In the words of Thanos, “Fine, I’ll do it myself.” You see, not too long ago, Bandai Namco released a closed test of the upcoming Tekken 8 to do some trial and error with the internet side of the game. It’s very standard stuff, and gamers like to help the developers do these tests to improve the game and get some hands-on before lots of other people do. However, when the test ends, that’s supposed to be the end of the line. However, on PC, gamers cracked the game and played it without hesitation.
One man who wasn’t amused by that in the slightest is the Tekken 8 Director, Katsuhiro Harada. At first, Bandai Namco released a statement saying that if you, the player, keep using a cracked version of the game, you could get banned from official paying tournaments, as using the cracked version gives you an unfair advantage in playtime. However, a pro player named Joe Crushed decided to do a live stream of the game in its cracked form, so Harada pulled a Thanos and did the work himself.
He entered the stream under his official account and called out the “Cracker.” As you probably guessed, many people weren’t sure what was going on, and some people felt that this wasn’t Harada at all but merely someone using his name or even hacking his account to make that post. So, Harada took that to heart and made a tweet that you can see below alongside the Twitch comments:
So yeah, Harada really was in that stream, and that pro player has now been put on notice. If you don’t stop playing the game, you will be banned.
It’s rare to see individual directors or developers take action like this. But that should show you what this franchise means to Harada. This isn’t just a game for him, this is a franchise that he’s poured a lot into, and he wants people to respect it, him, and the rest of the team who have put a lot of effort into making things work. The closed tests were supposed to be a kind of symbiotic thing where both sides came together to help the other in the long term. But now, people are trying to take advantage of Bandai Namco and Harada isn’t happy about that.
So stop playing the cracked version unless you want Harada to call you out for the world to see!
