Don’t you think it strange, everyone, that so many “high-profile” attacks and “thefts” are taking place on sequels to games, near their release date? Seems fishy to me…...
Think about it you are a game publisher/developer/whatever. You have a hopefully-hot title, a sequel to a popular and well-selling game, that you wish to promote; problem is, the usual PR garbage may not be enough anymore. Demos may reveal too much of the gameplay (i.e. weaknesses in the game), and the movies only go so far. Why not stage a “theft”, a “leak” of the code around the usual dark corners of the Internet, put out a public announcement that a “break-in” was committed, and those caught with the code “will be prosecuted under the fullest extent of the law”, then sit back and wait. Pure genius.
Is anyone still going to sit there, fifteen years after the Internet took off, more than three years after the WTC attack, with notices by CERT about potential holes and threats to the cyber-infrastructure posted nearly every day for YEARS, that these so-called “high-tech” game companies, who should have a great grasp of technological abilities and shortfalls, STILL HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO SECURE THEIR SERVERS???
Too much coincidence, people, too much
[1] Valve’s code for Half-Life 2 get “stolen” near their September launch, withholds going gold until this November (don’t hold breath)
[2] Microsoft’s Halo 2, French version, taken and circulated.
[3] Now Take 2, near financial straits and betting the farm on number (lessee, one, two, three, Vice City…..) , well call it number five, of their Grand Theft property (which didn’t really soar in the public until III), suddenly reports a “theft” of their gamecode.
They have the followingin common [a] followups to popular games by big names that need as much hype as possible in order to be heard out in this crowded and high-competitive market, since [c] no-one’s heard hide nor hair of them since the last time that “title was released and [d] the swag they have been pushing out hasn’t been enough. Besides [e] with enough spin, bad publicity (someone broke into our servers and stole the gamecode) can become good (our stuff’s so HOTHOTHOT people are stealing it from us).
Or am I missing something here?