Author: Mao Lina
Game manufacturers have been leaking secrets for a long time.
In recent years, Tencent, miHoYo, Epic Games (Fortnite developer) and other manufacturers have used legal weapons to defend their rights and interests and sue leakers in court, but fines of hundreds of thousands or even millions have not made these leakers relent, but have presented a tricky situation of "spring breeze blowing and reborn".
Game leakers, also known as "inner ghosts". You can simply understand it as the "internal thighs" of the film and television industry or the so-called "staff" in the idol industry, who have access to inside information, and will release these news before the official and profit from it.
How much influence does the inner ghost have on game manufacturers? Take this year's "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" "Five Heroes on the Cloud" as an example, it is because there is a certain deviation between the plot released by the inner ghost in advance and the character and the content after implementation, which causes the players who have gone up to quit the pit in anger.
In the three months from August to November, the popular "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" has experienced a crisis of public opinion, players running away, and card pool diving, and it is difficult to say what negative effects the "inner ghost" has played, but players who are willing to spend money must have lost a lot because of this.
On March 16, "Honkai" conducted a preview live broadcast of the version as usual, and the official also responded to the "inner ghost" issue for the first time.
"Everyone has always wanted to know a question, let me respond to it, that is, about the leakage of game content in advance", Mr. Roast Chicken, a well-known screenwriter of the Mi family, spent nearly five minutes talking about his sneaking away from the game content in advance, and the various impacts of this sneaking behavior on the production team, the game itself and the player's experience.
The emotional confession of the roast chicken teacher moved not only the players, but also the "inner ghosts". Several well-known overseas "ghosts" of Hontie promised that they would no longer break the news related to the content of the plot, and the "uncle party" in China who relied on reselling overseas information may also be scattered because of the disappearance of the source.
On a big day like an anniversary, miHoYo can take a few minutes to talk about who the ghosts in the game are, how did they get the sources, and what benefits will their revelations bring to themselves? The soothsayer has gone through many channels and finally put together a portrait of the ghost.
The ghost in the game, where is sacred
The word "inner ghost" has only been called in the past few years, and they were first called "uncle party".
Theseus (pseudonym) told the Prophet that the Uncle Party first appeared in the World of Warcraft era, and a player on the NGA forum posted that "My Uncle worked in Nine Cities (the domestic operator of Warcraft at the time), and the version will be updated next week", and since then such "somewhat connected" whistleblowers have been called "Uncle Party".
Theseus said that most of these revelations are fake, and most of them are the product of players making up their own materials out of some vanity, but there are also a small number of "real uncles" who can really get inside information. He recalled that when he played "Zhuxian Mobile Game", Perfect World invited celebrities to cooperate, and the planning of some new characters, new maps and new tasks had to be synchronized with the star team, because there were too many handling parties, which caused a small leakage, and he was able to know the follow-up content in advance and plan the resources in his hands.
"This form of cooperation is not easy to catch, there are too many people involved, and it takes too much manpower and material resources to put it down one link at a time, and because it has little impact, the manufacturer will not pursue it. ”
Nowadays, the mobile game track is becoming more and more volatile, and the promotional materials and publicity channels of a single game have also become rich and diverse, such as the second game and the second game will send congratulatory pictures at a specific time node, but the project team has limited manpower and often needs to find an outsourcing team, so it leaves a leak.
Nintendo meet-and-greet leaks
"I have a friend who works as a publicist. In order to grab the publicity node,The manufacturer gave the material through the network disk in advance.,He's a little picky.,Didn't buy a network disk member.,The file is very large.,The speed limit has to be down for several days.,So he found a person to rent a one-day member on Xianyu.。 ”
Theseus revealed that after his friend logged on to someone else's network disk account, he added his own account as a friend, and then sent the material to this account with member rights to start downloading the material.
But he didn't know that this kind of rental membership for a single period was not for him alone. So when he sent the materials, other people should have seen it too. Sure enough, some of the content in this material began to circulate on the Internet, and Theseus's friends were not sure if it was because of their own renting of membership that caused the leak, so they silently pretended that nothing had happened.
"Therefore, more and more manufacturers will put a watermark only for the use of so-and-so when giving materials, just to facilitate traceability after leakage. ”
However, it is relatively easy to track down the "crimes" of insiders, and now the mainstream ghosts are all "unpacking guys", they get the test server qualifications, and use decompilation and other means to unpack those uninstalled content through group operations for about 2-3 days, and then sell these contents to others for profit.
Theseus said that the rampant internal ghost began with the explosion of "Genshin Impact".
First of all, only games that are popular enough are profitable, in order to attract a large number of internal ghosts, especially the emergence of professional internal ghosts; secondly, the regular testing of Mijia games has also left opportunities for internal ghosts; Finally, because the overseas market performance of Mijia games has been good, overseas internal ghosts are team-oriented, professional, which also leads to the fact that no matter how you catch internal ghosts, you can't finish catching them.
Theseus himself knows a "second-hand ghost", he directly got the source from the overseas ghost team, and then peddled it to other people in China, "This group of people is a bit like a pyramid scheme, pyramid structure, divided into one, two, three levels, the identity of the unpacking guy is well hidden, and even the second-hand ghost is not very inclined to appear directly in front of the scene, because now the manufacturers are also very strong in catching leaks, so they either use the kind of software that burns after reading, or they use a special riddle to break the news." ”
As for why the inner ghost can break the news across versions, Theseus said that there is nothing strange about it, most manufacturers' new version content is to start working half a year to a year in advance, and these things will be stored in the server, of course, the unpacking guy can easily get it.
The inner ghost makes money, what is the way
The inner ghost is not a philanthropist, except for the fact that some people in the "uncle party" in the early years broke the news out of vanity and did not seek financial returns, and now the rampant inner ghost team has formed its own way of making money.
As mentioned above, the inner ghost has shown a trend of specialization and teamwork. In a team of internal ghosts, there are people who are responsible for obtaining test qualifications and dotting up and down relationships, some are responsible for unpacking and picking up undisclosed content, and of course, there are also people responsible for "soliciting business" in front of the stage, such as the four most well-known internal ghosts in "Genshin Impact": Lumie, Dimbreath, Intel, and Nepnep, which is a private channel on Discord to exchange data and communication technology.
"They will set up an account on X, Facebook or github and post content with Genshin Impact-related topics, because the first account is relatively small, and it is difficult for officials to notice. After the number is raised, there will be ghosts who are responsible for "community momentum", and they will go to platforms where other players gather more, and build momentum in a way that "accidentally sees the revelations of this blogger and carries everyone to distinguish between truth and falsehood".
The popularity has risen, and the more people who pay attention, it is time to harvest.
Theseus said that the inner ghost will build a paid group, the cost of which ranges from tens to 100 dollars, and it will be renewed every month, and the group will release first-hand fresh unpacked content. Of course, in order to "ensure safety", this kind of group is relatively small, and it is not the main source of income for professional ghosts.
"Those who will join this kind of group are actually half of their own people. Because the ghost news is not released all at once, just like the official preview, a little business can be done for a long time at a time. Therefore, after the people in the group get the news, they also have to slowly put the material to build momentum. There was a situation where newcomers who entered the group did not understand the rules and put all the materials at once, but as a result, there was a big fight, and the group was not rebuilt. ”
In addition to the paid group, professional ghosts will also make their own ghost websites, and "Genshin Impact" has ghost websites in North America. The webmaster's earnings from ad incentives can be as much as five figures a month, not counting the traffic revenue he earns on other platforms.
"I know, it's foreigners who make the most money by peddling ghost news. Theseus said that because of overseas personal information protection and other reasons, it is difficult to find out who the real person behind the IP is, so this is also the reason why overseas ghosts are particularly rampant.
The internal ghost network that was shut down due to the Russian-Ukrainian war
He revealed that the proportion of Russians among overseas ghosts is not low, "Russian hackers live up to their reputation, and I always feel that they have a feeling of being a place outside the law." Russian netizens of the prophet also said that Russia is the core of the global piracy game, and there are many young hackers with good skills, because of some well-known reasons, they can't find a stable and well-paid job, so they rely on "black jobs" for others on the Internet to make money.
Foreigners can eat meat, but when they reach the country, they are left with only soup. But even if it is "drinking soup", the income is not too thin.
"Genshin Impact" players should be familiar with the name "Rinban Connoisseur", he just relied on some character information leaked in advance to make personal analysis and development suggestions, and criticized miHoYo by the way. Although many trumpets have been blocked at station B, people have switched to the live broadcast of fighting fish, and there are really people who reward and brush gifts, which is not much faster than making money from part-time jobs.
China is not a place outside the law, and many large companies, including miHoYo and Tencent, have taken legal weapons to protect their legitimate rights and interests, and sued the internal ghosts in court and claimed compensation. Therefore, the behavior of ghosts in domestic games is becoming more and more low-key.
"In 21-22 years, there were still a lot of such ghosts in Tieba, Station B, including Weibo. The sources of information are the overseas platforms I mentioned earlier. Like these platforms, they also have creator incentive plans, and they can earn thousands of dollars a month. ”
But since the second half of 22, manufacturers have intensified their crackdown on internal ghosts, "Basically, they have all been sold out, and even if the remaining internal ghosts break the news, they don't dare to directly throw out the scene map and unimplemented character modeling as in the past, but have become riddlers." ”
Theseus told the prophet that after several vigorous crackdowns, overseas ghosts are still doing well, but the domestic ones are basically not good, "Those (domestic) who still insist on breaking the news are not so much making money as enjoying the feeling of being noticed." ”
The fire burns inexhaustibly, and the wind blows again
It is profitable, and the inner ghost is naturally banned repeatedly. In addition to money, there are other hidden reasons why the inner ghost can always exist.
"Actually, what I know is that the manufacturer's attitude towards the inner ghost is not so disgusted and exterminated", Theseus said, the early content of the inner ghost stealing, mainly the new character modeling, the unimplemented card pool, etc., which does not have much impact on the manufacturer.
AI Mapping by Entertainment Capital
"Although some people always say that sneaking away from the card pool affects the flow of water and the like, this is not the case. Theseus learned through his "little connections" that sneaking in the card pool will have little impact on the running water, mainly those swinging players, who will plan their own card drawing plans according to the sneaking news, but for the True Love Party and the Illustrated Party, knowing the card pool information in advance has no impact on their thoughts.
On the contrary, the news of the card pool is sneaking away, and various communities are in full swing, on the one hand, to keep the game hot, and on the other hand, the manufacturers can also see what kind of reaction players will give to such a card pool arrangement. "Theseus, for example, stealing the news is a very good character + a very poisonous character entering the pool at the same time, and the player scolds fiercely, but the flow is good, but the manufacturer's acceptance of the player has a bottom.
As for the new character standing painting and modeling, in fact, there is not much negative impact on the manufacturer, "Sneaking means that this is a character to be implemented in the future, and it will be sold out, and it will definitely not be perfunctory design." Some people are even going to fade away, and when they see a new role, they may stick to it again. ”
This is probably why many manufacturers are relatively tolerant of the existence of ghosts.
The sneaking content that really shakes the foundation and destroys the emotional bond between players and manufacturers is those revelations about the plot.
"Foreign unpacking guys don't really pay much attention to the plot, but if you unpack, these things will be unpacked together. There is a cultural bias in their understanding of the content, and these plot contents are transmitted back to China from abroad, and they don't know how many hands they turn in the middle. ”
This is particularly fatal to the second game, unlike other games that rely on social interaction and gameplay to catch users, the second game relies on "love", and players are willing to pay for TA only if they like the character. The plot content of these sneaking away has a huge deviation from the original text, and the player's expectations are very high, but the plot is found to be not like that at all, and it is natural to feel that he is obsessed with the wrong payment and then blackened.
"This time, "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" especially said this in the preview, because of the plot of the Five Heroes on the clouds, they were pitted by the ghosts too miserably. The news came back from abroad, and at every level of communication, someone added and subtracted something new according to their own understanding, and the True Love Party added highlights to their favorite characters in it, and finally the plot circulating on the Internet is a version that gathers the imagination of many people, which is completely different from the implementation. ”
As a result, many players who like a certain character quit the pit because the actual content did not match the revelations. The most direct victim of the plot of "Five Heroes on the Cloud" is the current UP character, one of the "Five Heroes on the Cloud", Drinking Moon Jun. He is handsome and can fight, but he didn't "squeeze" the wallets of many players.
Of course, there is a lag in the "retreat" of the second-hand player. Many people will wait for their favorite characters to go up, throw all the tokens in their hands into the card pool and then run away, the so-called "last love". In September, the moon was drunk UP, and in October, the mirror flow UP of the same "five Xiao on the cloud", these two card pools as a whole did not look too miserable, and in November, the players who liked the characters ran away, and it was directly reflected in the running water - a drop of 70%.
Therefore, the revelation of the inner ghost has really affected the income of the manufacturer, especially the category of the second game that needs to be "moved by emotion", which is more affected.
As for the existence of folklore's "breaking the news", Theseus admits that there are, such as new maps and new characters, and there are many game planners who will squat in the community to guide the direction of the wind, but "It's impossible to take out the unrealized plot, so you have to check if there are people in the team who are mixed in." ”
In addition, regarding the leak of the "Five Heroes on the Cloud" at that time, some players believed that it was a diversion strategy adopted by miHoYo in order to protect the inappropriate remarks of an internal employee. In this regard, Theseus thinks, "On behalf of my personal opinion, it is too low for an employee to put his own game materials." If there is a problem with the employee, it is not enough to dismiss him, and no one in the company can be transferred. ”
Speaking of the follow-up of this live broadcast, the roast chicken teacher was choked with emotion for a while, and the overseas ghosts seemed to be moved and promised to "no longer break the news". But Theseus thinks that this is just acting, "changing the skin and changing the number, pretending to be a newcomer".
Nintendo and Denuvo, which are immersed in stand-alone games, have also recently declared war on internal ghosts, and they must add from technical means to prevent content leakage. But if there are interests, there will be people who will take risks, and the battle between manufacturers and internal ghosts is destined to be long and far away.