The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2

[Bionotics]

Fascinating.

[Deleted]

I'm, in fact, happy that he got off - I can even sympathize with his passion for gaming, and not being able to afford all of the great titles he wants (I was much the same).

Would you still feel this way if instead he'd dealt with his frustration at unaffordability of games by walking into a store and stealing a disk of one? The scale of the crime shouldn't really grant him some kind of nobility or excessive sympathy. He's just a shoplifter writ large, no?

[Yooya]

Steam

Call them Valve - Steam is just their distribution platform!

Would you still feel this way if instead he'd dealt with his frustration at unaffordability of games by walking into a store and stealing a disk of one? The scale of the crime shouldn't really grant him some kind of nobility or excessive sympathy. He's just a shoplifter writ large, no?

I feel similar because I have done things similar - sharing some of the same reasons why I did. I don't deny that its wrong. I just can relate.

[Archer]

Would you still feel this way if instead he'd dealt with his frustration at unaffordability of games by walking into a store and stealing a disk of one? The scale of the crime shouldn't really grant him some kind of nobility or excessive sympathy. He's just a shoplifter writ large, no?

But an honest shoplifter. Using your example it would be like if he went back to the store and told them where he stole the merchandise and how and were they could point the camera's next time to make sure something like this doesn't happen. So yeah I would have felt the same way myself.

[Deleted]

Cool story, he did the right thing confessing to both valve and the police which most people wouldn't do if they weren't accused. Somehow after reading this I have sympathy for Gembe, after all he was just a gamer like most of us, loving his game.

[Sellest]

Interesting read, I heard about this some years ago but never knew details, thanks for sharing.

[Chillerbill]

Nice read . Although, he probably worked for Valve all along. Perhaps some new guy can shed some stuff about HL2: EP3 or HL3? xD.
But in all seriousness, he definately did the right thing in the end. It's prolly always the best thing to be honest, no matter what you've done. I mean, he probably had more issues with the "deed" than Valve did, being that passionate.

[Warwithin]

very interesting read

[Dunee]

Holy fucking shit! thanks for the awesome read simca : )

[Deleted]

But an honest shoplifter.

LOL..uhh..no.

There's a legitimate and very lucrative industry that exists to do pretty much all you describe without the pre-requisite of thievery. You can't make countless copies of the disk you stole and give them out to all and sundry and then try to climb your way to the moral high-ground of "But I told them how I stole it" later. He was a cyber hooligan who got caught cause he wanted to flaunt his epeen after. It's not an entirely unfamiliar phenomenon in this, or any other, community, methinks.

His story is interesting even without pretending that he, personally, is anything but a moral light-weight. Or was, at least.

[Deleted]

This also brought to light that Valve had not licensed the Havoc Engine they were ripping off of and it showed that their "AI demo" was a fake.

What they tried us to believe is that the AI of HL2 was going to be one of the best to date and they gave us a scripted AI that couldn't trick a baby. By the time Metal Gear Solid, FarCry and many other games had better AI.
It is illegal to "make belief" but it hardly ever gets called out.

Valve deserved that kick in the ass and they know it.

[Cyclone Duke]

Nice read . Although, he probably worked for Valve all along. Perhaps some new guy can shed some stuff about HL2: EP3 or HL3? xD.
But in all seriousness, he definately did the right thing in the end. It's prolly always the best thing to be honest, no matter what you've done. I mean, he probably had more issues with the "deed" than Valve did, being that passionate.

Give me back my face!

[Deleted]

Ah yes the Half-Life 2 Leak. Man that was a year. Still have the newspaper clipping from it.

I tried all of the builds. Anon worked best. Those were the days. So glad Valve got him, what a douche.

Some of the best stuff from the build was the maps including the Borealis. Was actually looking to find the leak again earlier last week, interesting that this thread popped up. I'd like to look into the Borealis again and gather speculation reguarding Aperture.

For all of you other hardcore fans you may have heard that an Australian news site had a phonecall with Valve yesterday. When asked about Episode three, they laughed. Sad times.

Bring on Portal 2.

[Feesh]

"You can't stop the internet."
Great quote

[electrikfuzz]

This is as old as the internet.

[Goldrinn]

Fascinating.

^

Awesome read.

[Tuvok]

Personally I think those kind of resources would be better spent catching criminals who actually hurt people rather than catching those who cut into people's already abundant profit margins.

But whatever.

[Deleted]

This is as old as the internet.

The internet came out 2 days ago?

"2011-02-21"

[Garam]

Interesting read.

Not entirely sure why police needed a full team with assault rifles to take down a single hacker, but okay.

Guess their dispatcher watched the Matrix recently.

[Drexxil]

Interesting read.

Not entirely sure why police needed a full team with assault rifles to take down a single hacker, but okay.

Guess their dispatcher watched the Matrix recently.

People fear what they don't know, and hackers are usually an unknown thing to people.