This is much more difficult now than it used be. Corporations are wising up, they know all the tricks, and their employees are much more prepared and careful. A lot of it is just learning by example too.. when someones blog or resume is exposed, everyone else in the industry reads all about it so they try not to make the same mistakes.

Most gaming developer veterans are careful what they write about, but the best information comes from new hires, interns, and egotistical braggarts.

You can call these "leaks" if you want to.. but they're more like discoveries. Leaks would be something that you confirm from an inside source and usually it's very specific information that's supposed to be confidential.

With all of the recent gaming and information leaks, I figured I would share how some kinds of video game related leaks are discovered. The internet sleuthing site "Supererogatory", for example, made EXTENSIVE use of these techniques for pretty much all of his posts.

1. At the top of your arsenal will be Google Alerts.

Starting out, let's say you want to find some older information on Google. You would use very specific searches like the following:

inurl:resume "Blizzard Entertainment" - the URL has the word "resume" in, and Blizzard Entertainment is a keyword on the page.

Useful for finding those unknown www.brandonsmith.com/resume.html specific sites.

site:cghub.com "David Grexton" - for searching specific sites, especially forums, for any posts that contain this users name.

filetype:pdf resume "Bethesda Softworks" 2011 - for finding PDF or DOC files (typically resumes) with specific information for recent dates.

There are also specific keyword searches, like "Blizzard Entertainment" "Unannounced MMO" or "Blizzard Entertainment" "Next Gen MMO" but these can give you a lot of information that are too many to filter.

Now, most of the historical Google information has already been found or discovered by others. But, what's so great about Google Alerts is that it will automatically email you as soon as a NEW Google entry is made. So, if someone adds a new resume with specific keywords, as soon as Google crawlers capture it, you're notified. Google Alerts is an awesome tool for finding new information, especially when you're filtering by document types or specific keywords.

If you have a Google Alert for just "unannounced game" for example, you'll get too many Google Alerts daily.. so you want to make your alerts as specific as possible.

2. Another great tool is www.LinkedIn.com.

If you want to do any useful searches, you need to sign up with an account.

Google used to be a great search engine for LinkedIn, but they've changed their system and have severely restricted Google crawlers now. For example, you could create Google Alerts like site:linkedin.com "Blizzard Entertainment" and you would be notified immediately when a new account was created with Blizzard in their credentials. You can't do that anymore now. :(

Now, you have to manually search LinkedIn and just keep track of employee names yourself. If you search for "unannounced mmo" blizzard or "next gen" for example, you can find all of the Blizzard employees who are working on the game or have worked on previous unannounced titles. You also need to be creative with your keywords: unannounced, untitled, unnamed, *titled, *announced, next gen, nextgen mmo, secret, project, etc.

If you want to get invited to see more information about a user, all you need is a 3rd degree of separation. There are TONS of employees, industry contacts, and especially recruiters who have a "Will Accept All Invites" policy. Create yourself a name and account, and then do a search for recruiters or keywords like "accepts invites", "all invites", etc. In a couple days, you could quickly generate 100 contacts on your LinkedIn account, with 3rd party connections to all major game developers. This gives you open access to their LinkedIn accounts, and you can typically see more information than what would be available in their public profiles.

3. http://whois.domaintools.com

What's great about this site is that it creates an individual Google-searchable page every time a new domain is registered.

If you type, site:whois.domaintools.com blizzard you can see most domain names with Blizzard within it's title or description.

It's not the most reliable website for historical webpages, but it's great when you create a new Google Alert using the site:whois.domaintools.com command. You can be alerted any time a new domain registration is created within whatever parameters you set.

Sometimes you need to get a little creative.. don't use "Blizzard Entertainment" for example, but rather search using their Administrator or Technical Contact names. Or, have active searches for "DomainsByProxy" or other Proxy companies that hold domains for private entities like many of your favorite game publishers.

More to come..

Anyone getting the impression that the SWTOR Beta NDA isn't going to be lifted until just a couple weeks before retail or maybe even not at all? (ie, once retail hits, then everyone is free to post their reviews.)

I always figured that NDA's were probably lifted late, on purpose, if the developer/publisher knew that the reviews might do poorly. And companies like Blizzard that make great games would typically lift their NDAs much longer before the actual release date.

So, I looked back at some of the major releases over the past few years for comparison:

Age of Conan - NDA lifted May 1 2008, Released May 20 2008 (PVP specific NDA was lifted on Apr 19, but the General/Technical beta remained intact.)
RIFT - NDA lifted Dec 22 2010, Released Mar 1 2011
Earthrise - NDA lifted Jan 25, Released Feb 4 2011
Warhammer Online - NDA lifted Aug 19 2008, Released Sep 18 2008
Hellgate London - NDA lifted Oct 19 2007, Released Oct 31 2007
Matrix Online - NDA lifted Feb 14 2005, Released Mar 22 2005
Tabula Rasa - NDA lifted Sep 7 2007, Released Nov 2 2007 (Early Rls: Oct 30 2007)
Darkfall Online - NDA lifted Feb 18, 2009, Released Feb 25, 2009
DC Universe Online - NDA lifted Dec 6 2010, Released Jan 11 2011
Fallen Earth - NDA lifted Aug 18 2009, Released Sep 22 2009
Champions Online - NDA lifted Aug 17, 2009, Released Sep 1 2009
COD Elite - NDA lifted Aug 16 2011, Released Nov 8 2011
Cataclysm - NDA lifted Jun 30 2010, Released Dec 7 2010
Wrath of the Lich King - NDA lifted Jul 18 2008, Released Nov 13 2008
Starcraft 2 - NDA lifted Aug 17 2009, Released Jul 27 2010
DOTA 2 - NDA lifted Sep 22 2011, TBA 2012 Release Date
Diablo 3 - NDA lifted Aug 1 2011, TBA 2012 Release Date

(I would have liked to include Aion Online, but that game had multiple release dates, name changes, and NDAs for different geographies and it was just too weird.)

Are you beginning to see a pattern? Games that have done poorly (bad reviews) typically had very short periods of time between NDA lift and release (1 month or less). Average games would be about 2 months. And games that the publisher knew would do very well have their NDAs lifted 6+ months in advance.

NDA vs Release Date timing is a very good indicator of how much trust a company has in their game and a good determining factor of success.

It's sort of like preview trailers. If they show more pre-rendered videos and bullet point features than actual gameplay, it's not a very good sign.

If you can think of any other online or MMO games to add to the list, let me know.

• I actually managed to sit through the entire 01x05 Terra Nova episode. Very family and touchy feely, and I don't think it's going to get any more interesting than it has already been. I going to place my bets on the mole to be that adult female actor pretending to be a teenager who lives with Taylor and is Josh's new love interest. I have no idea what her name or character's name is, nor do I care to learn..


• Once Blizzcon is over (and they announce ticket sales and virtual attendee numbers at their next shareholders meeting), I'll write something up along the lines of that old "Blizzcon Revenue and Costs" post. Should be rather interesting considering the price hikes.


• Blizzard is entering into a new agreement with AsiaSoft (in Thailand) to distribute their games in Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. This is sort of a weird Gamasutra post too. They make it sound like Blizzard games weren't already available in those countries: "AsiaSoft will make these titles available in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, although the company did not indicate when the first games will be available." However, World of Warcraft is already played by many people in those countries (as well as other Blizzard titles.) Most of the players just connect to the Philippines servers for reduced lag, so this agreement might be mostly beneficial in that it would be bringing servers closer to the players. I don't think these new territories are going to have a major boost to subscriber numbers though, but I think it will encourage some new gamers to start playing.


• Those Blizzard Blade Servers just went up for auction. Apparently, there are a lot of folks who seem to think there's something of value they can extract from the servers.. I guess they're not aware that these don't have any hard drives in them, and it just has a plaque instead. These are the same ones that Blizzard had a silent auction for last year at Blizzcon 2010. But, they're even much older than that. I guess they've been pretty much sitting on a shelf for years now, and they have added the new plaques within the past few months.


• And finally, here are some classic reads from Blizzard that you might find entertaining. I guess some things change.. belief systems, morality, apparently laws...
  
  Selling In-Game Content for Real Money | 1/12/2005
  

  Not only do we believe that it is illegal, but it also has the potential to damage the game economy and overall experience for the many thousands of others who play World of Warcraft for fun.
  
  If you are found to be selling in-game property (such as coins, items, or characters), for real money, you will lose your characters and accounts, and Blizzard Entertainment reserves its right to pursue legal action against you as well.

  So, back then it was:
  
  "If you buy an item, that's ILLEGAL. You're breaking the law and it damages the economy and overall experience! If you do this, we'll call the cyber police on you.. consequences will never be the same!"
  
  Nothing has really changed, but now the attitude is:
  
  "Well, TCG Loot card mounts have been sold for a long time now, and we've been able to tell it hasn't had any adverse impacts to the game or economy - despite them selling sometimes for astronomical amounts of gold.
  
  It's no big deal. We're just providing alternative ways for players who don't want to spend real money on these items."
  
  I'm disappointed that they would change so radically and even try to justify it.
  
  And there was also these old posts:
  
  The difference in patch types
  
  "For World of Warcraft, we will also be adding new content on a regular basis, thus ensuring that there will always be new adventures, new locations, new creatures, and new items to discover."
  
  Content patches were officially supposed to be delivered on a monthly basis (like what Sony announced for DCUO). Within a 6 month period, Blizzard had already delivered 4 major updates and 9 minor (content) updates.
  
  What is contained in a regular content patch?
  
  "Each content update will also bring new quests, items, professions recipes, and continued class improvements."
  
  Just broken promises.. no big deal.