Trenches comic: Thursday January 5, 2011 - Asphyxiant

Bogey

Big Brother’s Watching

01/05/2012 - Anonymous

Was working on a game and close to beta they asked for us to invite any friends and family that would like to play. I wrote up a post on Myspace calling out anyone that wanted to play this game we were making, leaving out all details besides the genre. Five minutes later, I get a message, thinking it was from a friend that wanted to beta test it. Instead, it was from a bot run by the company I worked for, demanding I remove my posts and that they had emailed all upper management (lead, art director. producer, company branch CEO) about my “leak.”

I didn’t understand what all the fuss was all about, because I wouldn’t think saying a game company is making a game would be such a secret.

HQ wanted me fired and my bosses valiantly defended me. Punishment was having a “talking to” but I got to keep my job.

Note to self: If you’re working at a game company, don’t tell people you’re working on a game. The shock to the public may cause a worldwide epidemic.

Dark Raven X

That story isn't as one sided as most! It's a huge over reaction on the HQ's part if his self censoring was any good. But there's also the concern about news sites picking up on it and hounding the guy, I guess. On this rarest of occasions, I can see where the bad guys were coming from on this one.

Peace, Merr.

The Wolfman

I want to say the guy is/was a stupid oaf. Overreaction from management? A little I suppose. But there's a world of difference between inviting friends and family and putting your notice on Myspace for all the world to see. And he's a goof if he doesn't understand that.

Ivar

Yeah, the problem wasn't that he told the world that the game company he worked in was making a game, it was that he invited everyone in the world to come play it

Remington

He had to have said something. Otherwise wouldn't that bot just be going around the internet messaging anyone that said the company's name or the game's genre?

collinc

Remington wrote:

He had to have said something. Otherwise wouldn't that bot just be going around the internet messaging anyone that said the company's name or the game's genre?

Exactly, surely the bot is not just scanning the pages of the company's employees looking for the word game. But maybe he worked for a company known for a certain game in a genre, like if it was before D3 was announced and someone who worked at Blizzard posted about an ARPG they are working on.

theResetButton

People still use Myspace?

Dark Raven X

It had a surge last year, yeah. It's been rebranded as a musician startup kinda thing; advertise your band here, music hosting, all that.

Though for personal stuff, I'm assuming this guy's story is a few years old. ;D

Vinnie555

Sorry but this guys an idiot, as someone who works in the Games industry I'd have to say he was extremely lucky not to lose his job over this. Without a doubt he will have signed some pretty draconian NDA before commencing his testing period which would have expressly forbidden him from posting ANY information about the game, hell I've been under NDAs about NDAs before. And how do you think that putting into a public forum the type of game a company is working on isn't a big deal, most games are known by codename throughout their development, so the genre is going to be much more important that what people are calling it. I've enjoyed reading the Trenches stories, it's always good to see the other side of an argument, but this one is ridiculous.

marsilies

I'm guessing the guy was, understandably, a little confused about what would constitute a violation of the NDA. For example, I would assume the NDA would cover not talking about the game to friends/family in real life as well, but they were specifically told to ask family and friends about it, so there was obviously an exception for this instance.

Then there's the content of what he tells others in regards to the game. What he tells people when asking if they want to beta test the game would be restricted. I assumed most NDAs don't restrict you from telling people you work at the company. For other details, I assume the company gave guidelines as to what could be revealed when asking friends/family to beta test, and at least the genre was allowed to be revealed to them. I'm assuming the MySpace post thus didn't reveal any info that he wasn't allowed to reveal when asking friends in person.

The main problem then would be method of delivery. Obviously, any of his friends/family could've passed on the info they learned from him when he asked them. However, a MySpace post, especially posted at the time he posted it, may have been easily discoverable by anyone. I'm assuming the bot found it because he posted his company's name in his profile, if not the actual post, and the mention of the game's genre, or possibly the term "beta," combined with the company's name was enough to alert it. I'm also assuming the bot was not a friend of his. That means other internet users, and other bots, could've run across the post if they were searching for it. If he had sent a mass email out to his friends instead, the bot couldn't have seen it and it wouldn't have caused an uproar.

Then there's the company's reaction. Assuming that he only revealed the three details outlined in the post (company name, game genre, and beta test), the question is: is this too much info to be made public? Is knowing Company X is making a game in Genre B and is beta testing it too much info? Or did the company overreact? If a friend he had asked privately had made a MySpace post with the same info instead, would he have gotten into trouble over the "leak"?

jherico

No, it's not news that a game company is working on a game. It can be pretty valuable information to know that its at a given stage of development (like friends & family beta). Maybe firing would have been an overreaction, but on the other than if the guy still doesn't understand what he did wrong, I'd say his 'talking to' wasn't really sufficient.

Remington

This whole story sort of reeks of bullshit to me.

I mean, if I made a fake profile on Facebook, donning the name of some random Valve employee that I grabbed from HL2's credits, and then I went around posting "Half-Life 3 is beta testing! Portal 2 DLC in the works! We're working on a new FPS!" Do you really think a bot is going to just going to message me and tell me I'm fired for "leaking" information if I happen to get something right?

Sticks

Remington wrote:

This whole story sort of reeks of bullshit to me.

I mean, if I made a fake profile on Facebook, donning the name of some random Valve employee that I grabbed from HL2's credits, and then I went around posting "Half-Life 3 is beta testing! Portal 2 DLC in the works! We're working on a new FPS!" Do you really think a bot is going to just going to message me and tell me I'm fired for "leaking" information if I happen to get something right?

Seems plausible to me. If you have a profile that appears to be from an employee of their company, and it is releasing information that "happens" to be true, that is something they would want to deal with. The first step of that is asking (telling) the offending party to take the message down, and alerting management that there may be a problem.

But really, I doubt the bot is looking for correct information before sending an email of that nature. It probably is looking for any information being posted about the game by what appears to be an employee related profile. Fake profiles could be just as damaging to the company as real ones simply because someone else might happen upon it and assume it IS real.

Remington

Ok, but there's a ton of fake profiles on FB for Gabe himself that don't get taken down.

The guy in the post said that withing five minutes this bot messaged him (I'm assuming on MySpace since the dude said he thought the message would be from a friend interested in playtesting) explicitly saying he leaked information and that management had been notified. There's way too much room for errors with a system like that, which would only be seen as a confirmation of information.

Like you said, this absolutely would need to be dealt with, but it should be done in the office where you know who you're talking to. And not by a bot firing off emails any time someone uses a buzzword.

Sticks

So, there are definitely details that aren't explained in the story (presumably because they aren't relevant and the story teller wasn't privy to them anyway). You see those holes and a lack of other people being spammed for mentioning Company X and Game Y in the same sentence, and say "this story is bullshit." I see the same story, and assume that whoever designed that system recognized these potential problems and came up with ways to get around them. So the lack of spam to non-employees means it is working properly.

There is also the very real possibility that the author just isn't very bright, since he/she doesn't see any problem with their actions, and there is a good chance that they did in fact step over the line. So maybe what they assumed was a "bot" was actually a co-worker seeing the message on myspace and a form letter being sent out by HR/legal?

admanb

Even if it was a bot, the bot could've been blowing some smoke with the list of people it notified, but when the message got to the one or two people who were assigned to screen such things they saw that yes, it was posted by a current employee and yes, it was a problem.

Remington

Sticks wrote:

So, there are definitely details that aren't explained in the story (presumably because they aren't relevant and the story teller wasn't privy to them anyway). You see those holes and a lack of other people being spammed for mentioning Company X and Game Y in the same sentence, and say "this story is bullshit." I see the same story, and assume that whoever designed that system recognized these potential problems and came up with ways to get around them. So the lack of spam to non-employees means it is working properly.

There is also the very real possibility that the author just isn't very bright, since he/she doesn't see any problem with their actions, and there is a good chance that they did in fact step over the line. So maybe what they assumed was a "bot" was actually a co-worker seeing the message on myspace and a form letter being sent out by HR/legal?

No, I just think it's far more likely that a company would have a program flag these posts and report them back to a human to decide what needs to be done than it is that a game development company created a program that scoured social networking sites searching for potential leaks, somehow magically deciding if the author was actually an employee of the company, and then sending him a message to remove the post (confirming that it was leaked information) and alerting the lead, art director. producer and the goddamn company branch CEO. Within 5 minutes of posting.

Also, this program is sensitive enough to pick up on someone posting nothing more about the game than its genre but has never resulted in a false positive (yes, this part I'm assuming but I've never heard a story of someone getting a message like that from an automated system in error).

Either the author if this story is lying outright and none of this actually happened, he posted WAY WAY WAY more information about the game than he says, or the comment was flagged (by a person or a bot) and some leads were notified to decide what to do and his next work day he was talked to.

Whatever the case, yeah, I think it's bullshit. At the very least the author is a moron to begin with, I think we both at least agree on that.

forty

Goose, making a post on Myspace (or Facebook if this hadn't happened more than 2 years ago) is not the same thing as inviting friends and family. 1. It's now publicly available information associated with your name. 2. Your Myspace (Facebook) "Friends" are not the same thing as your family and friends.

Aurich

Remington wrote:

Sticks wrote:

So, there are definitely details that aren't explained in the story (presumably because they aren't relevant and the story teller wasn't privy to them anyway). You see those holes and a lack of other people being spammed for mentioning Company X and Game Y in the same sentence, and say "this story is bullshit." I see the same story, and assume that whoever designed that system recognized these potential problems and came up with ways to get around them. So the lack of spam to non-employees means it is working properly.

There is also the very real possibility that the author just isn't very bright, since he/she doesn't see any problem with their actions, and there is a good chance that they did in fact step over the line. So maybe what they assumed was a "bot" was actually a co-worker seeing the message on myspace and a form letter being sent out by HR/legal?

No, I just think it's far more likely that a company would have a program flag these posts and report them back to a human to decide what needs to be done than it is that a game development company created a program that scoured social networking sites searching for potential leaks, somehow magically deciding if the author was actually an employee of the company, and then sending him a message to remove the post (confirming that it was leaked information) and alerting the lead, art director. producer and the goddamn company branch CEO. Within 5 minutes of posting.

Also, this program is sensitive enough to pick up on someone posting nothing more about the game than its genre but has never resulted in a false positive (yes, this part I'm assuming but I've never heard a story of someone getting a message like that from an automated system in error).

Either the author if this story is lying outright and none of this actually happened, he posted WAY WAY WAY more information about the game than he says, or the comment was flagged (by a person or a bot) and some leads were notified to decide what to do and his next work day he was talked to.

Whatever the case, yeah, I think it's bullshit. At the very least the author is a moron to begin with, I think we both at least agree on that.

I think you just want to pick his story apart. "Within five minutes" could easily be a generalization for "a surprisingly short amount of time," and it may have been a bot or a form letter send by an actual guy or like loads of other stuff. Those are totally unimportant details that he may have embellished or invented, because he's telling a story. The point is that he "leaked" what could easily be called trivial (of course, could easily be called important) information about the game, and the hammer came down on him. As far as trenches stories go, that's plausible as fuck.

rockmonkey

Even while reading his story I assumed he was duped into thinking it was a bot, but it was in fact a co-worker who he also had as a friend on myspace. The co-worker could even have been at the office when the post was made, saw it right away and then turned the guy in.