rx6 pic.twitter.com/BgujrcszfC

— Max - Fortnite Leaks & Info (@FNLeaksAndInfo) August 30, 2022

2022 and The Snitch

During 2022 one figure was giving great exclusive leaks of many of the big franchises recognized throughout the gaming community, and it was The Snitch. We say "was" because he recently announced that he "retired" from leaking.

He was part of the Insider Gaming webpage in which he sometimes revealed information in news article format, but in much of 2022 when he began to reveal information he did it cryptically and with riddles on his Twitter account. We could evidence numerous leaks from titles like Final Fantasy XVI, Stalker 2 and Monster Hunter Rise. And to give you a better idea about his posts on Twitter, below you'll see the Need for Speed Unbound leak and then a Final Fantasy XVI riddle.

Guys. You are all so fas guessing... 🤔

`VW5ib3VuZA`

— Elesnicho (@elesnicho) September 29, 2022

Is there another "Snitch" currently?

Currently, several data miners around the world tend to focus on obtaining information about a specific game. Although it is unlikely to find another person who leaks like The Snitch, there may be some within the community that we have not met yet.

But there is one data miner who has caught the attention of some users for his accuracy in leaking game information. French data miner billbil-kun was the leaking Epic Games Mystery games in December, and since that event, he has gained some recognition. It is still leaking information from time to time and so far has shown no flaws, so we can say that it is a possible data miner that will be recognized as The Snitch during this 2023.

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Relevance in the industry and conclusions

Leaks in the video game industry can affect in different ways the development process of a game if it has not been released yet; even special unannounced content can be affected as well. The moment fans or a whole community witnesses what has been developed of an expected title, it can cause a lot of expectations that can be negative in many cases, such as the look of the main characters, the map, or the art design.

This would directly affect the developers involved in the project and their creative process would be involved. As for the negative comments, they would also make a snowball effect that would cause economic problems, so that shareholders may invest less money or that at the time of the launch of the title many people do not want to get a game that they already have an idea of the experience it will provide.

Being able to get the content of battle passes of popular games or even footage of big titles to be announced/released can be eye-catching for many fans and have the feeling that they witnessed something before everyone else, plus leaks are something common for many years and surely will not go away. The positive side is that sometimes leaks can give a title a push to be recognized if it has developed something flashy, so not everything has to be always bad.

We are also interested in knowing more about you so, what is your opinion regarding this matter? Let us know in the comments!