Maintaining Secrecy

Today the industry awoke to the leaked REVELATIONS that Ubisoft plans to release sequels to all its popular brands!. While none of this may be terribly interesting, it does once again highlight the difficultiy in keeping secrets within our industry – brought on in part due to the large quotient of industry insiders coming from backgrounds of unpopularity, and being charged with withholding information that would make them kings among geeks.

The alsoran knows of one instance where an independent developer’s relationship with EA was greatly harmed when an employee boasted online about his involvement with the Goldeneye sequel long before any public announcement was made. Despite the immediate firing of said employee, the project was taken over by EA’s LA outfit, with all future projects affected. The developer has since closed shop.

Recently, one of the alsoran’s own colleagues was found to be posting workflow secrets online, again with the result being immediate dismissal. What was more frightening was the discovery of actual 3D files from several other high-profile PS3 and 360 games still in development on the offender’s hard-drive, pointing towards a network of sharing sensetive information between other developer friends.

Projects assume a code-name in the pre-announcement stages of development so that design discussions can take place outside of work – the reason being that ideas should not be constrained by the physical limitations of secrecy, (ie. the four walls of the studio). It shouldn’t be so hard for ideas to permeate within the industry without disclosing sensetive information. Perhaps a technical forum, with posts sanctioned and approved by each poster’s employer, is the answer.