Alright, I need to step in briefly to talk about the most interesting "leak" I have seen, the Trip to Namco leak by Toots. This one is notable because of the insane amount of detail the leaker put into it, including actual photos of Namco. I will apply the questions I proposed in my last post about analyzing leaks more thoroughly. If the leaker offers more information or evidence, I will update this post.
1) What motivation would someone have to leak information about this game to a bunch of strangers on the internet?
I think this is the most important question, and it make me doubt the veracity of this leak the most. It's safe to assume that there are very few outsiders who are invited to tour the inside offices of Namco, and even fewer who get to play demos of unfinished games. The circumstances of the visit might have involved winning a contest, having a family member or friend on the inside, or working with Namco as a freelancer and getting a courtesy tour. No matter how he got to visit, I think it's also safe to assume that Namco asked him to not talk about anything he saw relating to unreleased games. They also probably didn't allow him to take photographs of the Smash demo, although it is odd he that he didn't mention trying.
My point is, the detailed story and photographs he posted clearly implicate the leaker. If he didn't want to be caught leaking or get on the bad side of people who trusted him to keep a secret, he wouldn't include so much specific information that the people who gave him the tour would recognize. Unless there is another reason the leaker wouldn't care about his hosts knowing his betrayal (maybe Namco isn't as secretive as Nintendo and forgot to make him sign something?) I don't think anyone would risk their reputation over telling a bunch of strangers insider information.
I'll address this more later, but it's worth noting that he came to Smashboards before he went to a legitimate news site or any other forum. He also chose to make a brand new account for the occasion.
2) What evidence does the leaker offer?
Well, not much. We get some information we won't be able to verify until the game releases (and the leaker conveniently left a lot of things very vague) and three photographs of Namco's studio in Tokyo. After looking online at other photographs of Namco, it is clear that the second and third images were taken inside the main lobby. I wasn't able to determine if the first image was actually in Namco's offices, and frankly it's the only photo that matters. There are countless youtube videos and blog posts by people who were able to go inside Namco's main lobby to play on the plethora of arcade machines there (which the leaker mentions doing), but a major thing that would help the leaker's credibility is establishing if he was able to go a step further than most people by entering the back offices. But even that would not prove that he saw Smash.
It has been shown by other sleuths in this thread that the image dimensions are all different, suggesting that they could have been resized from a video. I searched google and youtube for a little while, but I couldn't find any videos of Namco tours that had the exact same images (and they could easily be taken from multiple sources). If anyone wants to disprove this leak, finding a video that matches would probably be the easiest way, because it would prove that the leaker didn't even take pictures of Namco in the first place.
Another poster in this thread mentioned that Toot's photobucket account was linked to an animal crossing forum. I couldn't find said forum, assuming his username there is Teekycres. I will examine the forum if you can link me to it. It would be suspicious if he really was posting on January 17 and didn't mention his trip, assuming he mentions other things about his private life on that account.
3) How easy was it to create the leak?
Relatively easy, but much more thought was put into this leak than the others. He offers photographs, a plausible backstory, and exactly the kind of information one would get from a short demo. It seems like a lot of trouble for the express purpose of trolling, especially if he ripped images from an obscure video tour of Namco. On the other hand maybe he visited Namco, already had the pictures, and wanted to make up a leak for fun. In that case it would have been a lot easier.
4) Do you want the leak to be true?
5) Similarly, do you think a leak is unlikely given the proposed roster or game modes?
These can be answered together. Personally, I think the characters he mentioned would be interesting additions to the roster, but I would have never guessed that a character from Other M would make it. Shulk and Issac sound like they came from a fanboy's dream roster. That makes me slightly biased against the leak, so keep that in mind as you read my analysis.
6) Where did the leak come from?
This is where we need to do some detective work to learn as much as we can about Toots (otherwise known as Teekycres, or Tom Cresci, based on his photobucket profile). What follows are the notable links I have found about him using these names. Other posters might have already posted some of this.
Facebook: Tom Cresci's facebook page is mostly private (and may be changed to fully private after he sees this) but from what I can gather, he is interested in fighting games, specifically Soul Caliber, Tekken, and Smash. That could imply that he has been following the leaks for Smash 4, and maybe that he would try to get a tour of Namco if he could. He also works at Open Road Integrated Media in post production. The company is a digital book publisher, and I can't find any connection between that and Namco, so it is unlikely that his work brought him there.
Smashboards facebook story: On August 28th, 2013 Smashboards was hit by a DDOS attack. The facebook page posted a link to the Kotaku story, which Tom Cresci commented on: "Are you ****ing kidding me. I dont want to say anything, but I swear tio god if its Marvel scrubs..." This suggests that he was active on Smashboards back in August, and probably has another account here right now. Why wouldn't he post his leak on his established account to give it credibility? It also confirms his interest in multiple fighting game communities.
Long Island Smash Tournament: On May 18th, 2013, he attended a smash tournament. This also shows his competitive interest in the game. It implies that he lives on the East Coast somewhere around Long Island. If he did indeed take those pictures of Namco, he would have had to actually take a trip to Japan.
In a similar vein, he has attended smash tournaments using this very site, although I couldn't figure out his account name in either of
these threads. Let me know if any of you can determine what his alternate account is. Assuming he knew about competitive smash, follows the rumors and leaks, and loves fighting games, something really bothers me about his story: Why wouldn't he choose to play as the new completely unrevealed characters to learn more about them? I sort of understand him choosing Rosalina, but then he picks Marth over Shulk, Issac, and Adam. The way the story is currently set up, he picked the safest characters to describe. If he had picked any other newcomers, he would have had to invent their move set from scratch if he is lying.
7) How many other leakers have taken a shot at predicting similar things?
There have been plenty of leaks that predict all of the characters mentioned by Toots. More interestingly, I remember another poster in this thread suggesting that a leak would be more believable if the leaker was in a realistic scenario, like playing one round of the game during a lunch break with Sakurai, rather than having insider information on the development history of the game. It's possible that Toots saw that post and took it to heart when creating his leak.
8) Do one or two correct details guarantee the rest of a leak to be true?
Obviously not, and we will have to remember this even if characters such as Shulk and Adam become spoiled. The leaker has tried to give himself some leeway by repeating that he saw an incomplete version of the final game, allowing him to later claim that they must have significantly changed things from what he saw.
So, that is my analysis. I hope other people continue to look up Tom Cresci and find other accounts he has used here or elsewhere. Maybe he has a history of fake leaks. I'd also love to see that animal crossing forum. And Toots, if you are reading this, feel free to comment on my speculation and add more evidence.
