The Insomniac Hack Reveals The Ugly Truth Of Video Game Hype - Aftermath

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Submitted ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨stopthatgirl7@kbin.social⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

https://aftermath.site/the-insomniac-hack-reveals-the-ugly-truth-of-video-game-hype

The games journalist debate over covering the hack is a look in the mirror

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MrNesser@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Looking at an unfinished game is the equivalent of looking at an unfinished painting, your seeing the first brush strokes maybe some sketches but you have no realistic idea what the end result will be like.

Looking at leaks is a pontless waste of time

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- c10l@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  makes the “hackers” scummy
  
  Don’t get me wrong, you’re right that this is bad but I’d think the blackmailing alone would make them scummy.
  
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  - otp@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Blackmail I a company is one thing. Targetting the personal lives of employees is another level entirely.
    
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- CluckN@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Unfortunately it’s probably a strategy so the next company they steal from knows the consequences if they don’t pay up.
  
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  - MrNesser@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    More than likely. Still blame lies with the company for having personal information so readily available
    
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harry_balzac@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I try to avoid reviews for games that haven’t been released or aren’t in an open beta. I am especially suspicious in regards to embargoes that lift less than 24 hours before the game goes on sale.

Publishing peoples’ private info is bad and nobody should be encouraging others to find that info.

On the other hand, info about the games should be published. If a games journalist is willing to tow to company PR lines and withhold valuable info (to players) about games, then they should be willing to cover this. If they aren’t, then they’re just a fan with special access.

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- vexikron@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I mean, with extremely rare exceptions, basically the entire field of ‘games journalism’ is just doing advertisement for the industry they are supposed to be critical of, even the opinions and culture commentary just serve to drive what is functionally a gossip generator that makes either hype or hate for whatever particular thing is worth talking about right now, and then its forgotten entirely within 72 hours.
  
  Fucking coffeezilla played a pivotal role in convicting SBF.
  
  When has any games journalism outlet ever done a 60 minutes style actual investigative journalism about the industry? And actually exposed an issue the public was generally not aware of? When have they done anything like that instead of just reacting to someone already doing that for them on some social media site or youtube and then they just summarize it?
  
  Fuck, I am probably being a bit hyperbolic but Christ it feels like almost all gaming journalism is basically classified ads and opinion pieces.
  
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  - davidjennes@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    People Make Games has IMO been pretty good at this, but that’s a small independent team, not an outlet.
    
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  - Neato@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yep. When the industry can cut off the only way for games journalists to reliably make money (pre-release review copies) then they are totally controlled by the industry. A real journalism industry would see one company not given a copy or blacklisted and the refuse to cover their release entirely in solidarity. Otherwise none of them can be trusted.
    
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  - MudMan@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    See, I hear this a lot, and it's a bit disappointing. Because hell yeah, there is great journalism being done. If you want "investigative journalism"... I mean, why? It's videogames, not politics, but yeah, there are people out there doing that stuff (Jason Schreirer comes to mind, even if I don't particularly like the guy, but he's not alone). If you want genuine, in-depth documentaries and explorations of the process of game development then I like you more. Noclip and People Make Games come to mind, in terms of sheer production value and coming from the journalism side, but Youtube is full of in-depth looks at games from that perspective based more on documentation and less on talking to the actual devs.
    
    So maybe the question I have is why aren't those better known? Why is the hype machine still what the audience cares about? Because all of those are publicly available, and some even very popular. Why isn't it the default and why do people not actually engage with it even when they claim they do want to engage with it? Particularly when Noclip started doing what they do, it was such a common trope to say that people wanted that exact thing and nobody was doing it, and then the very, very good 2Player Productions documentary on Double Fine's Broken Age happened and it seemed like it was possible to do, so Noclip started doing it... and they're fine, they're good, they're still going, but they certainly haven't exploded in popularity or anything.
    
    Whatever, this is an old argument. At this point most gaming coverage is let's play videos and Twitch streamers. And you know what? That's fine. that's still better than the relentless hype machine. I just hope the good ones doing good work get to keep doing it as well.
    
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MudMan@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The actual article here gets to a great, very accurate conclusion: that information about unfinished, upcoming games is really not that valuable for users and an entirely artificial hype machine that insists on only paying attention to games before they exist. This is true.

There is very little genuine value in exploring a game in development, that is mostly a commercial concern. Which is fine, this is an entertainment industry. All parties here (publishers, journalists and audiences) are willingly engaging in a bit of a commercial transaction.

But journalistically and in terms of art criticism, the moment that coverage matters is after a game exists, not before. Really, leaking publishing plans or greenlit projects shouldn't be a big deal because publishing plans and business deals should be insider stuff that end users don't give a crap about. The relevant Insomniac game now is at most Spider-Man 2, not Wolverine or any later games they may or may not have deals to make. Mostly because there's no guarantee those games will ever exist or in what form.

But also, screw leaking personal info of game developers.

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Lunar@lemmy.wtf ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

People–whether that’s developers, journalists, or players and readers–will always matter more than what’s in a video game and the coffers that information fattens, whether those coffers belong to hackers or corporations. If that’s true today, it can be true tomorrow too.

I like his brand of naiveté.

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vexikron@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
To me the real story here is that the field of cybersecurity, and actually proprietary software in general is a giant fucking scam: we see hacks happening constantly to huge companies and government agencies.

The only actual known and effective way to combat this in almost every scenario you have ever heard of is to use open source software that can be reviewed by anyone, and when a flaw is found, an alert can go out and then it gets fixed.

Time and time again individuals and large organizations pay for proprietary software that claims it us secure, and often either have cybersecurity ‘experts’ on staff, or consult with a cybersec firm.

And the hacks just keep happening.

Accountability for this is no where. Not in any real, effective sense.

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- misanthropy@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’m too lazy to look into this specific one, but basically all “hacks” these days start with social engineering
  
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  - vexikron@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yes, which can be avoided with the basic cybersecurity standard of teaching your employees how to not fall for that.
    
    Literally not much more complicated than ‘dont give anyone your work login and password, If you think something is suspicious, report it to security and never, ever, EVER connect any of your work hardware or accounts to your personal hardware or accounts’.
    
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- 5200@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Partially. Too much of the software and defenses require the user to act in a specific way to complete the defenses. And humans are not rational beings. This gives attackers ways to circumvent the security measures. This in addition to cybersecurity too often being an afterthought.
  
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  - vexikron@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yes, which is why I said ‘and also get employees to follow basic cybersecurity practices.’
    
    If the problem is either company culture or human nature is in the way of implementing cybersecurity properly, and I can assure you that this is true, having managed cybersecurity policies at a large non profit for over a year…
    
    …then the field of cybersecurity should actually be figuring out how to successfully mitigate or solve this issue, they should be focusing on far more than just esoteric techno buzzwords in their marketing, and you know, actually be capable of delivering ‘security’, the thing they claim to sell.
    
    If that means pivoting to things like the imoportance of training employees, developing a security conscious company culture, holding seminars to convince execs and middle management to not have cybersecurity as an afterthought as well as what it actually takes to actually be secure… then the field of cybersecurity should do that.
    
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FoundTheVegan@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It's either journalism, in which you talk about news that comes up. Or it's being a freelance PR for publishers saying what they want, when they want in order to keep in the embargo ecosystem. Game """news""" sites like IGN aren't, never have and never wkll be actual journalistisc outleets, their hype machine.

If the Pentagon papers can be published, then so can a game companies production schedule. 😂

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