Half-Life 2: Delay? Maybe, Playable? Yes [Oct 07, 2003, 4:42 pm ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
New delay for
Half-Life sequel on BBC News (thanks Eraserhead) has a quote from Christophe
Ramboz of Vivendi Universal Games on the Half-Life 2 source code theft that
takes a completely different direction than the talk of four month delays found
in a different article (story), as they have him saying:
"Vivendi Universal Games is only the distributor of the product, which is
produced by the US studio Valve and so it will up to them to make an
announcement." Meanwhile, Thieves
steal playable version of Half-Life 2 on CNN Money contradicts reports that
downplay the amount of code stolen, choosing to reveal that the Source
source thieves "also stole enough game maps and other components to put
together a playable build of the game. Today, five days after the first leak,
they have released that build."
| Have fun playing, but buy the game, cause this wasnt intended |
| to be leaked! After the source leak, there was no reason for |
| keeping the beta private. |
| |
| - Anonymous leaker |
"After the source leak, there was no reason for keeping the beta private" implies that the person who leaked the playable beta was not the same person that leaked the source code. The person who had the beta only released the beta as a result of someone else leaking the source code. Meaning, they wouldn't have released the beta if the source hadn't been leaked. So, this sounds like whoever leaked the beta had the beta with Valve's permission, or got it from someone who had it with Valve's permission.
So, this means that it's very possible that only 1/3 of the source code was stolen, just like Vivendi said (since the source leak and beta leak seem to be seperate incidents, and the beta doesn't appear to have been obtained by the hack into Valve's network).
This also brings up the question, who would legitamately have a copy of the beta and then leak it? A hardware vendor, perhaps? Not ATI, I would think, given the deal to bundle the game with their new card. But, for the conspiracy theorists out there, nVidia is an interesting thought, since Valve has been giving nVidia a bad name lately (actually, nVidia's shitty DX9 performance has been giving nVidia a bad name, but you know what I mean)...
I think the most likely scenario is that a hardware vendor had the beta, and someone at the hardware company leaked it once the source code was leaked, in a "what the hell, why not" fashion.
This comment was edited on Oct 7, 20:20.
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