I wish it didn't take federal crimes to see video games in mid-development

The recent hack of Insomniac Games saw more than a terabyte of the developer's data illegally distributed online after it refused to pay a $2 million ransom to the Rhysida ransomware gang. The breach includes employees' personal information, meaning developers are not only experiencing the grief of having their work in progress stolen and uploaded, but also of having just been doxxed. It doesn't get any worse than that. And I wish such drastic and devastating measures hadn't been taken to get a behind-the-scenes look at AAA games in development.

In recent years, criminal intrusions into the digital bowels of some of the world's largest and most beloved video game studios have given us details about internal projects long before the studio's PR departments were ready to share official news. For example, a Capcom security breach in 2020 was how most people found out that highly anticipated games like Street fighter 6, Dragon dogma 2and a Resident Evil 4 remake were waiting in the wings.

Leaks are a controversial topic. While I don't have much sympathy for a multinational corporation's bottom line or the best drip-feed advertising plans, I completely understand why developers who create animations or environments don't necessarily want that work revealed before it's finished. Video games aren't just products for mass consumption, they're art – and I can only imagine how crushing it must feel to have your art ripped away from you and put on display before you're ready to share it.

But as someone who loves games, I've always been fascinated by how and why the things we play work the way they do. Seeing footage of Insomniac's talented team working out not only the core gameplay mechanics, but also the details of Logan's movements in gridded test environments was like Christmas morning for me. This peek behind the curtains WolverineHis development is fascinating. It should never have happened the way it did, but imagine a world where AAA developers had more opportunities to casually share work in progress with the incentive to increase public awareness of how games are made.

Actually, you don't have to imagine that you can just look at filmmaking as a perfect example.

King Kong director Peter Jackson famously produced a series of more than 50 video diaries during the filming of the 2005 remake, the first of which was published over a year before the film hit theaters. Almost ten years later he would do the same The Hobbit, with behind-the-scenes highlights from the set being uploaded directly to YouTube. The only similar project I can remember in games is Double Fine's regular updates on its progress Broken ageand those videos were only available to Kickstarter backers during development before eventually being made public after the game's release.

I follow a lot of indie and solo developers for exactly this reason: they aren't shy about sharing fun little details on the way to a full release. We kill monsters is one of my most anticipated upcoming games, but I would never have known about it if it wasn't for the creator, Jacob “Glass Revolver” Williams, in which he shared atmospheric clips of his steady progress over the past three years. In some ways, these previews themselves act as marketing, and they influence me more than showing up at some Geoff Keighley commercial extravaganza with Jordan Peele and a pre-show clip. But there could be another benefit to major studios sharing highlights full of approved development footage before games officially release: education.

Starfield was a big hit when it launched earlier this year, but frequent complaints about the concessions Bethesda made – empty worlds, an overreliance on quick travel menus to get somewhere – to achieve other ambitions clearly remained in the developer's grasp . Shortly afterwards, a Bethesda representative was found comments left pushing back on negative Steam reviews, studio design director Emil Pagliarulo criticized “how disconnected some players are from the realities of game development” in an long wire on X (formerly Twitter).

“You can't like parts of a game. You can completely hate a game,” Pagliarulo wrote a few messages later. “But don't fool yourself into thinking you know why it is the way it is (unless it has been documented and verified in some way), or how it could have been that way (good or bad). Chances are, unless you've made a game yourself, you don't know who made certain decisions, who did specific work, how many people were actually available to do that work, what challenges you encountered, or how often you had to vanquish. technology itself.”

Many employees in the video game industry want people to understand the process of making games so they can have an informed opinion about what they are playing, but at the same time, studios insist on being secretive every step of the way. What's worse is that leaks tend to level studios more mysterious, instead of less. We really only learn about game development through Noclip documentaries produced decades later, or when remorseful executives are forced to come forward and explain why a release fell short of expectations. It's partly a byproduct of the fact that a depressingly large portion of the public is made up of reactionary assholes willing to harass and mock developers. peeing aboveSure, but it's more than just that. Everyone from developers to journalists to the average Joe waiting for the next Mario game is hooked into a hype cycle driven by industry propagandists, and that doesn't help anyone. (Well, maybe investors, but I don't count them as people.)

I love video games, and my appreciation for this art form obviously extends to the people who toil in low-paying, undervalued jobs they create. We hear all the time that “making games is hard,” but the familiarity of this phrase doesn't negate the core truth: every game is a little miracle. I think if studios were willing to take a leap of faith and share how messy code and stupid solutions become a finished game, that common knowledge would lead to a greater appreciation for the art they produce. We could all use a little more education.