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Gates of Troy Gold Master Stolen, Delayed

Posted by simoniker on from the deadly-shadows dept.

Ant writes "According to the story on Blue's News and Slitherine Software's related official statement, the gold master for Gates of Troy, their upcoming stand-alone PC strategy title, has been purloined, via a physical robbery of a UK Post Office carrier, rather than a computer break-in." It may well have just been "a piece of extreme bad luck", but kudos to Slitherine for trying to make the most of this incident, as they slather: "This attack comes hot on the heels of the theft of the Half Life 2 source code and shows how vulnerable games companies can be", and also fret: "It has been a wake up call to us and Slitherine will be reviewing its procedures in future to ensure the same type of thing cannot happen again." - perhaps a heavily armed guard is needed?

15 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Wow... by Txiasaeia · · Score: 2, Funny

    First time I ever heard of a warez group not only releasing a game before it's in stores, but releasing a game that WON'T be released in stores :)

    --
    Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
  2. Obviously a guard is needed... by bergeron76 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When you're dropping your company's ENTIRE business model into the "mailbox", you deserve whatever happens.

    Things of value should be protected and transmitted as such.

    I have no sympathy for them. Hell, even Grandma knows better than to send cash in the mail; never-the-less a potentially million dollar peice of software.

    --
    Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
    1. Re:Obviously a guard is needed... by jackbird · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, why the need for a physical gold master, anyway? Seems like FTP would be the way to get it to the duplicators if it was so valuable someone would knock over a post office to get it. Of course, given the comments below about the game's popularity, I say PR stunt.

    2. Re:Obviously a guard is needed... by MMaestro · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Hell, even Grandma knows better than to send cash in the mail;

      Yeah, thats because Grandma may be old, she may be senial, but she's not so far gone enough to remember that her grown up son/daughter can just use a credit card.

      Thats like saying, 'well billions and billions of different letters and packages are sent through the postal service safely and securely daily, but that doesn't mean we can't take the 234235546234 to 1 chance that our package will be the one that will be lost/stolen.'

  3. Pardon me... by Mad+Quacker · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...but boo-hoo.

    On it's way back from the duplication... How does this delay the game again? Was it the _only_ copy? How long does it take VS to crank out another build? Worried that people will download the warez copy before they can buy one? Simple, make it available for download by purchase.

    Maybe they will delay the game for a year and claim it was because it got stolen. *cough* Half Life 2, but they actually had to do an internal investigation and security audit. That certainly didn't take a year.

    Soon they will be blaming the loss of digital bits for cancer and terrorism (oh wait a sec....)

    --
    "I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
    1. Re:Pardon me... by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Interesting

      well, they observed that a good way to get publicity is to get your property stolen and then score for some sympathy points as well as delaying the game of course.

      me, I never had heard of the whole fu*king game before this so they certainly got what they were looking for(free publicity, like, what's the need for them to publicly announce that the gold got stolen other than free pr).

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:Pardon me... by gl4ss · · Score: 2, Informative

      I hate to reply to myself but now that I checked the page I notice that "Gates of Troy" was an EXPANSION PACK I had never heard for game called 'Spartan' that I've never heard about either.

      and really, if you check the pages it's not really a title you would risk robbing the postman for(financial gains == zero, as well as fame, the game is a quite niche game).

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  4. hot on the heels? by pizza_milkshake · · Score: 3, Funny
    This attack comes hot on the heels of the theft of the Half Life 2 source code

    The HL2 source code being stole happened last October, over 8 months ago. here's a dated money.cnn.com article

    if i got laid last October and then laid today, i wouldn't necessarily say this time was 'hot on the heels' of the last time.

    oh wait, since i read slashdot, maybe i would...

  5. Re:Quaint by CDLewis · · Score: 3, Funny
    Nobody ever reported open source code stolen.

    Didn't SCO?

  6. Yes, they do by DAldredge · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.busybox.net/shame.html

    Hall of Shame!!!
    The following products and/or projects appear to use BusyBox, but do not appear to release source code as required by the BusyBox license. This is a violation of the law! The distributors of these products are invited to contact Erik Andersen if they have any confusion as to what is needed to bring their products into compliance, or if they have already brought their product into compliance and wish to be removed from the Hall of Shame.

  7. From the game's offical site: by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 2, Funny

    Gates of Troy is only available through the Slitherine Online shop - you will not see it at your local store.

    But you WILL see it on Kazaa, eMule, and at Suprnova.

    --
    Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
  8. Re:GnuPG anyone by metrazol · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...encrypted the ISO...right...delayed...wait....

    THE GOLD MASTER IS THE LAST GODDAMN STEP.

    I sent a DVD off to replication a few weeks ago. I was worried it'd gotten lost in the mail, so I burnt another. Gee, no biggy. Didn't need it, it was just a mail delay.

    There's no source on the master! It's the same as the frickin' disk you buy in stores! Where's the benefit of stealing it? You could just warez it or shoplift it. Heck, the master probably isn't even in a readily usable format, probably a disk image file used by the industrial replicators so you'd need mastering software to get the image back into good ol' NTFS or whatever. This story is a load.

    --
    "Life's funny sometimes." "And sometimes it isn't." --Cat's Cradle
  9. Maybe I'm missing something by Ronnie76er · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Is this that big of a deal?

    Would someone steal a whole bag just to get a game?

    The thief was probably looking to get some money out of other mail that was in there, and he'll probably just throw the disc aside (if he even knows what it is).

  10. Re:Not really big news by ymgve · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What are you talking about? Hardcore pirates never play the games they download. They just download, and download, and downliad...

  11. Guards by kaellinn18 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    perhaps a heavily armed guard is needed?

    I can see it now... the little postman walking from door to door flanked by two massive guys with BFGs. :-)

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