Don’t see what is so important about subscribers in a situation when you are just leaking into. It’s like me saying it was ok to leak secret documents because I have a lot of followers.
To;Dr simply don’t be that ass who leaks things to the public.
Whatever happened was his own dumb fault.
Nobody says otherwise, not even he himself, but there are a lot of people that enjoy leaks and speculation. And often speculation does wonders for a game.
That, so far has been the unilateral response I’ve seen from his fans. My brain says “yes” but as far as new content being given to the fans and all that. sigh It’s almost not worth talking about. I have no idea what discord’s policies are on this case cause I don’t think anyone does. Presuming it’s a mostly benign place with leaks he’s already talked about on stream videos but people are dumping info here… does that cause issue as a distribution for sensitive data? What if one of the “fans” is the inside source. What if none of this matters and discord can shut it down for even less.
As stated, the data’s gone and… I really feel for the guy. It’s a ■■■■ call one way or the other, but for all I know it’s the least ■■■■ call out of a large number of ■■■■ calls.
Like playing TT TWD >.>
Anyway, glad polite discourse is still available on the topic. This is the kind of thing to inflame people, so one way or the other, thanks for the good chatter keks, and sorry I pinged you like 80 times up there.
Hopefully this hasn’t put you off too much. Still looking forward to theorycrafting the ■■■■ out of Amara.
that got him to 100K+ subscribers. Also those leaks probably is the cause of his downfall as well.
Some good things don’t last forever.
I’m used to much harder topics, so don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I’m as always trying to keep an open mind while not being bothered too much, especially when it comes to things that are completely out of my control. I personally will still get the game, even if it means that Take-Two profits off of me. So be it then, at least the developers from Gearbox can see the game succeed. But I won’t blame anyone that doesn’t want to support that after what seemed to have happened to SupMatto. It’s a personal decision, no more, no less.
Same lol
It’s weird. I hit a rut there where I was in debates about political issues (still dabble from time to time, but only on these off topic boards) pretty often. I didn’t do a lot of casual gaming chatter for that whole period because I only pay attention to like 3 games, and these days…
I honestly just get a little amazed at what some people are willing to get crazy about. It’s not just video games, but I see a lot of debates about it. I mention MTG above cause I’m a big commander player and it’s spoiler season is out right now - There’s a huge amount of people pissed off that they’ll be buying decks for 40 dollars that are worth 70+ and one 3 dollar card was replaced by a cheaper, marginally less efficient thing.
At this point in my life I read these threads where people talk about game devs or designers “literally pissing in the mouths of consumers because of X change” and I find myself wondering how the ■■■■ these people get by when things are actually on the line.
Obviously, this has a bit more weight than those, but it’s always pleasant to have an idea exchange where I don’t get called a shill or a fanboy. I’d also agree with your overall sentiment - personally I think there’s more than enough reason to boycott BL3 between pitchford being pitchford, EGS, and now this. Any one of those may meet your critera and I’m not judging anyone.
This is my last big gaming franchise though. If I buy the game and it turns out GBX ■■■■■■ it up, it may be the last game I pay full price for.
Just popping in to say that the calm and sensible (with a couple of exceptions) tone of this thread is appreciated.
@Arsonist just finished reading through your long post above. I don’t agree with everything but it’s a nice analysis of the situation. Just one thing though :
That’s not true. He never actually made people pay to access additional information. His Discord was mostly hype, speculation and memes.
You’re right, my mistake. Still, it’s likely going to gross over a billion at some point in it’s lifespan, just not yet.
So, as this thread has continued since yesterday, I wanted to comment about a couple things that seemed to be over-looked:
We don’t own these games. We license them to play. The IP holder ALLOWS streamer to stream their copyrighted images, youtubers to publish gameplay, cosplayers, fan art, etc, because these things are beneficial to them - free marketing. But they can shut that down at their whim. None of this falls under Fair Use, which is a misunderstood and misused term. These people aren’t using this material as instructional material in a class, they’re using it as entertainment, and often making money from it.
There are people who don’t know this and assume that because they live in a world where copyrighted material is liberally used in content creation on social media, that it must be necessarily true that those content creators have a right to the material, and they don’t. They’re only ALLOWED to do it as long as it benefits the IP holder.
But as we see here, if you make them mad, they’ll shut you down. This situation is like making a law prohibiting breathing: you allow everyone to breathe until they make you mad and then you use that law as a weapon by enforcing it selectively. Everyone publishing Borderlands content can have copyright claims thrown at them by the IP holder at any time. Your favorite streamers/youtubers could be shut down tomorrow on a whim. And the problem with this is that the IP holder absolutely controls the use of content, and by extension, any person or channel that uses their content. (although, I think in the case of the FL4K stills that were inadvertently published by the developer on a social media platform that they may have surrendered some rights to those based on their agreement with the platform in using it.)
The other thing people seem to be ignoring is that Take-Two said that there are some other aspects of this that SupMatto didn’t mention, in the context of his Discord server, for example, they claimed that he was selling access to a “secret” chat that could be accessed by a $5 payment in which he was revealing details about the game that he had not published publicly. I don’t know if this is true, but I totally wouldn’t support someone doing that, and would be OK someone shutting that down.
Take-Two is botching this with the heavy-handedness and then doubling-down on the use of heavy-handedness combined with a secretive stance on details. It’s a thing now, and they need to clearly communicate the stuff they aren’t saying. By making that video, SupMatto framed the issue for the gaming community as “I got these FL4K stills, whcih were published publicly, from the community, and merely showed them on my YT channel, and Take-Two made copyright claims to get my channel permanently banned.” And there’s clearly more to it than just this. Take-Two’s PR people got out-maneuvered by a Borderlands nerd from Jersey. They let him frame this, and failed to clearly shift the frame in their response. And it’s going to cost them money.
I started enjoying Supmatto’s videos shortly after Borderlands 3 came to light. He helped keep this rather lethargic hype train moving for me.
I don’t recall any of the information I saw being “leaked” (unless maybe it was the concept cover art - I don’t recall the source for that). There was quite a bit of showcasing things that were obfuscated but still publicly available. Certainly, none of the information I saw in his videos were worth more than a standard DMCA takedown or C&D letter.
Sending two investigators, who almost certainly had to present some threat for someone to submit to being grilled by them at any length, is a bit much. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of Supmatto’s statement was strongly suggested to him under the same threat. (I’m thinking along the lines of a “do as we say or our client will destroy your life with lawyers” kind of threat.)
First of all…i really don’t care about the guy so this might come a bit “harsh” for him?
I think that Take-Two didn’t sent those guys at his house just because.
he did what he did and he probably leaked something that he wasn’t supposed to.
to answer your question: No. it doesn’t effect the company AND it doesn’t make them profit.
This is why if you’re going to leak stuff that i, as a company, don’t want you to leak for ANY REASON you should be punished.
7 strikes maybe it’s a bit too mutch. but i don’t see why take-two, gearbox, 2k or anyone should be ashamed for what they did.
the part of his video where he said “they trespassed my property” rubbed me in the wrong way tbh.
they came to his house to talk about the game, his channel and the leaks.
they didn’t get in his house with guns or threatning him to do/say stuff.
i disagree.
it’s free PR for who? people like us that already want to buy the game?
No one that’s dubious about the game or didn’t even hear of it is going to go to his channel to see if it’s worth the money.
his channel is (or was at this point?) for people like him that likes the series.
so…no, it’s not PR in my opinion.
Disclaimer: from this point i could be saying something entirely wrong, i don’t really know how this works behind the scenes.
A video from IGN, that’s free PR. (if it’s actually free, i don’t know if IGN gets paid for reposting the trailers)
A video, a post, a forum, everything that’s not focussed entirely on the game; that’s PR.
because everyone, even people that doesn’t like Borderlands is going to see the video, post or forums about it.
In the end the guy for now it’s bitter about the strikes, as he should, and of course he’s saying that he doesn’t know if he’s going to keep doing videos…
but i really think he’s going to get back as fast as he can when the game comes out.
The money is too important to keep the bitter facade.
He made some extremely accurate predictions about both BL3 and the new DLC in the Fall of 2018, and published the name of the DLC and other details before it’s release was announced. He did have inside information. There was a leak, and he was publishing that stuff.
Agreed
This is what IGN got totally wrong. Many Twitch streamers upload videos a little earlier for subscribers. The chat was merely used for meme’s and talking about theories. There were no “secret information” or anything you could acess for a “fee”.
The key flaw in that logic is SupMatto was never the leaker. He reported on leaked information he found elsewhere. But never was he on the inside of Gearbox or 2K, never did he have a NDA, and rarely was he the one who found the information to report on.
Like they considered the Rainbow Guns and the Commander Lilith DLC he reported on leaks, but all that information was found by someone else in publicly accessible Steam Files of BL2.
Fair but does this mean that if he made the leak more “popular” he can do whatever he wants and not deal with any consequences? No.
Again, i think that 7 strikes and the investigators are a bit too mutch, but is only fair that 2k or Take-two did something.
See, this is something that I give a lot of thought to, even given the above. Most of the cases WOTC has actually brought on this, they were against the internal employees or business partners who had signed NDA’s. My honest to god tinfoil hat theory on all of this is that if they were to bring an actual legal case against this person, there’s at least a chance it wouldn’t be as concrete as against say… the person leaking it. It’s reasonably likely to me that SupMatto was their primary focus because he had information faster than anyone else and they believed he could point them in the area of an internal source. There’s maybe (again, not a lawyer) a better case for obstruction or some other charge for him if he doesn’t cooperate and they have information? But again, that’s shaky and might involve freedom of the press if you accept it as a journalism bit and not a hobby. But I don’t know ■■■■ about dick.
I have bigger tinfoil hat theories that have no basis in anything but m own speculation that I’m not going to bring up here, at least until we’re a few days out from this. Not a lot of good comes from completely baseless speculation.
I don’t know if this is true or not, it’s what’s alleged by Take-Two. I will say though, that he often claimed to have a bunch of information that he was not making public. whether he was selling it, or sharing it with subscribers privately may or may not be true, but it has been alleged by Take-Two as the reason for the Discord complaint.
It’s the main problem with this entire situation: We have no proof of anything! We can dispute some nonsense, but overall we are completely clueless what’s really going on. SupMatto might fool us or 2k is even worse than we think. And well, the simple way how SupMatto reported stuff always made it easy to have obscure theories. For over a year I’ve heard that he is an employee of Gearbox’s marketing department, just to name one. But that is out of the question now.
And that’s one of my problems with how Take-Two went after him. He was publishing leaks or rumors - separate from the stuff they found on the Steam db, etc. If there was a leak, and it seems there was, Take-Two even used the word, their recourse is to find the leaker for an NDA violation, not to go after someone who reports it. It’s not even certain if the leaks were directly to him or were filtered through someone else closer to the leak. Going after him for copyright infringements on his YT channel isn’t really what their complaint really is - because all that stuff has now been made public, and of course the FL4K stuff will be public. They couldn’t find the leak, so went after him instead, sending a message to everyone in the community that if you publish leaks or gossip that turns out to be leaked, you’ll be punished. And that’s not a good look at all - people aren’t wrong to be bent about that. On the other hand, if what Take-Two claims about him selling or secretly sharing with subscribers info he knows is leaked and too hot to make public, then they have a legit cause - if it’s true.
My idea is here that the original source knows what they’re doing and can’t be found that easily. Going after SupMatto might have been their last hope. They probably tried to find the source in the investigation. SupMatto might just be the lamb that gets slaughtered to make the devil happy.
And they might have thought that slamming down on him might make him talk. That’s not an unusual tactic and works often enough for law enforcement. But Take-Two isn’t the law. If they wanted to set SupMatto under pressure, a legal notice followed by officers interviewing him would have done the job without that bad of an Outlook. I mean we’re talking about someone that at the very least has a wife, so he has enough to loose to open his mouth to save his livelihood.