Disclaimer: About Research and Sources

Because this drama happened a while back, many of the sources (such as Twitter accounts) are missing or have been deleted. This post is the best attempt to compile an entire story of what happened. If you feel like this post is missing anything, please feel free to make a comment with an addition or correction.

Introduction: Leaks and Leak Culture

As long as humans wanted to know things, we’ve wanted to know things first. Take London during the 17th and 18th centuries. Licensed stock brokers traded in the Royal Exchange, but in order for data to get through, it had to cross from the port. In between the port and the Exchange was Exchange Alley, where all the unlicensed brokers traded in both stocks and rumors while hanging out in coffeehouses. This meant that any sort of new information generally reached the alley before the official Exchange.

On the other hand, the information in the alley was not guaranteed to be reliable. One time, a man riding a horse announced the death of the queen, which caused a massive sell-off due to uncertainty of the next monarch’s policies. However, it was revealed to be a ruse by some other traders to buy low and sell high. Such is the risk of early information.

The gaming industry has given rise to a digital Exchange Alley, as people wanting to follow the latest news and excitement flock to leakers who serve up these tantalizing tidbits of information. Leakers usually post concept art, speculation, and datamined content online regarding games and the video game industry as a whole. Anything that isn’t officially announced information can technically count as a leak. An example of a leak is “This quarter’s Nintendo Direct will reveal these games.”

Because leaks are technically a breach of trade secrets, it is common for leakers to remain anonymous, and for their credibility to be judged based on the veracity of their leaks. Keep this in mind.

The Leak Ecosystem

Leaks are usually posted online in several different places: Twitter, 4Chan, and Resetera. There’s also the subreddit r/GamingLeaksAndRumors, but leak subreddits usually are dedicated to discussing leaks and not creating them. This is for many reasons, chief among them that leakers want to avoid potential DMCAs from game studios that might bring down the entire subreddit.

Normally, people don’t consider random leaks (i.e. “source: trust me bro”) to be good proof. However, if an official announcement has information that was referenced in a previous leak, the credibility of that leaker increases. Thus, people will look forward to hearing from that leaker more, and take their leaks as potential predictions.

This, as many things on the Internet, has been codified into a tier ranking. Every year, there is a community reliability poll on r/GamingLeaksAndRumours ranking leakers based on their records. The most accurate leakers are usually well-established Twitter accounts or actual journalists, and the most unreliable leakers are taken less seriously or get their leaks straight up banned.

Now, with an understanding of how the leaking world operates, let’s discuss one specific leaker who never quite decreased in reliability, but certainly lost a lot of community trust in another way.

Enter Midori

As mentioned in the previous section, every good leaker needs an origin story. We start with, as many stories do, on Twitter. In 2023, a spinoff of the popular JRPG Persona 5 named Persona 5 Tactica was announced. Later, it was announced that this game would come with a DLC named “Repaint Your Heart” that stars the new characters from Persona 5 Royal. This announcement was quite a surprise, so fans and rumor-lovers decided to see if there was anyone who had leaked this prize info ahead of time. As far as I can put it together, there was indeed a leaker who shared this information. They had the Twitter handle @MbKKssTBhz5 and had a Japanese name I’m pretty sure is read as “Midori”, which means green in Japanese. Their tweets didn’t have the best English, but they were still pretty clear unlike the vague hints and literal emoji strings that other leakers gave. While I cannot find the original leak, here is a reddit post that references this leak: https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/14lx19x/leaker\_who\_released\_image\_of\_akechi\_and\_yoshizawa/.

While not all of their information was true, they had a stream of reliable leaks that anticipated announcements most people did not see coming, especially when it came to Sega:

Besides these leaks, Midori would also verify the output of other leakers, calling them “Correct Information” to approve. I can’t verify them all, but the general impression that I get is that Midori had an incredibly strong record. Additionally, there are many leaks that have yet to be verified, such as the nature of Persona 6 and a sequel to Sonic Frontiers. Midori also gave and verified Nintendo and later Square Enix leaks, but was generally more in tune with other leakers on those and wasn’t as prophetic as with Sega leaks.

When r/GamingLeaksAndRumours came out with their Credibility Tier List, Midori was listed as Tier 1, the highest tier alongside journalists Jason Schreier and Tom Henderson.

A Rising Star

Ok, but there are lots of trusted leakers. What’s so special about this one? As Midori became trusted for reliable leaks, people also learned some things about them. Midori disclosed they were a Japanese girl trying to learn English. Their tweets were often in broken English, which people generally excused due to English being their second language.

(note that the original tweets are no longer available, so I’ve linked people’s reactions to some of these leaks on Reddit)

Midori refers to an upcoming Nintendo Direct as “peak”

Midori clarifies that they’re just excited about the Nintendo Direct

The Internet, being a totally normal place where people do not get obsessed over online personalities whose lives they know nothing about, took this information and ran with it. Although he later posted an apology, one user tried to deduce Midori’s age based on the release date of Persona games and asked for their number. Another user posted this Midori plush depicting their profile picture.

As a response to these individuals, Midori later clarified that they had a boyfriend and hoped that their admiring fans would “find cool girlfriend soon” (exact words). Nevertheless, their solid record ensured that they remained a popular figure in the leaking community.

She Quits! Wait, She’s Back!

Leaking is a difficult balance. You want to give out enough information to get people excited and increase the trust they have in you, but you also can’t drop everything, or you might face serious consequences from the company whose NDA you might be breaking. For that reason, many leakers, even popular ones, remain anonymous, and most leak consumers acknowledge that leaks should not be taken as fully indicative of the final product. However, gamers and leaked consumers are still a difficult group to fully satisfy, and many leakers have come and gone because of these risks.

While they were active, Midori announced they were quitting multiple times, citing multiple reasons. I am not sure how many times they quit(I vaguely remember 3), each time came with a strong emotional reaction. Case in point, one time the blame was assigned to Zippo, a highly controversial figure in the leaking scene.

However, each time Midori would come back with a new leak. These comebacks also signified a change in leaking content, such as leaking about new companies. So even with these short retirements and crazy fans, it seemed like nothing could stop Midori from becoming and …

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/1jiapmv/video_games_the_rise_and_fall_of_twitters_leaker/

[Video Games] The Rise and Fall of Twitter’s Leaker Idol