Valve Rushed To Hospital By Gamers After Their New Game Is Reported On
It's Another 9/11 for Corporate Bootlickers
Yesterday, The Verge, an outlet that has a pretty website and very good writers, reported on Valve’s new hero shooter - Deadlock. You might have never heard of the game, and for good reason: It’s still in early development, and Valve has yet to formally announce it.
But oh my mother fucking jesus christ god, people are not happy that a news publication who pays journalists to report on newsworthy things is reporting on newsworthy things. The is corporate bootlicker’s personal 9/11 to see. Why? Because gamers look at studios and publishers as if they are people, deserving baby level handling. And they also look at journalists as some mythical construct that should only exist to report on the most egregious of transgressions.
For many, the idea that you could simply report on a video game when a menu screen politely told you to not do it is a violation of the natural world. One Twitter user took us through what seems to be the common mental gymnastics routine at play here. “You agree to the NDA by playing the early build,” said TheApexHound. But when told that there was in fact no NDA, they responded with “It's not technically an NDA but it's pretty obviously intended that way.”
When we really reduce this problem to the thick and savoury sauce it is, what we come out with is a pot full of folks who operate and succeed in a world driven by corporate commands to keep quiet to receive payment. This culture perpetuates secrecy about games that you would not find in other entertainment industries. It is almost unheard of for a film to never be spoken about until 6 months prior to its release. We hear about projects being greenlit all the time, and yet the gaming industry seems to think that we are in the middle of World War 2 and that another Pearl Harbor is on their doorstep should any video game under development be talked about outside the confines of the office.
This same situation happened last year in Decemeber when Insomniac Games was hacked and terabytes of internal data, documents, reports, presentations, and more were all leaked onto the internet. Developers, content creators, and gamers all rushed to condemn any reporting on the contents of the data breach. Why?
Because the data was obtained illegally. We’ve seen this same line of thinking from more popular cases like the Pentagon Papers, the Snowden Leaks, the Panama and Pandora Papers, etc. Many people who stand to benefit from maintaining secrecy call into question the ethics of journalists who report on information that was stolen. Shouldn’t information that is deemed a public interest be properly sourced? Aka you shouldn’t report on something if the info was stolen?
I would argue semantics here - any reporting on a game whose source wasn’t the unintentional disclosure of information, is using “stolen” data. Sources leaking a new game to a journalist is them intentionally disclosing info without authorization. The Insomniac Leak is a data breach where hackers are intentionally disclosing info with authorization.
Here’s the thing - we can debate ethics and morals of people who disclose info all day, and we can say for the sake of argument that they did something “wrong.”1 But to then say to the person whose job it is to look at info, determine if its in the public interest, and then report on it is unethical is insanity. It’s like telling someone they’re immoral for saying they witnessed a murder. The logic makes no fucking sense. “You can’t talk about it because the guy who told you wasn’t supposed to tell you!” sounds like not my problem!
And that brings us right back to The Verge, who are essentially in hot water with some folks because they didn’t abide by the legally binding contract of a fucking in-game prompt. Golly gee-wiz Doc, what’s going to happen to Valve now that The Verge has reported on this?
Nothing.
The story about Deadlock will negatively impact Valve by approximately 0%. Reporting of this nature always has a flash in the pan effect of whipping people’s hot takes up about how disclosing the existence of something is going make people feed bad, as if video games are a fucking suprise party that just got ruined. We always see posts about how it feels bad the thing you’re working on just got revealed, and my response is always - ok? Feel your feelings babe, it ain’t gonna matter in 6 months.
And look, I get it. You’re bummed. But journalists aren’t the ones perpetuating the secrecy. They aren’t the ones who build up every project to be god’s greatest gift to gamers that needs to be kept from prying eyes at all costs. The people who stand to gain the most from all the secrecy at play are the same people who show you their car collection and then fire you the next day.
A 2001 decision by the Supreme Court in the case of Bartnicki v. Vopper determined a radio station (and by extension journalists) was not liable for broadcasting a tape because the station itself had not done anything illegal to get the tape. Just a little fun fact for my lovely readers <3
cousin greg voice: but i said "off the record"