That's the question I'm asking after last week's Namco Soul Calibur V leak. It appears that some gaming sites are using disposable writers to break embargoes, leak stories, and then take the fall for any repercussions dolled out by the developer. And I'm here to tell you why this practice is terrible news for the games industry.

So, last Monday, GamePro attended the Namco press event for the Soul Calibur V guest character. When you entered, you had to sign a document indicating your commitment to honoring the Friday embargo. Embargoes are huge deals in this industry, as they tell you the time and date you can publish your thoughts on whatever product or event you're covering. So for the Soul Calibur event, the embargo for coverage was the following Friday. Obviously, given the leak, someone didn't honor the embargo.

Sadly, the games journalism industry only works if people work within the embargo system-we're either all in or all out. When one site breaks it, there's no reason for any journalist at any site to follow the embargo. To keep mixing metaphors, if there's blood in the water, every site in the world will further the leak until it becomes a flood.

So at Namco's event, the person right next to me used his iPhone to take a photo of the screen depicting Ezio on the character select menu. Within an hour, this gentleman was apparently escorted from the building but the damage had been done-in the time between when I left the event at 7pm and my arrival at 4pm, he had sent the photo to a gaming news site.

Now, I'm not going to point fingers here, because I don't think the site that published the photo is entirely in the wrong. But the site immediately enjoyed a huge spike in traffic, and everyone else had to play catch up. Those publications, like GamePro, that honored the embargo, were left with only the thanks of the developer for being well, honorable I guess.