Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The leaked lineup for last week’s PlayStation State of Play surfaced shortly after the event was scheduled on YouTube. This has added to concerns over the kind of access Google employees have to videos before they go live, an issue highlighted in recent reports from Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson and 404 Media.
One incident, as noted by Henderson, occurred in 2022 when KSI attempted to give away over $10,000 in Amazon gift cards. However, KSI later realized that all of the gift card codes had been redeemed before the video was posted, sparking an internal investigation at YouTube. The company reportedly started a similar investigation after the trailer for GTA VI leaked, but it’s not clear whether it’s related.
All of this ties into what…