I’m angry. And probably not for the reasons you think.

There are less than 8 hours until the opening ceremony of Blizzcon, and there have been two pretty big leaks – one about Overwatch and one about World of Warcraft. And I am PISSED.

I’m not angry about the content of the leaks (though I do have reasons to be annoyed by both). No, I’m annoyed that the leaks happened. I am annoyed that people feel they have the right to spoil the hard work that Blizzard have put in to their games by taking away their shining moment. Particularly regarding the Overwatch leak, which included a release date/timeframe. It makes me livid. That was Blizzard’s news to tell. They are the ones who have been working their asses off for years on this. They are the ones who have put their hearts and souls in to this game, so it was them who should have been able to make the announcements. It’s like when you’re questing, and you have to collect an object, but there are 10 mobs around the object that you need to kill before you can get it. The people who leaked these announcements are those assholes who come along and click that object while you’re still killing the mobs that were protecting it. NO-ONE THINKS YOU’RE CLEVER! You’re just an asshole. Fuck you if you do that, and fuck the people who leaked that news. Real people worked their asses off and would have been really excited to make those announcements, and you took that away from them.

Yes, I’m really mad.

People are arguing that the WoW leak is their own fault – Blizzard uploaded an image making it publicly available. But I disagree – the image wasn’t actually published on any of their sites. You couldn’t go on to the Legion website and see the image – someone went out of their way to find information that wasn’t theirs to share, just so they could shout “first!”. I don’t care what the content says, it was a dick move.

The Overwatch news has apparently been confirmed (though at the time of posting this there wasn’t anything official on their sites). The WoW leak (I refuse to call it news) has not been confirmed, and the image has been taken down. It was up for quite a long time before it was removed. You know what I’m hoping? I’m hoping it was deliberate. I’m hoping that Blizzard put the WoW picture up on purpose so that tomorrow during the WoW Legion discussion panels, they can say “haha fooled you! It’s actually coming out *insert date here*. Don’t believe everything you see.” That’s what I’m hoping for.

There’s a longer discussion to be had about the value of datamining as a whole, but that’s a discussion for a time that I’m not livid.

If nothing else, I implore you to read my last post about keeping expectations in check, and I suggest you add “don’t believe it until Blizzard formally says it” to the last as well.

/gets off soapbox