| Subject: that's all we need, another reason for HL2 to delay shipping |
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Gordon Freeman
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Date Posted: 15:32:48 10/08/03 Wed
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=581&u=/nm/20031008/tc_nm/tech_vivendi_games_dc&printer=1
Vivendi's 'Half Life 2' Hit by Code Theft
Tue Oct 7, 8:19 PM ET Add Technology - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Ben Berkowitz and Dominique Vidalon
LOS ANGELES/PARIS (Reuters) - Hackers have stolen the source code to "Half-Life 2" and distributed a portion online, leading the game's developer to say on Tuesday that the release date for one of the most anticipated PC games had been thrown into question.
The data theft, one of the worst to hit the video game industry, drew mixed responses from fans, some of whom pledged to help find the perpetrators while others rushed to the Internet to try to find screenshots or even playable fragments of the game.
Last week, developer Valve Software issued a public plea for help after the source code to the game began to make its way around the Internet. In a posting on a fan forum, Valve managing director Gabe Newell said someone had hacked into Valve's systems and stolen the code.
Newell said that the hacker or hackers used a flaw in a Microsoft Corp. program to install a malicious program known as a keystroke recorder on several computers at Bellevue, Washington-based Valve.
On the fan Web site HalfLife2.net, word spread on Tuesday that a playable version of the game, built on the stolen code, had found its way onto Internet file sharing sites. Multiple users reported seeing the files or movies of the game but those reports could not be immediately confirmed.
"We are still assessing the effects of the attack," Valve director of marketing Doug Lombardi told Reuters in an email. "At this time, we have no further details we can share regarding the theft nor its impact on the release of Half-Life 2."
The game is to be published by Vivendi Universal Games, the video game arm of Vivendi Universal, and a VU Games spokeswoman said their official stance on the game and its status was the same as Valve's.
VIVENDI POSITION UNCLEAR
Valve controls the project and Vivendi has in past refused to say when the game would be released, although a French newspaper on Tuesday quoted a senior VU Games official as saying the game had been delayed.
"A third of the source code was stolen. It's serious because it forces us to delay the launch of the game by at least four months, that is to April 2004. Just the time to rewrite parts of the game," VUG's president of international operations Christophe Ramboz told Les Echos.
A source familiar with VU Games' operations said that the April release date was not firm because the company did not have any clear information on the subject from Valve.
Any delay would be seen as bad news for VU Games, which suffered a 29-percent fall in revenue and an operating loss of 52 million euros in 2003's first half and had been betting on swift holiday sales.
A delay, if true, would be the second time the game's release has been postponed. It had originally been slated for Sept. 30, but Valve said in late September it was set for an "unspecified holiday release."
The game was keenly awaited after last May's games industry trade show, E3. Critics previewing it said it brought a new level of realism to characters and the virtual world in which they move.
The original "Half-Life," released in 1998, is still popular among PC gamers, and a modified version called "Counter-Strike" is widely used in gaming competitions.
"Half-Life 2" stars Gordon Freeman, a scientist battling aliens from the planet Xen in a mysterious European locale known only as City 17.
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