‘GTA’ leak shows games need more transparency

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In the gaming industry, secrecy is often the rule. Great developers keep information about games in development under lock and key, sometimes even whether or not they’re working on a new title.

Still, it is common for some sensitive information to end up escaping to the public. It is rare that these leaks have the dimension of what happened in the last week with the new title of the franchise “GTA” (“Grand Theft Auto”).

On the 18th, the user “teapotuberhacker” published a post with 90 videos of the development of the next game in the series on a fan forum of the franchise, in what has been considered one of the biggest leaks in the history of the games industry.

The images that came to the public corroborate information already revealed by Bloomberg about the new game. Among them, that the title will have a couple of protagonists and will be located in Vice City, version in the universe of “GTA” of the city of Miami.

On the day, Rockstar, the game’s developer, confirmed that the images were real and the result of “illegal access” to their servers. Since then, Take-Two, which owns Rockstar, has been working hard to prevent the stolen footage from spreading.

Claiming copyright infringement, Take-Two got YouTube and other major content distributors to take down the leaked videos. In addition, according to the website Kotaku, Rockstar has restricted comments on its social media as a way to make it difficult for the images to continue circulating.

Even the FBI got into the story. The authorities’ main suspicion is that the images were obtained by a hacker group called “Lapsus$”, which would be behind other intrusions, including a digital attack on Uber. According to journalist Matthew Keysa 17-year-old teenager was arrested last Friday (23) in London on suspicion of belonging to the group and having participated in the leak.

As this is an illegal invasion, the measures taken by the authorities and the company’s attempts to contain damage seem justified. But even minor leaks, in which there were apparently no crimes, result in drastic measures on the part of the developers.

• This was the case, for example, of Crystal Dynamics, which in August filed a copyright protection lawsuit against journalist Colyn Moriarty’s podcast Sacred Symbols, after he read the script for a game in the “Tomb Raider” series in development by company and not yet released.

• At the risk of having the podcast excluded from Patreon (the crowdfunding site for which he received compensation from fans of his show), the journalist chose to delete the part of the episode in which he read the game’s script.

There are reasons – both competitive and relative to the market itself – for the industry to choose such a non-transparent approach to games in development. One of them was proved shortly after the first leaked images of the new “GTA” spread across the internet.

Some fans were frustrated with the quality of the game’s graphics (which is under development, worth mentioning) and took to social media to complain that the game was “ugly”. In response, dozens of developers posted images comparing the graphics of their games in development with the final product, demonstrating that the criticism of the next “GTA” made no sense and departed from a misconception of the stages of development of a video game.

• Among the developers who decided to show a little behind the scenes of creating a game are: Kurt Margenauco-director of “The Last of Us – Part 2” and other games in the “Uncharted” series; Paul Ehrethdesigner of “Control”; Kevin Choteaudirector of the series “A Plague Tail”; Jeph Perez, screenwriter of “Sea of ​​Thieves”; and Peter Hansencreator of “Power Wash Simulator”.

It was through transparency (and not more blocks and restrictions) that these developers helped Rockstar contain one of the negative results of the leak of the new “GTA” videos. As contradictory as it may seem, in an industry that spends a lot of time and money trying to keep everything secret, more transparency and information seem to be effective weapons against leaks.

play

game tip, new or old, for you to test

Trombone Champ

(PRAÇA)

A new social media sensation, this witty rhythmic game is capable of turning anyone into a trombone (and baboon) fan. Considered by PC Gamer magazine as a contender for game of the year, “Trombone Champ” has good humor as one of its strengths. It’s a simple, fun game that, above all, doesn’t take itself seriously, making it a great option both to play with friends or to laugh alone. It is available on Steam for R$ 28.99.

update

news, launches, business and what else matters

• Nintendo officially launched the Switch model OLED in Brazil on Monday (26). The console, whose main differential is a slightly larger and brighter screen than the traditional version, arrives in the country with a suggested price of R$ 2,699.

• Logitech has announced the launch of a handheld console to run games in the cloud. Called G Cloud, the device has an Android operating system and will be compatible with Xbox Cloud Gaming and GeForce Now, the two main cloud gaming services today. The device has a suggested retail price of US$ 350 (R$ 1,850) and should hit stores on October 17. There is no information about the release in Brazil.

• The release of the anime “Cyberpunk: Expendables” on Netflix is ​​helping the game “Cyberpunk 2077” to recover from the embarrassment at its launch. The game’s developers announced on Twitter that the game reached the milestone of 1 million active users in the last week.

• EA Sports has announced that AFC Richmond, the fictional team from the TV show “Ted Lasso”, will be present as one of the playable teams in “Fifa 23”. In addition to the team’s uniform and badge, series players such as Roy Kent, Jamie Tartt and Sam Obisanya, as well as coach Ted Lasso himself, will be present in the game.

• Electronic Arts announced the production of an Iron Man game in partnership with Marvel. The game will be developed by Motive, the studio responsible for “Star Wars Squadron” and is described by the company as an action-adventure title that will allow the player to feel in the shoes of Tony Stark.

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