The Escapist sat down with WoW Production Director J Allen Brack at Blizzcon and this is one of the questions that they asked.
How did the WoW team react to the Cataclysm leak?: They “went through the five stages of grief, really. It’s hard to not have this initial irritation, where you work on something, you want to build up a surprise, an awesome reveal, and have it yanked out from under you.” But as the weekend went on, and they saw how the WoW community was getting excited about the news, it became easier to accept. “The reality is, the fans still went crazy for Cataclysm.
Welcome to Spinksville! 
“…the fans still went crazy….”
As the insurance companies say, that’s a pre-existing condition. They were already crazy to begin with to become fans, obviously.
I bet Blizzard is going to be doing a serious witch-hunt over this. I gotta wonder why anyone would want to leak the information though… they’re not really gaining anything from it, unless they were bought-off or something.
I wonder if they will still be crazy when this thing is finally released, late next year.
I’m not that convinced that they’re really pissed off. To be honest I think they got more attention and coverage in the online media than they would have had without it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the leak actually was concious and planned by the PR people. Stranger things have happened. Sometimes “exclusive” information and “leaks” is an activity you use in order to get better buzz and more meda interest.
Or maybe it wasn’t planned after all. Well, no need for witch hunt this time anyway. The outcome was anything they could have asked for.
I also wondered if the leak was semi-planned.
But imagine if you were in that team, and thinking about how excited everyone would be if the first they knew about the expansion was at the Blizzcon opening ceremony when that trailer was shown.
Then … a week before D-day, someone leaks pretty much all of it.
I don’t know, there are some benefits to having the information out there. The group in that room is the crowd that might be most likely to go “WTF, where did my other 5 levels go?” or “Uh, NE mages?!”.
Also, the info has always leaked. Every single time. You have to believe that part of the response at Blizzard was “already?!” rather than total disbelief.
I think they leaked it themselves ;p
it’s what most companies do now