I miss the element of surprise in the gaming industry. Leaks are partly to blame

Think about it: when was the last time the gaming industry really surprised you? I’m talking about really big things that nobody saw coming. Spontaneously, looking back at the past few years, I can’t really think of much that makes me a little sad. For me, one of the reasons for this is all the leaks, which have increased continuously in recent years.

It feels like a new leaker crawls out of a hole every year, providing us with secret details about upcoming projects, announcements, shows, updates and whatever. Don’t get me wrong, when it comes to lousy working conditions, discrimination, harassment and similar cases, I am absolutely in favor of such incidents coming to light in the public eye. But do we really have to know every game in detail before it was even announced?

Let’s take as an example the remake of The Last of Us, which was presented at the end of the Summer Game Fest. Well, Sony is not entirely innocent, as they leaked the final confirmation themselves not long before the event. Happens to companies here and there, nobody is perfect. However, there were already the first concrete rumors of a remake from reliable sources at the beginning of 2021. The announcement of the new edition of this enormously popular game is degenerating more into the expected standard program instead of offering an aha effect at the end. It was similar with the remake of Resident Evil 4 at the State of Play. Basically, we’ve been waiting for Capcom to make it official for months. I noticed it while looking, done.

Admittedly, we find ourselves in an ambivalent situation. On the one hand, it probably annoys me not only for the reasons mentioned. On the other hand, we cannot afford not to report on it. They are things to be read. And if we refrain from reporting these things on our own, we will only cut ourselves in the foot because the reports will then be clicked on on other sites and not on ours. That’s how the internet business works.

At the same time, another factor to note is that 2022 is simply not an outstanding year in which many big announcements can still be expected. Basically, we know what’s coming this year and what’s not. Everything that is now newly announced is likely to be even further away, with a few exceptions. In this respect, I found Microsoft’s approach of only showing things that are coming within the next twelve months to be quite pleasant. Speaking of the Xbox showcase, the same applies there. kojima Not a huge surprise. Minecraft as a strategy game? Hot Wheels DLC for Forza Horizon 5? knew we before.

Ultimately, all the leaks take away that kind of magic that such surprises and announcements can exude when they come at the right moment. Announcements you don’t see coming. If a show may have been good so far, but at the end there is still this one, real hit – oh, here’s one more thing! However, its effect is weakened if we already knew about it in advance and therefore only accept it with a nod. In such moments, there is more of a feeling that you have wasted your time with the live stream, because unofficially it was clear that game X and game Y would appear.

It is by no means an issue that only affects the gaming industry. There are leaks about books, series, films and so on. I don’t assume that it will be less in the future, rather more. Real surprises, such as Return to Monkey Island, which comes out of nowhere, should become increasingly rare. Too bad I miss her.