UPDATE 5:30PM PST August 7
In a statement to video game site IGN, Take-Two Interactive confirmed SupMatto had been visited by private investigators on its behalf, stating:
“Take Two and 2K take the security and confidentiality of trade secrets very seriously. The action we’ve taken is the result of a 10-month investigation and a history of this creator profiting from breaking our policies, leaking confidential information about our product, and infringing our copyright.”
A YouTuber claims he was allegedly visited by private investigators at the behest of Take-Two Interactive after posting leaks from the upcoming looter shooter Borderlands 3.
After previously sharing leaked info for the much anticipated Borderlands 3 on his YouTube channel, ‘SupMatto’ claims private investigators showed up to his house.
The YouTuber posted a video on August 6 where he went into detail about the alleged situation, claiming Take-Two Interactive wasn’t too happy with things he’d posted.
Investigators allegedly showed up at SupMatto’s house
SupMatto detailed exactly what happened in the unexpected interview with the investigators and claimed that they questioned him for almost an hour.
“On Thursday July 25th, private investigators showed up to my home, trespassed on my private property, and questioned me. I was very tense as many of you could imagine, having two people in suits you don’t know showing up to your home,” he said.
“As lawyers have said, I probably shouldn’t have spoke to them. But I did, because I don’t feel I have anything to hide. They questioned me to various things relating to my channel. They told me they were from Take-Two Interactive. I think we spoke for 30 to 40 minutes.”
On April 29, the official Borderlands YouTube channel posted the reveal of the ‘ECHOcast’ Twitch extension for its upcoming game, which allows players to receive exclusive items while watching streamers play.
During the video, the SupMatto claimed the name of one of their testing accounts could be seen. He further clarified: “This wasn’t found by me, and was posted on various platforms, like Reddit and other social medias.” A post on Reddit with the test account linked is still live as of August 7.
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One user named ‘Commandant_Obvious’ posted: “Doing some snooping around I’ve found that the channel has 35 followers with similarly gibberish names but no videos or clips, so we can assume that this is either a test stream for the Echocast addon or the stream that was used to make the example overlay for the video.”
The Borderlands YouTuber posted screenshots from test streams that had gone up, before he allegedly received seven copyright strikes on his channel. He pointed out that they were manually filed by the publisher.
SupMatto also alleged that maybe 20 minutes after he was interviewed by the investigators, his Discord server and account were terminated and he received a message that stated ‘your account was involved in selling, promoting, or distributing cheats, hacks, or cracked accounts.’
While it is currently unknown if Take-Two is going to be pushing the situation further, the YouTuber has said he’s going on hiatus to decompress, and has closed his Twitter account: “I am absolutely on hiatus, while I figure out what I want to do.”
The whole incident seems to have rattled SupMatto, and might have even soured the avid fan on the series. “I don’t know if I want to play the game. I don’t know if I want to make videos. I’ve played the games religiously for 7 straight years, so it’s time to chill out” he said.
Dexerto has reached out to Take-Two Interactive for comment regarding the allegations.
