Leak.

The word "leak" is a negative word, it literally means 'To become publicly known through a breach of secrecy', which in dumber terms is 'Make a private thing public cuz someone fucked up'.

It's a quite popular word too, with a lot of usages in all sorts of media, from the arts and films, music, books, etc. to any other sort of job to even politics!!

And when video games began to become extremely popular and have magazines dedicated specifically to them, it was obvious leaks would also be applied to them!

After all, what better way to acquire information regarding a project that you like than to forcefully acquire private information from the development team and then spread it, potentially painting a false narrative based on a prototype that won't come to fruition!! ...sarcasm.

Leaks, by pure definition, aren't ever good to anyone but he who it's destined for. The development team loses the opportunity to announce the cool project they had been working on for months in a special and hype way that may be remembered for a long time, the leak may be of a prototype of which a lot of stuff gets changed or removed, painting a false narrative of the full product, etc.

To me, at the very least, it has never seemed like a particularly good thing for any of the two teams;
As a consumer, I always felt like the image the leak was inaccurate, either showing stuff in an extremely bare bones moment that'd ruin the moment later on or would spoil so much it would make any shock later down the line potentially meaningless
As a creator, I felt like a leak would be overall bad for the games reception, since it will never make as much hype as a proper announcement from you, well planned and professionally put together, and if the public dislikes it you have to rework the game - maybe even fundamentally - but if they like it you're forced not to tweak it to your liking and vision because of the risk of them being disappointed.

So, with all of that previous context towards what a leak is and how much I dislike them when it comes to video games (movie leaks will get their own rant someday I guess but I don't care much about movies)...

Why..????

Why would anyone call their own sneak-peaks, content showcases or however you wanna call it... A leak??

Pure clickbait.

And clarity for those guys who grew up hearing "leak" all their lives.

But I honestly believe its mostly on how the word feels.

A 'sneak-peak' feels almost unavoidably small. Some are undeniably big, but usually they feel small for one or another reason I cannot put my finger on.

A 'leak', however, has a whole different assortment of emotions. It feels dirty and wrong - like you aren't meant to see it. It has a connotation of something big, due to how many leaks have been gigantic (eg. Fallout 4, The Last of Us 2, Grand Theft Auto 6, Half Life 2, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (THE GRINCH!!!)...)

So, I get why a lot of game developers, mostly indie ones, use it instead of 'sneak-peak' or similar terms, it's way more popular, gives it a grander sound, and its so popularized that everyone, no matter the language, has probably heard and knows what it means.

...but it's still wrong??

It's like grabbing a broccoli and going "This lettuce is wonderful", they are both vegetables but it's not really a good comparison, they serve different purposes and shit. I also hate broccoli which means its bad. Welcome back biasy.

If I were to make a game and make a server to share progress on it, I would tell you right off the bat I wouldn't call it "leaks". I would call it "dev-updates", which can serve for all sorts of sneak-peak/updates!! It can work to show sneak-peaks, update people on progress and how much more is left, maybe even some shitpost which is always incredible and awesome, and, well...

There ain't nothing wrong with a little bit of shitpost.
But it might do you some good if you went sad now
See, around here the memey man ain't nothing but a clown
And his jokes ain't nothing but a comedy cementery
Around here the clown just won't do
And around here, the clown is you.

(i love poor mans poison too much)

Anywhom,

that's the rant. I don't know if I'll make a rant regarding Movie Leaks/Spoilers, most likely, but that will only happen when some big movie I am waiting for happens. Which is counter productive and actively makes me get spoiled, but that's even funnier so fuck yeah.

Alright, until then. That was all from me.

Hope you have a wonderful day/night, I hope you had fun reading, and I'll see you around, gentlemen.

Signed, Rafa.