If that’s really the case with Steve then I’m probably convinced he isn’t happening.
As for the Grinch leak, I was one of the strong believers so I admit I should’ve been more skeptical but in it’s defense, it wasn’t your typical 4chan leak of any sort.
There was evidence that backed up even when it turned out to be invalid in the end.
The printing company, Grinch promotions, Eric Bricard’s employment etc, a lot of things had a lot of it in its favor but someone really went through all that, then I’m confident that it was a giant scheme against the Smash community with Mariotehplumber being involved.
Gonna have to interject on this whole Smash talk with talking about this. When did all of a sudden people say that the Grinch Hoax isn't impressive? I've been seeing that a lot lately. If you ask me, out of all the "fake leaks" we've had in the past five or so Smash games, this one was the best of them all. The Metal Gear Solid V reference alone with the placement of Snake and Banjo & Kazooie really got a lot of people, and would definitely be in-line of something the dev team would do. Hell, look no further than the character interactions with the recent Piranha Plant showing.
Really, going into November, the Grinch Hoax turning out fake only was half of the salt pouring on the wounds, as the other half I'll still stand by saying with that Direct being quite honestly a pretty underwhelming showing. If there's anything to be critical of Nintendo and Sakurai of was the Direct itself, definitely not the Grinch Hoax, however.
I really hope that going into this DLC cycle with us getting 5 packs (characters, stages, music, Classic & Palutena's Guidance, etc.), that Sakurai learned from what he did in August when he went overboard a bit with reveals. Gotta keep a semi-smooth pace.
It definitely had more substance to it than the typical "Hey check out this random image," with the whole narrative and extra evidence surrounding it. But I guess it just reminded me of the "Survivor 2299" hoax for Fallout 4 back in 2013, which I've brought up before, where some guy spent almost a thousand dollars on a fake teaser site for Fallout 4, in order to A) screw with Fallout fans, and B) prod Bethesda into making a statement. I remembered also (but haven't been able to find where it was stated) that the site was also hosted near Bethesda itself and was programmed similarly to their sites, making it seem more legitimate.
So someone going through the work to attach Eric Bricard and the marketing company as a means of giving the hoax more legitimacy wasn't surprising to me. Especially since much of that information was publicly available, so any crafty dirtbag looking for an obscure European marketing company could utilize that. Or, if what I remember reading is true, Eric Bricard was friends with that Mariotehplumber guy, and that's how the whole thing was able to happen in the first place. Indeed, the fact that a marketing company was behind it didn't give it that much more legitimacy, since someone who works in marketing/graphic design is the perfect person to have the technical skill to make the hoax themselves in the first place. Especially since there was no evidence that said marketing firm was in any way associated with Nintendo, let alone that Nintendo would allow third party marketing companies to know what the rest of the roster was, so Eric Bricard making the hoax himself would be more likely (especially with the attitude of the leak) than him actually having the official mural artwork.
And then given the mural artwork being the center of it, I remembered
this fantastic art where someone put Bomberman into the mural that totally matched the art style and everything. And that wasn't even for a hoax. If someone could manage that, it's not a stretch for it to be done with other characters. By blurring the image, too, you only have to put in a fraction of the effort, since all the details won't be visible. Any reasonably talented artist who's decent with Photoshop could pull it off. If the picture was unblurred and clear, having the same amount of artistry and craft as that Bomberman rendition, then it would be way less sketchy. But in typical hoax fashion, the meat and bones of the image is out of focus, so there's conveniently no way to definitively debunk it.
On top of the fact that it all went contrary to Sakurai's statements about how many characters to expect, as well as contradicting Vergeben's claims (and he was the only one out of the sea of "leakers" and "insiders" to not have made an incorrect claim). It had too many characters, and included Mach Rider and Chorus Kids, two characters whose only significance come from a joke comment Sakurai made over a decade ago and a minor record in Smash 4's game files, respectively. Educated pulls for the "random character pick" criteria, but besides those minor connections, there wasn't any reason to consider them as likely picks.
Overall the more I thought about and analyzed the hoax, the less it made sense. It's impressive in the amount of effort that went into making it seem convincing, but not impressive with how convincing it actually was. The blurriness was an immediate red flag, and the other elements of the hoax imitated a marketing company, but not necessarily a marketing company that anyone could verify was actually working with Nintendo or would have clearance for the full mural. But it was enough to seem real at first glance, and it got enough traction and support that no one really did too much critical thinking to consider the reasons why it might be fake.
I would've loved for it to be real and shatter our expectations, but sadly that was not to be.
At the very least, it'll stand as an example to not get too convinced by any supposed "leaks" in the future. Any time something similarly complex but still dubious comes along, people can point to the Grinch hoax and say "Yeah, but this is what people can be capable of." I guess I was just the only one who remembered Survivor 2299, so hopefully more people will remember the Grinch hoax.
