Game Programmers Suspected of Stealing Code

[Xerapis]

Police are investigating a suspected theft of software code for online game "Lineage III" which is being developed by Korea's largest game maker NCsoft.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police said Wednesday that seven former NCsoft employees are suspected of having sold the technology to a major Japanese game company.

The seven left the Korean firm in February and allowed the Japanese company to review the software during a job interview. Police believe that the technology might have been copied during the demonstration.

The former NCsoft employees are also under suspicion of having leaked the program design of "Lineage III" by email or portable disk last September.

According to police and industry insiders, the game company has suffered from an internal management problem since a senior game developer was fired for poor leadership skills.

But the sacking only led to greater problems for the company, since most of developer's 90-member team quit with their chief.

An NCsoft spokesman estimated the potential damage at over W1 trillion (US$1=W927) considering that the combined sales of "Lineage I" and "Lineage II" topped W1.5 trillion.

[Samwise]

 

[Xerapis]

Well, someone has to post the shitty Asian gaming news, right?

The correct response is "It couldn't happen to a more deserving game" or the equivalent.

Although, Vanguard does seem to be doing its damnedest to make Lineage III sound like an interesting option :P

Good thing we have AOC and WAR incoming.

[sinij]

They just wanted to get head start on the grind.

[Samwise]

I'm rolling my eyes because the hoopla that surrounds any incident of "source code theft" always seems so retarded to me.  "Source code theft" makes it sound like their source code has been removed from the building in some sort of elaborate heist and now they'll have to replace all of it.  As opposed to what actually happened, which is more like the guy next to you sneaking a peek at your exam, but "source code plagiarism" doesn't sound as sexy.  What the fuck super secret technology is in Lineage III that is going to cost NCsoft ONE TRILLION DOLLARS if someone else gets their hands on it?  What's someone going to do, take a little chunk of engine code, copy and paste it into their shitty MMOG, and thereby magically make the game so much better that it will steal all of NCsoft's customers?

[Xerapis]

Now see, Sinij is more in the spirit of the disdain!

Oh, that damage value is clearly all blown out of proportion.  But then, they actually do have a successful franchise going over there.  It's not like AC and AC2.  Or even EQ and EQ2.  L3 could actually make some decent money, and the number of gamers is only increasing.

A lot of older Koreans express some serious concern about net addiction these days.

But at least they don't send the net addicts to boot camp rehab like the Chinese do yet.

[Endie]

What the fuck super secret technology is in Lineage III that is going to cost NCsoft ONE TRILLION DOLLARS if someone else gets their hands on it?

It's a billion US dollars, not a trillion.  Still sounds like an awful lot, though, I agree.  I have no intention to open myself up to ridicule by attempting to work out any real numbers, though.  Showing your workings on F13 is about as wise as a politican handing out solid spending plans.

[Hellinar]

a senior game developer was fired for poor leadership skills.

most of developer's 90-member team quit with their chief.

Isn’t there a bit of a disconnect here? If he was such a lousy leader, how come most of the team followed him out the door? Sounds more like his offence was standing up for the team.

Edit: Judging by the game though, maybe “poor leadership” in NCsoft is failure to crucify enough peons to encourage the others.

[Pendan]

Is interesting to me that NCsoft keeps having this problem with code theft. L2 third party servers were apparently prevalent because the code was stolen and spread over the internet.

[Azaroth]

Unscrupulous programmers fucking around with the code??

Next, at 7: Dogs chase cats!

 :-D

[Murgos]

According to police and industry insiders, the game company has suffered from an internal management problem since a senior game developer was fired for poor leadership skills.

But the sacking only led to greater problems for the company, since most of developer's 90-member team quit with their chief.

Actually sounds like his leadership abilities were exemplary, his follower skills (read: takes a corn-holing and likes it) seem to have been sorely lacking though.

I've never been asked to show my previous work to a potential employer (and in my line of work that would probably be illegal) but I know people who have and it's always something of an issue.  I'm not even really sure it helps during an interview process, if I had my doubts about someone's ability I think I would ask them to prepare a presentation on the subject and then see how that goes (in front of knowledgeable potential coworkers) before I asked to see previous work examples.

[Xerapis]

Well, remember that Asians are all about the teamwork and groupthink.

Over here, peer pressure is a POSITIVE concept.

So yeah, I can totally see his team leaving with him, even though upper management may have thought he was lacking.  Much more likely here, actually.

Now, handing over the code to the JAPANESE?  That's just wrong!

[slog]

Apparantly, the source code stolen was mostly a macro that allow for fast chat.  In particular, it's the algorithm for /say "Rang Rang", which is valued by chinese gold farmers at a call 2 million dolars US.

[Endie]

Apparantly, the source code stolen was mostly a macro that allow for fast chat.  In particular, it's the algorithm for /say "Rang Rang", which is valued by chinese gold farmers at a call 2 million dolars US.

Um, if you're going to make a joke based around language and funny foreigners then it's probably a good idea to at least approximate the language you make it in.

[FatuousTwat]

What does Rang Rang mean again? Back when I played L2 (someone forced me I SWEAR) I would get bots saying RANG RANG I PK YOU GO NOW.

At first I thought it was a joke, then I started getting it 10 times a day.

[Cadaverine]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rang-rang

Apparently, it's the equivalent of "fuck off"  As to the exact translation?  No idea.

[tmp]

What's someone going to do, take a little chunk of engine code, copy and paste it into their shitty MMOG, and thereby magically make the game so much better that it will steal all of NCsoft's customers?

Well, depends what sort of "technology" they gained access to, really. Since Lineage is in large part about combat of large groups of players, if they were focusing their development on that and managed to get some significant improvement of performance in that area, I'd figure someone else getting hand on it and releasing "mass PVP MMO that actually works" *before* NCSoft could get a nice chunk of cash and market, skipping large part of the development costs to boot.

Turning it into "just take a little chunk of engine code" is downplaying potential impact for the company, not sure for what purpose.

[Samwise]

The phrase "review the software during a job interview" makes it sound like it was either a small chunk of example code or a high-level functionality overview, neither of which is something that would be all that valuable.  The story is suspiciously light on details, so I'm inclined to believe that it's even less important than it sounds.

[damijin]

Most of my friends who speak mandarin always told me that "rang rang" doesn't actually translate to anything that they knew of. My best guess is that it was an internet slang/phrase/bastardization of the Chinese language that farmers used simply because the westerner's knew the implied meaning of "GTFO or your head on a pike"

It has been rarely used since those really early months, mostly because farmers are too damn afraid of being banned to start any confrontation with a real player. Not sure if it's used in games that are more farmer friendly.

[Murgos]

The phrase "review the software during a job interview" makes it sound like it was either a small chunk of example code or a high-level functionality overview, neither of which is something that would be all that valuable.  The story is suspiciously light on details, so I'm inclined to believe that it's even less important than it sounds.

Would this sort of thing count as Copyright infringement in the US?  Or, only if it made it into any released code?  What about trade secret protections?  I have no idea how those work but it would seem to be applicable here.

I can see being dismissive of this because it's game code but what if it had been some new ultra efficient process scheduling algorithm for an OS?

[Pendan]

Yes, it is illegal in the US. Not only could a company be liable under copyright law but almost every software company in the US makes employees sign an employment agreement. This makes it easier to sue the former employee.