A developer saw two PCs stolen during Gamescom 2012 which contained alpha builds of two upcoming PC games.
With Gamescom 2012 currently underway in Germany, there's certainly a lot of traffic passing from booth to booth at the annual games expo. Publishers, developers and press alike are feasting in gaming goodness, smelling each others breath, and likely feeling the heat from thousands of bodies and gaming rigs. Divinity developer Larian Studios unfortunately is somehow missing two of the latter.
Bit-Tech reports that the developer is currently missing two desktop PCs that were located in the business area of the convention center. They contained alphas of both Dragon Commander and Divinity: Original Sin -- two PC games the developer was demoing at the show. How they suddenly came missing is unknown at this point.
According to the report, Larian Studios is now offering a $5000 USD reward for information leading to the successful return of these two desktops, or the identification of the party responsible for the theft. "We're asking the game community to band together to track these criminals down and to get the games back!" the developer said on Wednesday.
This certainly isn't the first trade show thievery. Joystiq reports that a thief attempted to copy early code for the game Breach from one of Atomic Studios' computers during PAX East 2010. The thief, Justin May, was arrested but skipped bail. He eventually agreed to show up for court in May 2010 and was placed on pre-trial probation. That meant he wasn't allowed on Xbox Live, and was forced to hand over his PC.
"Our request of the District Attorney was that they treat this case just as seriously as if Justin May had stolen some very expensive tangible goods," stated Atomic Games' president Peter Tamte. "In other words, we requested that they not treat the theft of intellectual property any differently than they would the theft of tangible property. It's my understanding that the path they have taken with Justin May is consistent with this request, and the DA's course of action was heavily influenced by the fact that Mr. May was caught before his theft could cause any damage. Had he been able to post Breach on the Internet for download, and then been caught, he would likely end up serving time in jail."
For anyone who has information about the current Larian Studios theft, the developer can be found at its booth at the Business Hall 4.2, Booth A-16. All upcoming titles will still be demoed thanks to backup PCs.
Agreed, and yet all we do is give them a slap on the hand and send them back out to do it again. Not a huge fan of some "middle eastern" laws, but that cutting off of hands for thieves works for me.
lol i'm sure the music and movie industry, and software companies feels the same way ^^
You're too late.
The thieves are probably more interested in the software than bringing the PC online. So, as long as they stay offline, you can't track them easily. Perhaps one way to counter thievery like this is to require the user to get online in order to boot up even the developer version of the game, besides the obvious approach of authentication and source code obfuscation on the machine.
You wouldn't steal a car...
They can feel the same way about something being stolen, but a fundamental part of having something stolen, is that you no longer have it. Copies are inherently different even if it still hurts their feelers. Copying without permission is infringement not theft. Even though the colloquial use is theft, example: If someone actually stole your idea, you would no longer have that idea , If they copied your idea, you still have that idea. It's a big difference and while acceptable for a child to make the mistake, I'd be embarrassed as an adult that speaks for a company, to have the limited vocabulary of a child.
You wouldn't steal a handbag. You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't steal a baby. You wouldn't shoot a policeman. And then steal his helmet. You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet. And then send it to the policeman's grieving widow. And then steal it again! Downloading films is stealing. If you do it, you will face the consequences.
Anyways, I would rather that the stolen PC had alphas of HL3 or something. MAN that would be juicy.
In either case I strongly dislike thieves, and this is no exception. We take thievery too lightly in todays society. I'm not saying we should start lopping off hands, but what happens today is a slap on the wrist.
My first thought! How the hell? Cameras are freaking everywhere now. They even have camera's literally up people's a$$es. How the farg is this dude not on a camera somewhere. I'll tell you...cops are lazy bums.
if i was at the convention, and played the alpha, i would so do that just because i think it would be funny.
yea i have a twisted sense of humor, but tell me that wouldnt be funny.