Jacker is a real character, though. As is Kalnypolok (the fat priest). Some of the “leaks” were just people trolling legitimate minor characters.
Yeah, but there was just no way that they were ever going to make a main roster character explicitly gay. I mean, there would be a certain degree of positive development in that, but the fact of the matter is that large segments of their target markets are pretty conservative when it comes to that sort of thing, and there's only downside to making a character expressly homosexual in this kind of genre, because people in the fan base for pop-fantasy stories who like to imagine this or that character gay will just headcannon "ship" them together in their minds, or fanfiction or art; the segments of the community that are open to LGBT characters already aggressively serve themselves content in that fashion. So I'm sure a company like Namco (especially when it comes to a series that has traditionally leaned very shonen in many respects) sees very little benefit and plenty of potential blowback to making a male character explicitly gay.
Anyway, if the creative director of a SoulCalibur character ever did make a character expressly gay, and it was a retcon or reveal of an established character, I would hope that they would be bold enough to make it literally anyone but Maxi. Making the most flamboyant character gay is so obvious and on-the-nose as to be almost offensive. Make it Sigefried, or Mitsurugi, or Yoshimitsu and then you're taking a bit of an actual stance. That's one of the reasons I couldn't help but roll my eyes when people were buying into that particular prediction. It would please almost no one: some bigots would be displeased that any character was gay, LGBT-friendly players would consider it obvious and not worth much (other than the shippers and fan content creators who would lose their mind: but again, they are living in that world regardless), and the trolls/obnoxious meme makers would have a field day baiting everyone and laughing at their own lame homophobic jokes.
The more I look back at his posts, the more I find stuff that seems very absurd. He referenced the whole thing about Zasalamel and Talim being planned for SC5 (which was never true, and you don't need to do much research to find that there was never any source to that rumour). He randomly claims Namco planned to have Cassandra in SC5 using Darth Vader's moveset (not sure where he would get that from). He claimed characters had 2-3 movesets earlier in development (I'm willing to bet he assumed that from the "concept art" which got released a few years back which was never confirmed to be real concept art for SC6). He kept repeating that Azwel is Grøh's father. He kept repeating the whole thing about Maxi having a boyfriend dying in the game. He kept going back and forth about Cassandra. He randomly changed his mind about Zasalamel being in the game itself or being DLC (to be fair and for all we know, that could have been true, but there's zero evidence of it).
Looking back, there's no wonder he lost more and more credibility because he kept saying too many things which ended up being false or were very unbelievable to begin with, even though he got some things correct.
Yup. At the end of the day he just didn't have a good head for deciphering what was truly a realistic expectation (with regard to his own guesswork or the supposed leaks he was presented with).
But I feel mean talking too much ill of him. I don't think he was trying to mislead people, I think he was just overly eager with speculation and extrapolation.
I couldn't agree more. Not to point fingers at anyone in particular (which would just feed back into the negative energy further), but sometimes there is way too much gravedancing here, and an inability to let things go even years after there was last any realistic debate on a subject, or to perpetuate jokes about past blunders loooooong after they ceased to be even remotely funny. There's been a couple of, shall we say, "big" personalities here who went full throttle on their ideas against all common sense (and sometimes against any contrary opinion) and that partly explains why people feel inclined to hold their faces in the mud forever (even long after they've been active), but at a certain point, the endless return to that well of petty mockery just gets even more obnoxious than the original asshole(s)/silly folk who inspired it. That's why I am so done with the endless 'lesbian barbarian' jokes. But I say that without any real hope that they are going away any time soon. But anyway, my point is, I get what you mean when you say picking on Vergeben feels mean. I think much of what he said was silly and at the same time a little too self-serious, but as you say, there was no indication he was out to dupe anyone, exactly. He just got a little full of himself.
And a part of me hopes Namco will actually keep things hidden for future content (if there's a season 3). It would be easier to count the number of announcements that haven't leaked as that would be a very small number. 2B and Haohmaru are among the few they were actually able to keep secret.
Well, as you know, I have long had my doubts as to how many of those leaks are genuine and how much it has just become their apporach to viral marketing for the series, since they are clearly aware of the work of dataminers such as yourself getting into the industry press. In fact, now that you mention it, I think the fact that the guests do stay a secret is yet more evidence (in an already pretty substantial case) for how the dataleaks are unlikely to be unintentional; there are business/licensing/respecting the borrowed IP reasons for PS to keep the guests secret until they are ready for an announcement, and the fact that they unerringly manage to do so with those characters is yet more indication that their failure to do so with their own characters is not down to mere sloppiness but rather careful cultivated reveals that make the fanbase feel like we have sniffed something out. Even if in reality that work is done by a very small number of members of the modder community such as yourself, whenever that info gets released, it becomes a serious source of fan-engagement and discussion. I'm pretty sold on the idea that at least the last several leaks have been planned, if not all of them. I still think they would be better off just announcing shit at the front end like Tekken, but clearly the PS marketing team feels the current strategy is working for them.
