This might be my most stupid question yet, but what the hell:
I’m reading about the GTA VI leaks on Wikipedia, and it talks about the various impacts the leaks had, one of which was low morale amongst the developers. Why is that? The response from the internet to the GTA VI leaks in particular seemed to be positive and caused renewed excitement in the game. Everyone [seemingly] understood that it was early, non-final work, but were nevertheless impressed/excited, as far as I could tell anyway 🤷 Besides, it’s GTA, it’s not like they’re gonna break much new ground in terms of gameplay mechanics that need to be kept secret. Things were more or less set in stone in that regard in GTA III.
Why so sad?
If people liked what they saw, this steals thunder from the actual release. All it will do it set expectations higher, and some people will inevitably say “a leak showed the game was working 8 months ago - why is it taking so long to release?”
If people don’t like what they see it is an unfair judgment of the work and that’s disheartening
These people live under confidentiality agreements and don’t tell their friends or sometime even family anything about their work. Seeing some jackass leak everything invalidates all that effort and sacrifice. I would not be surprised if the company cracks down on everybody, making their lives even harder, because they don’t know where the leak came from therefore everyone is suspect