The upcoming Tekken 8 recently held a closed network test (CNT) that had a PC version, which of course meant that the game pretty quickly got cracked, datamined, and played beyond when developer Bandai Namco wanted it being played. The publisher has subsequently issued a statement acknowledging some players accessed the game beyond the CNT, warning that unauthorised downloading or distribution is illegal, and threatening bans for accounts found to have accessed the CNT after it ended.

The director and presiding spirit of the Tekken series is Katsuhiro Harada who, outside of the official statement, decided to take matters into his own hands. Like Clouseau with sunglasses the developer stalked Twitch looking for streams that were broadcasting gameplay from the CNT after the point it became unavailable, and hit paydirt with the stream of Tekken 7 pro Joe Crush. Or so he thought.

The full stream is below: Harada enters the chat at 8 hours 12 minutes.

Crush was playing the CNT of Tekken 8 alright. “Hello cracker” was Harada’s opening gambit, to the utter delight of the audience (which has chosen to interpret “cracker” in the racial sense for the comedic effect, although Harada meant “software cracker”). Harada sat around for a few minutes absorbing chat, and warning the streamer to stop: “But this is all sorts of misunderstandings, so it’s better to end it,” said Harada. “I have been contacted by the Twitch operator.”

Several questioned whether he was the real Harada, including Joe Crush. “Do you think Fake?” was Harada’s response. “Alright I will SHOW my power.”

Harada then went nuclear, “check my tweet now”, pointing to this Twitter proclamation:

“TLJoeCrush, Check this tweet. STOP IT or BAN forever.”

“Oh shit” says Crush on seeing the tweet, after which he immediately logs out of the CNT, and loses access.

Thing is, Crush wasn’t using the cracked version of the game. He’d just ended up in some sort of limbo after the CNT was supposed to close, and ended up hanging around on the servers longer than he should have been. Clearly Harada realised this had all just been a misunderstanding, too, because he’s now deleted his tweet threatening a “BAN forever”, preferring instead to say “don’t worry [about the ban]. That was fun thanks!”

Well, it’s not every day your ass gets busted by the main man, nor in such humorous fashion. The thing here apart from Joe Crush being innocent is how Harada steams in like Robocop on a mugger, with that unbeatable opening followed up by threat of showing his power, and the prospect (rather worrying for a Tekken pro) of a lifetime ban. Harada may have got it wrong here, but clearly needed to work off some steam about Tekken 8’s CNT being pulled-apart in the way it has been.