Triple Click - Grand Theft Auto VI And Video Game Leaks

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

It's one of the biggest leaks in video game history: Over the weekend, a hacker released dozens of video clips from Rockstar's unreleased (and technically unannounced) game Grand Theft Auto VI. Jason, Maddy, and Kirk talk about the leak, the nature of reporting on situations like this, and the morality of leaks in general. Plus: the story of TheRealInsider, an insider who was not, in fact, real.One More Thing: Kirk: Rogue One: A Star Wars StoryMaddy: The Zachtronics Solitaire CollectionJason: Return to Monkey IslandLinks:Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy a Triple Click t-shirt: https://topatoco.com/collections/maximum-fun/products/maxf-tc-tclogo-shJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Hello, this is Triple Click and we, uh, oh, damn it. All right, Kirk, I still need to fix this. Don't leak it before I'm ready to post it. Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the games to you. Today we are talking about leaks and the giant leak of Grand Theft Auto 6 that happened over the weekend. It should be an interesting discussion. Let's go. I'm Jason Trier.

I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Maddie Myers. And we are Triple Click. We are together. We form. Hello. Triple click. Together, we are.

The triple click. Guys, I think that a lot of listeners out there probably wonder what we talk about before we start the show, like what we're chattering about before we start recording. And I want everyone to know that we are talking about Maddie being able to dislocate her own shoulders. That's right. That's right, folks. Hyperflexible shoulders. The best content takes place before the introduction. People should just know that.

It's got a video podcast. Yeah, so people don't get to see how cool this is, but it's true Jason get to see it. They get to find out that I don't need any help putting sunscreen on my back. I'm so powerful. You can shoot a clip and post it on Twitter. People can find it there. I thought you meant shoot a clip, like, from a gun. Like, do some type of really cool action move.

Like, I can shoot a clip from behind my back while doing a million flips. And then I'll also shoot a clip of myself doing that. And then I'll post that. because I'm a cool action heroine. Welcome to our video game podcast. Just a reminder, we are entirely supported by listeners like you all out there. And the way that you can help us make this show possible is by becoming a member of our network, Maximum Fun. So go to maximumfund.org slash join, sign up today, become a member, subscribe, and for the low low,

price of only $5 a month, although you can give more if you'd like. but for a minimum of $5 a month you can get access to all of our bonus episodes which is now a ton dozens of cool A ton. A ton. I just weighed them the other day.

A ton. One ton. We talked to, yeah, a metric ton. We talk about all sorts of things. We've spoiled games and done deep dives into games. We just did a great episode on Better Call Saul where we talked about that entire show, wonderful show. And this month,

because we do these monthly. This month we are doing an episode where we talk about the video games from our childhood. So sign up today if you want to hear about the games that formed us, our formative life video game. Made us who we are today.

It should be a fun one. What will they be? Who could imagine? Yes. Once again, maximum fun.org slash join. All right, on with the episode. So some news broke over the weekend that I felt it was worse.

Just a little teeny tiny. story. I barely made it down. You guys, last week, last week I was like, hey, I'm going up maternity leave. I hope no video game companies break any news. I hope there's no big news. And then there's like a Nintendo direct. There's a PlayStation thing.

State of play. There's Swaycoden getting remastered, which I mean, that's funny for all sorts of reasons. Yeah, so we're going to spend the entire episode talking about it's Tweedin getting remastered, aren't we? It's so funny. You guys remember it. So last year, we played Final Fantasy 6 and then that got a remaster after we played. it. And now, Sikon 2, after we played that for this show, it got remastered. So next year,

whatever we play, you're probably going to get a remaster, just warning everybody out there. Yeah. I feel like I tip the scales by picking Perfect Dark because that's already getting a remake. So if I win, then it's already faded. It's already meant to be. I think that means that you're kind of likely to win. I think so too. It's possible. It's fine. Although that game is never coming out. So it's, no, I don't know. No, I mean, we haven't seen it or heard of it in a while. So, TBD on that one. But I'm excited about it.

So this weekend, a massive thing happened. It's funny. So I was up at 3.30 in the morning on Saturday night because I'm up at 3.30 every single morning because I have a newborn and I take over at 3.30 in the morning. And I look to my phone and my Twitter is blowing up. Okay. It was 3.30 specifically. I'm getting all these messages. Hey, like, there's this big GTA sixth leak.

And I look at it. And it's like, I'm like, bleary-eyed, like, half asleep. I'm looking at my phone. I'm like, whoa, like, this is not just a normal leak. This is like dozens and done it, dozens of video clips from GTA 6. And at first I was like, oh, okay, some sort of a lab or fake. And then I started looking at them. And I was like, whoa, this actually seems pretty real.

Then I started texting people and sending out messages and eventually heard from some rockstar folks that, like, they're like, oh, shit. Yeah, this is a hell of a thing to wake up to. So yeah, so essentially what happened was early on Sunday morning, there's this massive leak that popped up on a forum from this hacker who claimed to be the same guy who was responsible for the Uber hack last week. And it's like 90 something videos. The theory I've seen floating around, I'm not sure if this was that, well, the hacker said or this is just so people are theorizing, but the theory is that this hacker accessed rockstar slack where they had a bunch of these files and that's how they got them. The video shows all sorts of things, like footage from GTA5, in development stuff, lots of unfinished graphics and kind of cool looking development footage stuff. Also very pretty stuff like trees and horizons and people chatting, including some of the stuff that Bloomberg actually reported a couple of months ago,

like that it said in Miami, Vice City, that it's got a Latina protagonist, female Latina protagonist. And then there's like a lot of gameplay, robbery, driving, silly conversations, one about like the Facebook head guy, fake Facebook in the fiction of this game. Oh, right the guy from GTA5? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So very clearly like... Can you blow him up in GTA5 with like a cell phone bomb?

Yeah, about how he died. Yeah, it's about how he died. Oh, okay. So the leak starts spreading. Everybody's talking about him. They're all over the place. By Monday, rock stars acknowledged them. They actually filed, they put up, they filed with the SEC a filing.

saying like, hey, we have this on authorized breach. That's how big a deal it had. Rockstar said, like, they were disappointed, but they don't expect it to have long-term ramifications on the game's development or release schedule, which is funny to say because they don't have a release date. So, of course, we'll never know unless there's reporting on this, whether it actually impacted the release schedule.

But I will say that the people I've talked to over the past couple of days who work at Rockstar say they're pretty stunned, say they don't really know what's going on. But as of, I spoke to someone yesterday who was like, yeah, they've disabled all of our work stuff so we can't actually do any work until they serve things out. I haven't talked to anyone today. We're recording this on Tuesday. I'm not sure. So I'm not sure how long that is going to be the case.

It could have been a temporary thing. But that was where I left things at on Monday, so the day after the leak. I believe it was also like a holiday in the UK where the bulk where a lot of Rockstar is based because of the queen's death of all things. So I think that that might have also. like impacted the timeline of this whole thing. So all that said, I guess first of all, I mean, what did you guys, Kirk Maddie, what did you guys make of this whole thing? Did you watch it unfold over the weekend? I did because we had to log in over the weekend, which normally Polygon doesn't do that. I have to do some work. Yeah, you got to get some work done, folks. I had the experience

similar to yours, Jason, not at 3.30 in the morning at a much more reasonable hour like at 8 a.m. or whatever, of seeing people posting about it in Slack and being like, this can't be real. I don't want to log into Slack right now. I don't want to do this. And then just reading more and more and being like, oh, wow, all right, we're doing this. This is real. This is really happening. And even then, I feel like I didn't fully understand the scope of the leak until I had read more about it and about the Uber hack, which we don't know if, I mean, this person could be lying, but if we were to take it at face value, the Uber hack was a fishing scheme, I believe. So that seems like a plausible way. We call it a hack, but it's just social engineering. Yeah, it's social engineering. I mean,

that's probably what happened here, regardless of whether it's the same person. And this person seemingly got into the slack. And I mean, talk about terrifying. I don't know, Kirk, I want to hear your thoughts, too, but my main thoughts on it just as somebody who works in at least a slightly adjacent and a creative field, I'm like, man, imagine if somebody got into the Polygon Slack and, like, leaked a bunch of, like, rough drafts or, like, stuff we have under embargo or, like, any number of other things. Or shit talking. Or shit talking. We're so polite. We never shit talk other outlets. That's never happened. And I have nothing but nice things to say. And we've never shit talk any of the companies that we cover or any of the video games we cover or anything. Every single thing we've ever said is perfect.

But you know what I'm saying? Like it is, it is so stressful to see something like this. But Kirk, I'm curious what your take was as a fan. So I'm currently going through my notes. I have a bunch of notes here about the announcement of the Sweet Coden remaster because Jason said, so this week we're going to talk about the big news. Right. And so I went and I did a whole lot of research and learned a lot about this. And I'm just sort of currently deleted. all the notes about that. Wait, why are you deleting them? Let's pick it right now.

Let's pick this topic up, throw it in the trash. I'm sort of hastily looking up. What is social engineering definition? Legit. I could talk about the translation for the next 30 minutes in how excited I am that they're redoing it and how sad I am. Webster's defines leak as a... as as.

According to Wikipedia.com, Rockstar Games originally did yeah, so I found out about this like a citizen.

I just saw it on Polygon.com in the middle of the day on the weekend. Opened up my phone. I was probably waiting for

toast to toast or something like that. And I looked at Polygon and I saw a headline that said GTA leak. And of course, it's close enough

to Jason to your reporting about the game that I was already, you know, in a bit of oh, there's like info about GTA6 out there. So it kind of makes sense as a second act in a, you know, in the narrative of life, if this were a screenplay, like this is an escalation of that. So, of course, I read that and thought, well, this could be like previous leaks that we've seen of other games where some sort of janky game dev footage gets out there. But then over the course of the day, just following the developments of, of the story, the real story wound up being, I mean, partly the volume of video footage,

I guess, but I saw a little bit of it and it's not that remarkable, I don't think. Like, it looks like an in-development grand theft auto game. Like, it's not really that exciting. And it's more the story of the way that whoever this person is got all of this. And the fact that they're, what are they saying? You know, I want to talk to someone a take to a rock star. Let's negotiate. They're kind of, it's almost like a hostage situation or something.

that they're at least attempting to initiate. And that seems pretty unusual to me. They're holding the source code hostage is what they claim. Right. I'm rolling my eyes. The listener can't see, but I'm rolling my eyes at this. I think part of what makes this so remarkable

is that it's GTA6. It's the most highly anticipated game in the world. And it's also a game that has been like trending on Twitter every other week for fake leaks and like stuff that is just pure nonsense. In fact, it got to the point where they're, There was this Reddit leak I saw a couple of months ago that was like hundreds of pages long. And it was all just fan fiction. It was like like someone had been like going through this charade for almost two years on Reddit just pretending to have info on the game.

It was crazy. I read, I like skimmed it and it was so, so much time. So it actually, which actually led to a lot of skepticism at first on Sunday making people think like, well, it's GTA. Like if anyone is going to create the most elaborate leak or the most elaborate fake in history, it's going to be on GTA 6 because that'll get in the most attention. But it's also like Rockstar, until very recently, really, until the Red Dead 2 crunch started happening

or news of the stories of the Red Dead 2 Crunch started coming out and stuff that has happened since then, Rockstar was really clamped down. I mean, there'd be the occasional leak. I think Kitaku, I think Stephen Arrobaugh's at Kitaku broke news that GTA 5 would have multiple protagonists. But like other than the occasional tidbit, Rockstar is a pretty leakproof company.

So for this to happen to them, it's just like so mind-boggling in so many ways. And this is a game that like has been in development for a long time, has been kept secret for a long time, and has only been hinted at by Rockstar. Like who knows when they were planning on first showing footage of the game or a trailer of the game. But now it's like so much of it is out there. It's just crazy. And like I feel like the repercussions are still. going to be felt. I'm not sure what kind of consequences this is going to have in the short or long term. So can I ask a question that I think some listeners may also have? Yeah. So there's this

claim by the hacker that they have the source code. What would it mean exactly for someone to have the source code for a game like this? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think my limited knowledge is based on what I've seen and read and talk to people about, which is that I think there would be a concern that that can be used to figure out how to create cheats and hacks and stuff. But other than that, I'm not sure what can be done with source code. Like, I don't think it's, it's not like someone can go and make another version of GTA 6 or something like that. It's not like somebody's going to be selling like Saints Row 6 on the marketplace and based on GTA's source code. Right, because I'm thinking back to the Half-Life 2 source code hack, which

of course is the hack that a lot of people are referencing or comparing this one to. And I can't remember. I feel like there were rumors then, or maybe this really happened, that they were kind of trying to build versions of the game using the source code. I'm not a programmer and don't really understand even what it means for something to be source code. Like it sounds like it's the key to the universe. You press enter on your computer and it builds Grand Theft Auto 6 for you, but I'm sure that's not it. And I was just sort of curious since that, if true, is a kind of shoe that hasn't dropped yet,

because so far it's just been this footage, which is, of course, its own whole thing. Just kind of like what the technical and other, like, practical ramifications of that could be. Yeah, well, so my limited, again, very limited understanding is that the source code, even if they had all of the code that's in the game right now, first of all, a lot of it is probably unfinished at this point. Second of all, it wouldn't really do anything or mean anything, without the assets attached.

So it's not like you can just plug it into a compiler and get it running because a lot of it is going to be hooked up to a lot of different files and various tools. And it's not, it's not, I don't know how much can actually be done with it. The conversations I've had with RockSare folks, for what it's worth, I'm sure this is a small sampling of thousands of people. So take this for what it is. But conversations I've had are less long,

lines of like concern that there's footage out there or code out there and more concern about what this is going to mean for the company moving forward. For example, the biggest concern I've seen is, hey, if this all leaked through Slack and like various file transfer services that we use, is that going to hamper remote work because suddenly that remote work is going to be a security concern and as Rockstar management going to use this as an excuse to force us all to come into the office when we really want work from home. And I know that had been a point of contention for roxler staff even before all this so it could be like an excuse that management needs to to get people coming in so that that's the type of concern that i've seen more so than like

oh no our unfinished stuff is out there because i think people of rucks are like um other than maybe some some kind of confusion about what the game might be and kind of your standard development woes um i think they're pretty confident that like whenever a gta comes out or whenever it's shown it's going to blow people away. So I don't think, like, I don't think this is going to have any impact on that. And it's certainly not going to affect sales. Like, this is going to be the biggest game on the planet no matter what. I think it's more like, how is this going to affect our workplace? Is the concern? Yeah. That was my first thought as well. And I was thinking about it in terms of the naughty dog, the Last of Us Part 2 leak as well. And how at that time, a lot of people were speculating

that it was easier for that to leak because of remote workflow. I don't know. know whether or not that's true, but that was a pretty common talking point at the time was if all these assets are being shared online, are they less secure? I mean, I'm assuming they're in a better sharing system than just a Google drive or a drop box or whatever, but I can kind of picture how if you have all these massive cutscene files, and in that case, the leaks, I think, were maybe emotionally worse because the game was so close to done. And a lot of those cutscenes were depicting just massive plot points in the game that then did happen. So people who watched them were spoiled and in a way that I think is really different from what we're describing here. But I

think just in terms of the talking points around that time, people, a lot of people were like, oh, is this going to change security at these places and make remote work harder? And seeing this leak happen, I can only assume that's going to continue. And it makes me feel really sorry for the workers because I love remote work. I'm so much. more productive in my own office where I can really control my space. And I've worked in offices before. They have their advantages. I visited the Polygon offices recently met everyone. There's definitely advantages to doing all that. But I love remote work and it's going to make the industry so much more inclusive for so many different people around the world if we allow for that in every

industry, frankly. And so just as somebody who cares about those issues, I. saw this and was really sad for them thinking about how that might change. You know, I do think that that could happen in the short term. You know, managers use this or this kind of thing, security concerns as an excuse to limit working from home. But it seems to me like working from home and remote work and just digital collaboration tools that allow for a more spread out workforce are just going to be the way things are done. And it does seem like this is an opportunity for somebody to come up with better ways to

secure digital communications for workers. I know it's not as simple as one or the other, and I'm sure this will lead to some kind of backpedaling in some ways, some backsliding. But over the long term, it seems to me like the real solution here is to keep working on work from home, hybrid work, figuring out what works best for everyone, and also make it more secure because it would appear that it is currently not secure enough. So let's talk about leaks and reporting and the kind of ethical quagmire that is this all conversation. Because this also, this Rockster League also led to a broader conversation among the kind of gameosphere, aka people on Twitter and Reddit and Discord and reset era.

Uh-huh. It led to a lot of conversations about like the ethics of game leaks, which I've gotten a little bit sick of, but I still think is interesting and we haven't talked a ton about on this show. So I think it's worth it's worth getting into a little bit. Like a lot of people are like, hey, why are you, if this is so detrimental potentially to people, why are you amplifying this? Why are you talking about it more and spreading it more? And other people are like, hey, why is this different than when you report on leaked information on Bloomberg?

For example, two months ago, like I mentioned, when I reported on the protagonist's in sending of the game. or why is this different than whatever other leaks have been run by various websites over the years? And what are kind of the differences between reporting and leaking? Have you guys seen these conversations? Bannie, have you seen any of these conversations? Or participated in any of these conversations? Oh, definitely. Yeah, I'm actively participating under some anonymous screen names.

I'm tweeting at you a lot and you're not getting back to me. Yeah, I mean, I think this is kind of a fun. At this point, I wouldn't be shocked if you had an answer. I'll do it. I wouldn't be shocked by anyone having like an alternate. Sweet Coden 2, Hater is me. It's true. Yeah.

I should have known. I do feel like this is kind of a fun example. I'm sorry to call it fun, Jason, because it does involve you. But it is fun as someone who knows you because this is a game that you yourself reported on so recently and in so much detail. And to then have that be part of how, at least how Polygon confirmed the veracity. of the leaks was in part by linking to your reporting and being like these leaks line up with some pretty extensive reporting done by Jason Trier at Bloomberg on what this game would contain. And here are the things it contains in these leaks. And you later confirmed on Twitter

and we linked to that. Yeah, I was going to say, they could have just leaked to me tweeting that it was real. Yeah. But I just mean that I think even before you confirmed that it was real by talking people at Rockstar, I think a lot of people probably watch the footage. And those GTA super fans were like, well, I read Jason's article. So therefore, I'm pretty sure this is real. Right, right, right, right. Because it lines up with something Jason already leaked. Or did you?

And what is the difference? Reported on. Important distinction. Important distinction. People who are like a reporter is reporting on information that was leaked to them. A reporter is not leaking information, except in some cases, but we'll get to that a little. in a little bit. But no, a reporter is not leaking. Important distinction there. But it is true that there is enough of a similarity that somebody might be like, well,

why is it that Jason reporting on a story like this isn't disrespectful to the workers? I mean, personally, I don't, I don't think that. I don't think it's somehow disrespectful to workers to say. But your Twitter alts are the ones. Yeah, well, they're just playing devil's advocate. And they don't necessarily represent what I truly believe. But I don't, I don't think that, reporting on leaks is spoiling a game. I mean, I know Polygon wrote up the Last of Us leaks, for example, and I think I was still at Kataku then, and I'm sure we did too, because it's a news event, but it is also, it's different to have somebody tell you who's working at a company and being like, well, Rockstar doesn't want to talk about this yet, but I want to tell you about it because I think

it's really exciting and people should know about it, like the changing workplace issues there, and the decision to have a female character in a GTA game is a huge deal. I mean, maybe that's not on Rockstar's marketing slate, but clearly there were people who worked there who were like, I think it should be out there. And I'm going to talk to a reporter about it. And I feel like that is pretty different than a hacker deciding. Yeah, I mean, so, okay, so there are a few different, like, I think it's important to look at this as kind of a spectrum, right?

And I don't really think that you can look at it in terms of black and white information. should be a black and white morality because information can come in so many different forms. And as a reporter, if you're looking at it in black and white and you're saying, you know what, reporting on unannounced information is wrong and I'm never going to do it, then you're not a reporter. You're a PR person and you're just following the marketing guidelines of the companies you're covering. And then the other extreme would be I'm going to throw out and tweet about or report on every single piece of information I hear and can, can verify no matter what the news value is. And for me, I mean, my kind of stances have oscillated a lot.

I've always felt like it was kind of a complicated subject that I never, I always had kind of conflicting feelings about because part of me wants to be like, I mean, yeah, fuck it, I'm a reporter. I should be reporting everything that I hear and can verify and know to be true. And part of me is also like, well, okay, what is the potential impact of this stuff? With the Rockster story specifically, it's very easy to point to that. say, hey, I heard a lot about this game. The only stuff I included in this article is stuff that is relevant to the wider product

point of the article, which is about this company becoming more progressive and trying to clean up its culture. And the reason that I brought up there's a female protagonist is because, hey, this is a more progressive-minded company. The reason I brought up where it's said is because, hey, there's context here about them starting, like, cutting down their scope of making a huge map and making actually, we're going to do this in one city and maybe expand over time because we want to have a more sustainable development cycle. So there was rationale behind everything that I reported in that

specific case. That said, there are also times when I've done, and I'm still planning on doing reports that are just like, hey, on Sunday, like, Ubisoft is going to announce such and such, or next week, something is going, this thing is going to happen. And I think there's merit to that too, because at the end of the day, if you are a reporter, your job is not to serve the companies that you're covering or the people who work for them. You can empathize of them for sure, but ultimately your job is to report on information. And that has to be your priority. It doesn't mean that you have to throw out everything you've heard, but certainly should be leaning towards the side of reporting information when you can. When you're reporting a story like this,

I would imagine that you know when there is a fact that you're including in the story, such as there's going to be two protagonists in the new Grand Theft Auto and one will be a woman. You know when you're putting that in, right? This is going to be a thing that'll be that a lot of people, like just people who play video games and are curious about this, that's what they're really going to latch on to. How do you think about that difference between, I want to tell this story about a more progressive company, but I know this fact and this fact and this fact are going to be the three that headline the reset era post. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I try. Because you know, right? I mean, you have to know. I do. I try not to. I mean, sometimes it'll help because I want people to read the whole story.

sometimes it's like, okay, you know what? Yes, maybe I should do a Twitter thread where the second tweet like magnifies that stuff. So more people check out there. Maybe I'll give some people. Right, it gets the story shared. Yeah, put some sugar on the vegetables for people. It's, I mean, it's not, not super uncommon for reporters to do that sort of thing. But again, at the end of the day, I mean, the priority is like reporting information and getting information to people.

And like, I think that that it's all well and good to empathize with the people. who the marketing people or whoever who are going to whose weekends are going to be ruined because of some information that leaks. But I think that at the end of the day, that's not your job. If you're a reporter, your job is to report information. So all that said, I mean, I think in a case like this, I mean, first of all, it's also important, like going back to the hack for a second, It's also really important for a reporter to be getting their information in ethical ways and anything that's illegal or anything that's potentially getting information, like you are talking to a hacker and getting information from them. That is a big no-no. That is a big ethical border that you're crossing.

Also, I don't think many reporters worth their salt would be really all that interested in putting up 90-plus videos of unfinished game footage. Like there's not a news story there. It's hard to justify that from a news perspective. There is a news story in the fact that it all leaked, but let's say theoretically, instead of putting it on a message where this hacker had come to me and be like, hey, Jason, I have all these videos. Like, what are you going to do with them?

I certainly would not be posting them anywhere or sharing them anywhere. I might do a story that is like, hey, there's this hacker trying to sell these videos, but I don't think it would be my job as a reporter to be out there just throwing out unfinished game footage everywhere. That's not how news reporting necessarily works. Yeah.

I mean, you might go to Rockstar and be like, this person approached me and claims they've stolen a lot of things from you. How exactly did that happen? And do you want to talk more about the circumstances of this if it did happen? And then, even then, the story is still more about the circumstances of leak than the actual leaked footage, which I agree. It's kind of weird to watch it. Some of it feels very blatantly unfinished. I didn't love watching it.

I was kind of like I'd rather see something that's either finished or they're ready to talk about it, even if they're not showing it yet, because that's a lot more fun for everyone involved. But that's me. Yeah, it's a shame because like as a historical artifact, it's really interesting. It's like, look, this is what GTA6, one of the most anticipated games ever looks like at this point in development. But yes, if I were working on a new book and someone had leaked the first draft before I started editing it, I would be like, what the fuck? Like, I'm not okay with this.

So I totally empathize with that. And I don't think that like, I think if someone came to me and said, hey, I have this leaked video footage of GTA6. As a reporter, it might be my duty to be like, hey, GTA6 exists. Hey, here's what I know about it. But posting the videos and maybe even like taking a tiny snippet because sometimes images are stronger than words and sometimes you need something to like really prove that you are, that you have this information. but showing it all, I think, would not be the way to go. I think at one point, was it Kitaku that had that, like, massive Call of Duty League? That never really sat right with me.

I think it was before I started a call at Kitaku. Kirk, do you remember that? I do. It was just like, here's all of the plot information on this new Call of Duty game, and it was just everything. Yeah, and like modern, I think it was the one that was in New York, so I think that's Modern Warfare 3. I'll bing in here if I'm wrong about that, but I'm pretty sure that I'm right. I was right. That was the game. It was Modern Warfare 3 in 2011. It was actually right when I had started at Kataku and I was brand new at the site. Bing. But yeah, I mean, there are cases when that has happened and yeah, that doesn't really sit right with me either. So I don't know. I mean, it's sometimes it's like it might sound like having your cake and eating it too. But I think that like ultimately you just have to decide case by case. Like how what will the impact of this be? Does the news value justify reporting?

on this information, especially when it's cases, it's much easier to make a call when it's already public information than as a reporter. It's definitely your job to report on it, as in this case. Someone asked me on Twitter yesterday, like, why are you amplifying this GTA story if it's going to be harmful people? And I just responded because I'm a reporter. It's not going away. I'm reporting it because it's fascinating and newsworthy and needs to be talked about. But when someone approaches you and they want to leak something to you for you to report, then it becomes a question of like, okay, what's the news value here? What's the impact going to be?

How can you justify this? What is it going to look like, etc, etc. Yeah, I mean, this is just thorny because this is basically a, it's a speech issue. It's a free speech issue. And speech issues are just thorny. Free speech is a thorny thing. And there's always a kind of ethical gradient involved when speech is involved. I mean, you can go to the Gawker Hulk Hogan case if you want to see.

I mean, there are so many examples of this kind of thing. It's such a ethical gradient that reporters are just constantly operating on. I mean, you know, there's the question of, is this ethical? Would I have done this? Would I have done this? Do I think that that was kind of scummy or do I think that was super justified? I think the reason that people will always talk about this stuff when this kind of story happens whenever something like this happens is because there's never a clear answer. You just can't like make these very clear distinctions because everything exists in this kind of, you know, a gradient like you described.

And that's important just to keep in mind when you're thinking about it. We're going to be talking about this kind of thing forever. As long as there's a free press, this will be a live issue. But that's kind of a good thing just in a totally abstract way because it means that it is possible for people to be making these decisions and to have the freedom, you know, to decide for themselves. Yeah. And I think it's one of the reasons that it's so gray in these cases. is because we're talking about the public information, the public good here is like learning about games before their release. There is no real like, there's no morality question. There's no question of like, is this going to do some good beyond just giving people information?

It's just about giving people information. Whereas in a lot of other cases and this is where these are the stories that I'm far more interested in and want to spend way more on my time on stories that are uncovering things that people wouldn't know about. anyway. And that could mean wrongdoing. It could mean embezzlement or harassment or whatever. But it could also just mean like interesting behind the scenes stories that like people would not find out about anyway. So it's funny that this occupies so much time because like I'm so uninterested. Like this is very much very low on my prior list of reporting is like the stuff that is like here's what's going to be announced. I'm way more interested in the behind the scene stories anyways. Okay. So before we go, before we move on to one more thing, I got to tell this story. Kirk, you haven't heard this. Mattie, you read about it.

it, but the story is too good not to share. The story is too good not to share. Okay. So, a couple months ago, uh, well, really, okay, a few weeks ago, this account pops up on Twitter called the real insider. Kirk, have you seen this account? Have you heard about this account?

No. So the real insider is this persona and it's kind of this arrogant, irritating persona that is like, I have information on every video game. I know all of your secrets. It's kind of like, like puffed up like persona type of thing. You could say bombastic, a bombastic persona. Bombastic, yes.

Good use of the word bombastic, yes. And there are a lot of the things that they're tweeting. And so it purports to be tweeting inside information about video game news, stuff that's coming up, et cetera, et cetera. So at one point, a couple weeks ago when there was that big Assassin's Creed announcement thing, they tweeted a list of the Assassin's Creed codenames, hex, red, et cetera, et cetera. Someone, actually, this is where I get involved. Someone tweeted at me, someone, like, tagged me in that tweet and was like, is this real?

And I was like, oh, no, I don't think it's real because it, one of the co-names, Hex was different than the co-name I had heard, which was Neo. And long story short, I didn't think it was real. Then the real insider tweets to me like, I'm expecting an apology when I'm wrong. So I check with some sources. I'm like, hey, is this real? Find out short version, find out that it is real. So I'm like, oh, my apologies.

I was wrong. You're right. It changed code names or something, whatever. I was wrong. And then he tweets a screen cap of that conversation. And it's like, never forget. and it just shows me and then like trying to dunk on me. Wow, you really got got, Jason.

Just really got got known. I totally got caught. Hugely explosive situation there. So since then, well, what's funny is like... The stakes were so high. It's so funny because I'm like, I have no problem apologizing when I'm wrong. If I ever fuck something up, I'm always going to apologize and be like, look, this is what happened. Here's how I got it wrong.

But for that person to then like try to dunk on me, that was a little irritating. But anyway, cut to you, I didn't really pay that person much. attention until cut to you a couple weeks later. Yesterday, I'm in, I'm in, I, I, I joined this discord that is like a bunch of leaking people are in there and it's like the snitch. You guys know the snitch that leaker, his discord. So anyway, I was in, I was looking at that discord. I don't check it very often, but I happen to see that someone tweeted a screen grab of, um, so, so the real insider had said something and then someone responded. And then instead of responding, it was like a response that this that the real insider would have said except it was someone else who said that

and so this person who screen grabbed it was like wrong account class and twitter blunders the person who said it was this guy this YouTuber I won't say his name because he's been dragged through the mud enough but it was this YouTuber and then so then I got interested and then so I went through that you guys have seen me do this you know how whenever a kataku there was always something that was like I don't know some mystery we were trying to discover some internet rabbit hole to go down. Like that one time we were trying to figure out that person's name or whatever or like with that EA, fake EA employee story that I did.

So anyway, so I went down this rabbit hole and I figured out that I compared the two Twitter accounts in his YouTube account and figured out that like every single time the real insider tweeted something, it had been something that like this other YouTuber tweeted about like two days earlier or something like that. And then I figured out that they have the same exact writing style where the YouTuber is like capitalizing random letters. And then the real coup de grace was that this kind of obscure-ish, definitely niche indie game called Hellsinger was coming out.

And the YouTuber put up on his video channel every single song from that game in a specific order. The Real Insider had tweeted the list of songs a couple days before it came out in that exact same order as like inside information, in the exact same order that the YouTuber put. This is some fairly sloppy tradecraft, I got to say. Oh, my God, it was so sloppy. I've never seen anything like this. Anyway, the YouTuber and I had some private conversations that I won't share, but needless to say, needless to say, word got out after all of this.

And I think this morning he put up an apology on his YouTube account. He deleted the insider account. Now I think he's deleted his own Twitter account too because he was getting dunked on so much. But here is the real twist is that the assessment. Crescent's Creed thing. The reason he knew that is because he saw a Ubisoft pre-brief where they like said, hey, you can see this under embargo. I'm sure you guys had it. I didn't see it or anything. Yeah, we have it. A lot of media outlets saw this thing. And YouTubers were invited to, apparently, influencers. Yeah. So he just like took this information that was under embargo and put

it on this fake insider account, like on the pseudo anonymous insider account, which is just the stupidest thing imaginable. It's so stupid. And it's like literally anyone could do that. if they just lied. Like, yeah, okay, I'll take it under embargo. Like, tell literally every PR person in the world, I'll take it under embargo and, like, pretend to be a responsible journalist under your real name and then have a secret other name where you're leaking every embargo two or three days ahead of time. To what end? Like, this is the most boring thing ever. It's like, it's literally going to the end of owning Jason Schreier on Twitter. A noble end, if ever there was one. Great point. You're right. Which is the main reason why I have my alternate accounts. So I guess

I mean, that's the main reason that we have this podcast. The main reason that most people tweet is for the chance to possibly own Jason Schreier on Twitter. It's true. It is a huge motivator. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that's relevant because it's, it's an interesting thing. The whole concept of embargoes has always been an interesting one. But in general, I think embargoes are for the most part a good thing because they give you a chance to. Or they're just boring. Like, it's just you write the story with two days ahead of time.

And that's like the whole point of it. Like, it's not because the information. information is so exciting that it needs to be leaked in that time. It's just the extra time to write the story, you know? Right. Although in this case, it was interesting information. But for the most part, they can be a good thing because they get everyone on the same page. You don't have to rush to get out the news as quickly as possible. You can get contacts and interviews and stuff. So anyway, they're a good thing. I've never violated an embargo in my life. And the fact that like this guy is like, I'm the real insider. And all he's doing is just violating embargoes that he's getting.

from publishers. So when I said before that like journalists are not leakers, this guy was a leaker because he was getting information and leaking it. In a journalist case, they are getting information from someone else who is leaking it. Important but subtle difference there. Anyway, the real

inside of quite a chat. Quite a Twitter account. It was a fun little rabbit hole to dig into. Very embarrassing. And by the way, I would have even if it wasn't personal, even if he hadn't talked to me, I still would have gone down that rabbit hole just because that's my person.

I've certainly known you long enough to... It just so happened that he attempted to own you, but that was merely a coincidence. You would have owned him in return regardless. I don't even consider that to be real leaks. I just, I'm sorry, you got to do better than Matt. You got to do better than just sharing embargoed stuff that was going to be announced anyway. Yeah, and it makes things more difficult for everyone because nobody is going to be giving you embargoes if you ever.

Like, I think something something similar has happened when the 10. under over the years where they've limited their review copies because people were leaking and people were just sticks about it and ruined it for everybody. I know. That sort of thing really sucks. And there's a big difference between that and like reporting on information because someone shares it with you. There's huge, huge difference.

Anyway, that's my rant. That's my real insider story. It's quite a story. Now to start my own fake insider account and see how it goes as my social experiment. I don't know. I think maybe you should start one of the fan fiction. ones and just come up with some extremely realistic like you know Nintendo

Breath of the Wild 2 stuff like I don't know like that seems so much more fun to me like you can just but that doesn't get any attention right you only get attention if you get something right so you need to put in a couple of correct things so that people pay attention to you and then from there on pure fiction baby exactly exactly that well I mean it's become like a whole cottage industry it really has Twitter

leaker insiders popping up It's amazing. All right. Why don't we take a break and then we will be back for one more thing. Oh my gosh. Hi, I'm Dave Holmes, host of the pop culture trivia podcast, Troubled Waters. On Troubled Waters, we play games like motivational speeches. It goes a little like this.

Riley, give us an improvised motivational speech and why people should listen and subscribe to Troubled Waters. I look around to this ad and I see a lot of potential to listen to comedians such as Jackie Johnson and Josh Donaldman, and they need you to get out there and listen to them attempt to figure out sound Reba's clues or determine if something is a Game of Thrones character or a city in Wales. I have chills. I'm going to give you 15 points. All that and so much more on Troubled Waters. Find it on maximum fun.org or wherever you choose to listen to podcasts. Hey there, beautiful people. I'm Trevelle Anderson. And I'm Jared Hill. We are the hosts of Fantai, the show where we have complex and complex. conversations about the gray areas in our lives, the things that we really, really love sometimes, but also have some problematic feelings about.

Yes, we get into it all. You want to know our thoughts about Nikki Minaj and all her foolishness? We got you. You want to know our thoughts about gentrification, perhaps some positive question mark? Uh-oh. Aspects of gentrification, we get into that, too. Every single Thursday, you can check us out at maximum fun.org. Listen, you know you want it, honey.

So come on in gear. it, period. And we are back, Kirk. Mattie, it's time for one more thing. Kirk, start us off. I'm going to start us off with a movie that I rewatched that I feel like a lot of people are probably rewatching, and that is Rogue One, a Star Wars story, a movie from 2016 that I rewatched over the weekend, and I got to say, I have sort of reevaluated it.

I think this is also maybe a sort of common feeling. I did not dislike this movie the first time I saw it. I thought it was pretty cool, and I thought it was also pretty messy. Like, you know, it definitely showed signs of development hell. I don't know, what do you call that in the world of cinema? Of being a tough project, because I knew that there had been a lot of... Development hell actually started in cinema, I think, rather than games in it. Really?

Yeah, because the concept is like... You're still developing a film. Yeah. I think the concept started with like a script that just was never produced. But yeah, go ahead. It was a movie that... It was a rare feeling of... seeing a movie in the theater and being aware of the fact that something seemed off with some scenes.

There's a scene in particular where the protagonist reunites with her father figure, Forrest Whitaker's character, and the whole thing is shot like they're clearly not in the same room. They're never in a shot together. And I was sitting there in the theater the first time I saw it, which I always pay attention to this stuff that I don't usually notice that kind of thing. And I was like, this is weird. And halfway through the scene, I just started thinking, like, am I ever going to see them in a shot together? And then I never did.

Anyway, stuff like that, and then just kind of feeling like, I don't know, it was kind of a mixed bag, I guess, is a classic mixed bag. I still think that stuff is true, rewatching it. It still does have a bit of a tonal disconnect, and I kind of wish that it was just fully the dramatic war story, the tragic war story, that it is a lot of the time. But I think it's such an interesting movie, and it really, it's an artifact of an era that is already a bygone era, which I found very interesting. the era of, okay, we're going to do a lot of new weird stuff with Star Wars, which has basically ended. I can't remember we've talked about Star Wars Obi-1 Canobi on the show. Did either of you even wind up watching that? I never did.

Well, you didn't miss much because it wasn't very good. Yeah. And that's the most recent Star Wars thing I watched. And then there was Boba Fett, which was very weird and wound up kind of just being the Mandalorian. So it's kind of just the Mandalorian has been this one success that's still ongoing. But Star Wars is in a very weird place right now. There was actually just a Polygon article. Was it McWhorter?

Somebody put together a Polygon article that was like, when are we going to see another Star Wars movie? And watching a Star Wars movie, a thing that's like two and a half hours long and is a movie, was really cool. And it's also a good movie. It's like really interesting. It has stuff in it that I haven't really seen anywhere else. And really Doug. I mean, it approaches the force in a really cool way that felt interesting. I don't know.

I mean, this is a movie that everyone's probably seen. He's listening to me talk about it. So really all I want to say is I recommend rewatching this movie. And of course, this show Andor about Cassian Andor, who is the spy from that movie, is coming out. And I was totally off my radar, but then I started hearing exciting things about it. And now I am more looking forward to it. So watching Rogue One made me even more excited. I'm kind of like looking forward to a Star Wars thing for the first time in a while.

So I look forward to being disappointed. But maybe I won't be. Oh, no. You might not be. If anyone's looking for a movie to watch, you could do worse. Anything with Ben Mendelsohn and it is probably going to be at worst, decent. Or at least at worst, the scenes of him will be great. Also, Felicity Jones, not to be horny on Maine.

She is incredible. Maddie, what's your one more thing? Okay, so mine is solitaire. It is a specific solitaire game that I'm going to talk about, but I got to admit to it eventually, first of all, that this all started because I've been playing Solitaire, as in the Microsoft Solitaire collection, the free game that comes with your PC. You know that one. I don't really know why this started for me, but like a few weeks ago, I just was like, I'm just really feeling some Solitaire. And then I was like, wow, Solitaire freaking owns. And then I've been playing. more solitaire than I really want to admit, and it started becoming a problem. So I was talking about it with my friend, game developer, Christine Love, and she was like, oh, well, have you tried the Zachtronic Solitaire Collection? And I was like, I haven't. I'm immediately going to purchase it. And now my life is over. And this is all I'm going to play for the entire rest of my

life, I think. Oh, man. So Zactronics, sadly, tragically, the company has shuttered, but it's kind of not tragic because they made a statement where they were like, we feel like we've done all we wanted to do, goodbye, which is amazing. I think Kirk, I think we talked about it on the show at some point. I think it was your one more thing or something about the closure of that studio. But they make puzzle games and every Xactronics game just feels like a Zectronics game. And if you've played one, then you know what that means, I suppose. But basically, the Solitaire Collection, I haven't played every game in it. Some of them are quite difficult. But they're all. iterations on Solitaire, Free Cell, all the different Microsoft Solitaire collection faves with which I'm

very familiar, but they change the rules in some minute way that you have to get used to. And because I've been playing so much regular Solitaire, I'm now having to get used to playing this other version of Solitaire. So the main one that I'm playing right now is called Sawayama Solitaire. There's a ton of other games. I'm going to enjoy them all. But this one version of Solitaire is so freaking cool. At first, I felt like it was breaking my brain because it shows you all the cards behind every stack. You can see everything. First of all, so you know what you're getting into when you move cards over back and forth to get rid of them. So you know what's coming. And so you can think several moves in advance in terms of what your Solitaire moves are going to be. And the other thing is,

usually you can only put a king down on a blank space in solitaire because you're supposed to stack up from king to ace at the end of the game and in this game you can put any card down on a blank space and that completely changes everything because I kept being like well I got to put a king down and then I'd be like wait that wasn't a logical thing to do there I need to like move this nine just so that I can get this one card like if you put a 10 down you go from 10 nine eight seven six etc. And then loop back around to King, Queen Jack to 10? Well, no. So it still would only take you all the way to two. But the other thing that the game does is it auto collects for you no matter what.

So as soon as you get an ace, it auto collects any card that shows up. Whereas in regular Solitaire, you can decide when you want to move cards over to the ace. And that can be part of your strategy. Whereas in this version of Solitaire, it automatically collects cards as they appear on top of anything. And I don't know, just somehow that combination of new rules makes it way more tactical and complex, but it's still solitaire. And I tried the free cell one, which I don't know how to pronounce. It's like a Russian word, but it's basically free cell. And it was so hard that I couldn't play it because it changes to anything about free cell.

And I was like, I don't understand this. But I'm very excited about this. If you like solitaire and you want to ruin your life, the Zachtronic Solitaire collection, it's on Steam. It's 10 bucks, highly recommended, loving it, never going to play anything else possibly. Nice. I'm totally going to play that. RIP Xactronics. Okay, cool. My one more thing, I'll go really quick.

My one more thing is return to Monkey Island. We talked about a little while ago when we did our Monkey Island episode. We're probably going to do a triple play on this game, so I won't get too into it. But I did finish it. I just wanted to shout out. You guys will be pleased to hear that it is great. it is clever and funny and very entertaining and kind of how should I put this delicately? Well, the ending, I mean, I guess you won't be too shocked if you've ever played a Ron Gilbert game that the ending goes where it does.

But yeah, it is what it is. But yeah, no, it's great. It's this game about like, it's so interesting because it's very clearly a game about like returning to a video game franchise after 30 years and what that means. and all these new fangled, like, pirates who are here and changing things and things aren't quite the way he used to be. Just as an example, in this game, usually in the Monkey Island series, there's an entire running gag that Guybrish three bread. The hero can hold his breath for 10 minutes, but in this game, he can only hold his breath

for eight minutes. And that becomes an interesting point moving forward because he's a little bit older now. He can't, he doesn't have the lung strength that he used to. He's an older, an older pirate. It's great, especially there's chapter, it's five acts, like kind of like pretty much all the Monkey Island games, I think. It takes part over five acts. And the first couple, you're like, okay, this is cool, a lot of cool puzzles, but it's kind of like limiting. But then by Act 4 is like probably the best act in any Monkey Island game ever.

It's got this elaborate, like one of those classic point and click adventure game, elaborate puzzle quests that takes you all over the place and you're going all these different islands and sailing around and you're truly a pirate. it. One more thing I will say is that the interface is totally different than what you might expect if you've ever played a point and click adventure game before. Instead of having like verbs and stuff, basically as you hover over something with a mouse, you'll get like a prompt like, hey, I wonder what's going on over here. Hey, why is what is the scum bar? What are the pirates up to now? And it'll kind of be like like your thought process, which is a really interesting way of doing it. It kind of simplifies things because you can't just like use random objects together anymore the

could in previous games. There'd be all sorts of like weird dialogue options if you tried to do things like that. But I think it works really, really well. And it actually makes the game feel a lot more accessible if you aren't a point-and-click adventure expert. So yeah, I'm a big fan of this game. Return to Monkey Island. People should go check it out. Even if they've never played a monkey island before, I still think it's worth your time. And it's got a cool scrapbook that'll catch you up on the previous series. Nice. So yeah, go check it out. Looking forward to playing it. And we will, I'm sure, talk about it more on the Yeah, we'll discuss more probably in a couple of weeks, right?

Is when we'll do a triple play. So people should know that we'll get into it. Excited for puns. All right, that is it for this week's episode. Hope nobody leaks it before it is ready to go before Kirk is finished editing it. Kirk, Maddie. See you both next time. See you next time.

Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at Maximumfund.org.

Find us on Twitter at Triple ClickPod. Send email the triple click at Maximumfund.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and Culture. Artist-owned, audience-supported. All right, shall we? Yeah, Maddie, can you, like, dislocate your shoulders? Oh, yeah. I feel like I've shown you guys this before, and you think it's weird.

You've never seen that before. Yeah, I know. I was just watching So You Think You Can Dance. There's a guy who can do that. Hyper-flexible shoulders, and every now and then I, like, forget that it's really weird, and I'll, like, stretch in front of people. And they're like, what are you doing? It's horribly wrong. And I'm like, you know, just bending my shoulders. shoulders all the way around. Dina is always like her way of describing it as like, yeah, Maddie doesn't need help putting on sunscreen on her back because I can touch every single part of my back. Right. I'm sure. You can like, wow, that's kind of a nice little skill. Yeah,

it's why I'm actually destined to be single in the end. Because you just don't need any of those. Yeah, you don't need to scratch your back. I scratch my back. And I scratch my. That's the end of the old saying. Yep. Anyway. M. Thank you.