Yatta
Tank
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2003
- Messages
- 1,087
- Reaction score
- 2
I'm not sure if people realize how serious this is. From a consumer gamer point of view, even the hardcore of us, the Doom 3 alpha leak is cool. You can play it, see it in action, etc. The source code for a game is far less exciting, unless you have some knowledge of how to go about compiling that code it's useless, and once you do there's still no content so there's nothing to look at unless you make it yourself. In that respect the Half-Life 2 source code is boring, and as such will probably be seen by far fewer people than if it was a full build with all the content and the binaries compiled (a warez copy). Sure, a warez copy of the game hurts sales, especially if it's released before the game is out. Illegal copies of software is an issue that effects every product released on the PC. The most this effects the normal consumer is a price increase in the product, but otherwise it's transparent to maybe even 90% of the consumers out there.
Most people don't think about how someone else with the source will effect us as gamers. Counterstrike is well known for it's abundant cheats. These were almost all created by reverse engineering code or using hacks that go by way of things outside of the actual game code. With the Half Life 2 source code out, all of those people making cheats now have a direct look of how the code works, they can create their own clients that pretend there's nothing different about them and can bypass any anti-cheat protection put in place. They have access to exactly what the server sees when they move around, jump, fire a button. They can send a call to the server telling it that it's aimed directly at a person's head they happen to be looking in the general direction of. These kind of cheats exist for Counterstrike now, but it took a long time for people to figure out how to do it. People will be able to come out with these cheats the day of, or in fact before Half-Life 2 is even released. Worse, they have access to cd key generation code, even the code that the game uses to check that cd key so clients that don't even need a cd key will be released. The code that hooks Half-Life 2 in to Steam can be removed or exploited.
That's another thing, the Half-Life 2 source includes more than just the Half-Life 2 game code, it's everything. People now can see how the entire Steam system is setup, how the security code for that is done, etc. Thousands, even millions of dollars of research and production time that went in to the creation of these systems is now all for nothing as they'll need to be essentially redone from the ground up to protect us the consumers from being prey to those who could use this information against everyone who buys their game. If Half-Life 2 uses auto updates, and someone has access to the code that lets the Half-Life 2 client know about it, they could hijack the system to install all sorts of wonderful viruses or trojans as part of a bogus update.
Even worse are the legal implications. Valve's engine uses sub systems written by other people. Video codecs, audio systems, physics systems, which Valve had to pay big bucks to get the source for. The source leaked has the source for these too. That doesn't mean too much to us, but to the companies that Valve paid to get that code is going to be very unhappy. They make their living on that code and making sure that no one who isn't authorized to have it can get it. Now it's out there, and while it's possible source for many of these already exists somewhere on the net, Valve is still liable for letting that code be released. This is bad, bad news for Valve.
For Valve it means that the engine they've worked years on is freely available to everyone, so I'd not be surprised to see "open source" (sorry for the pun) 3d engines coming out based on Valve's hard work.
I'm deeply sad for Valve as this could possibly cause Half-Life 2 to never be released, or if it does take millions more dollars than Valve had intended to spend on it. This also destroys any plans Valve had for Steam. While I personally thought Steam was a bad program, I thought the idea Valve had behind it was admirable and was looking forward for it to become more common place. With the set backs the system has already had, this could set back the Steam network indefinatly.
While I doubt this will have any effect, I urge anyone who gets access to this code to not distribute it further. I know I'm not going to stop anyone from trying to find it, but the more that can be done to slow the speed of the source's distribution the better. Think of this as if someone came in to your home and stole your life's work along with your TV and VCR and left an IOU in it's place, someone did this to Valve and it's employees. Regardless of your opinion of Valve as a company, remember people like you work there and make their livelyhood on that code; blood, sweat, and tears have gone in to it and a lot more is likely to be shed from this incident.
Most people don't think about how someone else with the source will effect us as gamers. Counterstrike is well known for it's abundant cheats. These were almost all created by reverse engineering code or using hacks that go by way of things outside of the actual game code. With the Half Life 2 source code out, all of those people making cheats now have a direct look of how the code works, they can create their own clients that pretend there's nothing different about them and can bypass any anti-cheat protection put in place. They have access to exactly what the server sees when they move around, jump, fire a button. They can send a call to the server telling it that it's aimed directly at a person's head they happen to be looking in the general direction of. These kind of cheats exist for Counterstrike now, but it took a long time for people to figure out how to do it. People will be able to come out with these cheats the day of, or in fact before Half-Life 2 is even released. Worse, they have access to cd key generation code, even the code that the game uses to check that cd key so clients that don't even need a cd key will be released. The code that hooks Half-Life 2 in to Steam can be removed or exploited.
That's another thing, the Half-Life 2 source includes more than just the Half-Life 2 game code, it's everything. People now can see how the entire Steam system is setup, how the security code for that is done, etc. Thousands, even millions of dollars of research and production time that went in to the creation of these systems is now all for nothing as they'll need to be essentially redone from the ground up to protect us the consumers from being prey to those who could use this information against everyone who buys their game. If Half-Life 2 uses auto updates, and someone has access to the code that lets the Half-Life 2 client know about it, they could hijack the system to install all sorts of wonderful viruses or trojans as part of a bogus update.
Even worse are the legal implications. Valve's engine uses sub systems written by other people. Video codecs, audio systems, physics systems, which Valve had to pay big bucks to get the source for. The source leaked has the source for these too. That doesn't mean too much to us, but to the companies that Valve paid to get that code is going to be very unhappy. They make their living on that code and making sure that no one who isn't authorized to have it can get it. Now it's out there, and while it's possible source for many of these already exists somewhere on the net, Valve is still liable for letting that code be released. This is bad, bad news for Valve.
For Valve it means that the engine they've worked years on is freely available to everyone, so I'd not be surprised to see "open source" (sorry for the pun) 3d engines coming out based on Valve's hard work.
I'm deeply sad for Valve as this could possibly cause Half-Life 2 to never be released, or if it does take millions more dollars than Valve had intended to spend on it. This also destroys any plans Valve had for Steam. While I personally thought Steam was a bad program, I thought the idea Valve had behind it was admirable and was looking forward for it to become more common place. With the set backs the system has already had, this could set back the Steam network indefinatly.
While I doubt this will have any effect, I urge anyone who gets access to this code to not distribute it further. I know I'm not going to stop anyone from trying to find it, but the more that can be done to slow the speed of the source's distribution the better. Think of this as if someone came in to your home and stole your life's work along with your TV and VCR and left an IOU in it's place, someone did this to Valve and it's employees. Regardless of your opinion of Valve as a company, remember people like you work there and make their livelyhood on that code; blood, sweat, and tears have gone in to it and a lot more is likely to be shed from this incident.
