Crytek Talks About The Crysis 2 Leak

A little over a week ago, an early build of Crysis 2 was leaked onto the Internet. Though playable from start to finish, the iteration of the game was not complete. Crytek's executive producer Nathan Camarillo goes on the record talking about how the leak impacted the development team, and what pulled them out of their mire of depression.

According to Camarillo, even though the build was leaked recently, the version was from mid-January. "With 250 people working on a project, thousands of bugs get fixed in a heartbeat. So that version is like a really ugly version that we don’t want anyone to see," he explains.

Crytek was very sensitive to the negative reaction they received regarding the original Crysis's over-saturating marketing campaign. “We were really trying to go the opposite way this time – hold as much as possible but still get people excited about it enough that they wanted to buy into it and get into the game world but then experience that all for the first time," says Camarillo.

Camarillo does a good job of conveying the range of raw emotions the team felt when they first discovered the leak. “Oh god, that was terrible," he says. "We went through all the phases of loss in the office. Afterwards it was denial. ‘No, this isn’t happening. No, this isn’t true. Oh, this can’t be happening.’ The whole denial phase of it. Then angry. ‘WHO DID THIS? How did this happen?’ People saying like, ‘He’d better not come to the office’ It wasn’t an employee but you know, whoever did this, whoever was Patient Zero. If I ever find this guy…

"Our office is generally really upbeat and really communicative. People are really tired because they work hard but we all collaborate and work with each other and get around and talk around problems and everyone was walking around like Charlie Brown – really sad and shuffling their feet. It was really…really tough."

Finally, he explains that the positive feedback and sympathetic support of the community was truly what pulled the Crytek team from the pits of misery. "“Even people that hate on Crytek for whatever reason said ‘I know I said bad things about them in the past but I just feel terrible about this – I’ll never say anything bad again," Camarillo explains. "This was an awful, awful event that happened to them. Please don’t download it’. So the community self-policed in some regard. It is still out there and it is still being downloaded but a lot of people just said ‘No, I’m not downloading this. I’m boycotting it.’ ‘I wasn’t gonna buy it but this is terrible. I’m gonna go buy it now.’"

For some, a video game is just a video game. Certain consumers feel entitled to sample a game illegally, forgetting that there are folks who sacrifice time with their loved ones to meet deadlines and make fans happy. Reading Camarillo's candid account of how piracy affects the creative team will hopefully deter some would-be pirates. If you're one of the folks who resisted downloading Crysis 2, then pat yourself on the back. If you contributed to the problem, I recommend you go fly a kite. In inclement weather, even!

[Source: The Average Gamer]