If you've ever wondered how video game studios identify who is leaking critical secrets, a new Bloomberg interview with Don McGowan, Bungie's former general counsel, gives provides some very interesting insight into how it's done.

"We had a situation with one of our content creators. 'We had a community day where we brought together content creators from the community and put out a stream.' One of them took a picture of his computer and made it public. Not under his own name, but just to leak it and gain influence on the website where it was leaked."

McGowan explained that because there were 12 streamers on the leaked calls, Bungie began looking into them all in detail." One of them had two PCs, and one day he was streaming from the other. "The icon at the bottom of the screen was exactly the same as the one in the picture. Okay, this is the guy. So I set up a call with him."

The streamer in question denied responsibility for the leak and said his roommate must have secretly taken a picture of his screen; according to McGowan, Bungie denied the claim for two reasons: second, and more importantly, my friend did no such thing; and third, he said, "I've never seen a picture of my screen before. [If you look at the angle of the camera, you can see that the camera is held in the photographer's right hand. You can see the room you are in. The door is on the left. So either your roommate came in and took a picture right behind you and you didn't notice it, or he took the picture himself."

McGowan did not name the streamer in question, but shortly after the interview was published, Twitch streamer Ekuegan effectively confirmed that he was the leaker being referred to. Ekuegan said that Bungie has confirmed that he was involved in multiple Community Summit leaks and was banned from Destiny 2 in 2023 as a result of what he called "irrefutable evidence" that he was involved in the Summit leaks; Ekuegan adamantly denied his guilt at the time and continues to do so in a message posted today.

"I will die on this hill. I have never taken a picture or sent anything to anyone at all," Ekuegan tweeted. 'The only thing I did wrong was rush to record the last 45 minutes. I watched it and got rid of it immediately.

"Sitting down with @JojoDaFoxx and found out my computer was compromised. Someone had hacked into my system without my knowledge. I sent that to @Bungie as evidence. It's not cool to slander someone's name over something that wouldn't hold up in court."

McGowan said the way to deal with leakers depends on the nature of the leak. For example, if someone leaks an article about sexual misconduct at a studio, he said he tries to track down the source to find out "if what they are saying is true" and "who is responsible for the abusive behavior."

He also told a story from his Pokémon Company days when some kids found a way to extract images from the Pokémon card game and began sharing them.

"So I called his mother and said, 'I wanted to talk to you about what Andrew is doing on the computer.' She said, 'You're saying he hacked your game. She said, 'You mean he hacked your game? I began to explain more technically. I said, 'Hacking software is a federal crime, but I don't want to talk about that. Why don't we make this a conversation about the good and bad things he can do with computers?'"

This is a fun interview, but it also provides an interesting behind-the-scenes glimpse into how big companies enforce their will. Full text at Bloomberg.