Leaks happen, they’re a natural part of the gaming industry. Some companies opt to take advantage of the phenomenon by intentionally leaking details of upcoming announcements to cash in on word of mouth generated hype. Other times leaks occur when companies don’t want them to. Through third parties or by people with connections to the company or its employees.
In Naughty Dog and Sony’s case, it came about because they created a hostile work environment producing a 70% turnover rate among staff that described the game as one of the worse projects they’ve ever worked on. Only to then have the executives take their bonuses early while telling the employees if they press the issue of getting their bonuses early as well they would be fired.
Some of the controversy was covered by YouTuber YellowFlash 2.
Why reflect when you can call your potential market “ists” and “phobes” for thinking a creatively bankrupt propaganda piece abusing fans attachment to prior characters is an absolute dumpster fire of an experience? Then tell the various members of the right, left, LGBT, and gay community who already said they weren’t going to buy said game to not buy the game for being so phobic and ism’ed?
Not content to stop there Sony has undertaken a campaign to attempt to scrub the internet of all mentions or even discussions about the leaks. Leaving several channels fighting copyright strikes, threatening their very livelihood.
Who knows what Sony was thinking or if they were even thinking at all. As a surprise to no one the Streisand Effect kicked in and now everyone is talking about both Sony’s abuse of Youtube’s copyright system along with the leaks the company had hoped to squash.
At a certain juncture, someone needs to ask the obvious question. Has Sony completely forgotten they are about to unveil details about their new console? Has it ever occurred to Sony’s management that harassing content creators leading up to the major unveiling of an underpowered console is probably the worse optics imaginable?
Content creators support each other and have formed communities. Communities that are watching Sony systematically go about attempting to deplatform their friends and in some cases family. Do they think these people are going to be inclined to give Sony the benefit of the doubt or good coverage if their announcement isn’t spectacular?
If the PS5 indeed has an overheating issue or performance issues do they think the content creators are going to help ease tensions with consumers? Or is it more likely they’re going to call Sony on their shoddy product, poor announcements, and anything and everything as a result of the company’s harassment of their communities?
Sony needs to ask themselves what this is going to do for their image with creators unrelated to the ongoing fiasco. Unless they are a dedicated Sony channel are streamers going to want to invite the drama and controversy into their channel or look complicit with Sony’s harassment by streaming The Last of US 2?
Are they going to be wondering if they give Sony bad coverage is the company going to give them a copyright strike as well? Leaving it best if they just not cover Sony’s news and avoid both drama and the potential risk to their channel.
In time such fears and sentiments will fade, but Sony doesn’t have the luxury of time. Either in May or June, they have a major conference planned to showcase everything about the Playstation 5, including exclusives. At the same time, Microsoft is showcasing its console. God help them if Microsoft shoots a snide joke their way about players being able to criticize them without fear.
Going into the announcement at best Sony’s name will be tainted by the events playing out now. At worst the controversy will be ongoing, so it will pervade every discussion at the time they want the focus to be on the Playstation 5. Rather than hype being focused on games, players are going to ask how many of them are going to be as heavy-handed with their politics.
The Last of Us Part 2 was going to fail regardless of whether the leaks happened or not. They removed the multiplayer, hype effectively was dead for the game, and word of mouth come launch would have tanked any sales projections the company had.
Perhaps, though, Sony doesn’t care. Perhaps rather than incompetence they simply believe the PS5 is such a guaranteed success even this controversy cannot shake consumer engagement. After all the mainstream media is, thus far, refusing to even comment on the ongoing copyright abuses. Unfortunately for Sony, the number one mover of products isn’t the media, it isn’t brand loyalty, it is word of mouth Leaving them in for a very rude awakening.
(Main image courtesy of StoneToss)
Loading comments…