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Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard
- retox 9y agoHere is an archive link to the article. http://archive.is/Pq6lQ http://archive.is/Pq6lQ
- duskwuff 9y agoWhy? The site linked is much larger and busier than HN. It's in no danger of going down.
- Sabinus 9y agoPossibly so Kotaku doesn't get the ad revenue/page hits.
- ajmurmann 9y agoIf they wrote the article why would we want to not allow them to get the revenue? First time I've seen this practice on HN.
- Sabinus 9y agoKotaku has a very bad reputation among some circles. Perhaps I'm wrong. It is the first time for HN, but I've seen this practice on other websites.
- eridius 9y agoIf you don't think Kotaku is a site worth reading, don't read it. But reading cached copies just so you can avoid giving the page view to Kotaku is stupid. If they're producing content you want to read, then just read it!
- wyager 9y agoPresumably people want to read it without supporting them financially. It's not that complicated. If you don't care about blizzard's IP rights, you probably also don't care about giving otaku money for reading their content.
- retox 9y agoThe 'article' is a collection of links to reddit, which is about the level of reporting you should expect from kotaku.
- tedivm 9y agoIt's a holdover from the gamegate crap. It's one of those things you should downvote or ignore.
- sctb 9y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14262035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14262035 and marked it off-topic.
- devwastaken 9y agoIn other news, Blizzard pays less than $1000 to make sure modders can't make starcraft better than they can.
- justicezyx 9y agoI am particularly confused by Blz's rationale. Valve basically own a significant fraction of its success to community: CS (based on modder produce) Dota2 (bought from a modder); these 2 are their big revenue sources. While Blz seems always intended to disallow any modder involvement at all. Most Tower Defense games own their popularity to the early days of SC and warcrfatIII. And Dota is basically just a warcraft III mod. If Blz can learn anything from Valve, it's that they can capitalize on the fan/moder based community, really easy. They just never did anything like that. On the contrary, they always want to redo what community did to drive off their creations... This does not sound rational to me...
- eropple 9y ago> On the contrary, they always want to redo what community did to drive off their creations... While they've missed a few here and there, their development strategy has served to make them approximately a hojillion dollars. As a fan (I built tower defense, RPG, and Diplomacy maps as a kid--MAN do I miss Diplomacy maps, those were great), I kinda wish they would return to encouraging that stuff and push it to the fore. But I get why they don't.
- rweichler 9y agoYou'd have to pay me way more money than that to keep such a pungent cultural artifact buried. What a shame!
- failrate 9y agoI would have returned it after I made a personal copy... maybe.
- sparaker 9y agoWho is to say this guy didn't do the same :)
- Vekz 9y agoHe's been pretty adamant in his posts that he did not, we can all channel wish energy or something though.
- takeda 9y agoAt that point that would be really stupid of him, since now they know who he is. Instead creating posts and teasing other people (for karma?) he should just leak it. People are saying that it would be wrong etc. For goodness sake this thing is older than half of people on HN. Everything there is outdated and piracy-wise is not much worth. Instead, preserving it to study and learn things about game development at that time would be far more valuable for the common good.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- elementalest 9y ago> Instead, preserving it to study and learn things about game development at that time would be far more valuable for the common good. Given the game recently went free to play and many people still play it, its not surprising blizzard are not releasing the source. If the game had been dead for 5-10 years, then sure, they should probably release the source. Its still going strong and shows no signs of stopping in the next 5-10 years, especially now due to the remaster. There are plenty of other games out there to learn from using the source, if that's your goal. > For goodness sake this thing is older than half of people on HN. Are you saying that half of HN are younger than 19? I would have thought the average age on HN would be somewhere around 30. I would expect the average HN person was a kid or teenager when Starcraft was released.
- rjeli 9y agoThis article breaks my heart to read.
- burntrelish1273 9y agoTotally. He could've seeded a torrent and uploaded to Mega from a coffeeshop and no one would've known.
- recentdarkness 9y agoKarma is a ... -- Being honest had always been having its perks for me too
- icebraining 9y agoHonest about what?
- sverige 9y agoWhat has happened to the pirate spirit that used to exist in this country? That was found booty, nothing more, nothing less. What a shame. Guess I'd better send back to Microsoft that copy of "Chicago" I got from the U. of Florida servers back in the day.
- Vekz 9y agoHeart breaking relevant reddit threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamecollecting/comments/640iem/found_a_starcraft_gold_master_from_1998/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamecollecting/comments/640iem/foun... https://www.reddit.com/r/gamecollecting/comments/68xzxt/starcraft_gold_master_source_code_update/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamecollecting/comments/68xzxt/star...
- ilugaslifg 9y agoJesus christ. They successfully bought him off with $20 worth of flimsy plastic crap and company scrip. What a miserable shame.
- scrollaway 9y agoBlizzCon all expenses paid is several grands alone. Whether they should have shelled out for more is another question, but it's certainly not "$20 worth of flimsy plastic crap".
- ajmurmann 9y agoBlizzCon tickets are practically free to Blizzard though, aren't they?
- detaro 9y agoSince tickets are "only" $199 normally anyways, the ticket is clearly not the expensive part of "going to BlizzCon all expenses paid".
- scrollaway 9y agoRight. When they fly people in (such as the press) the hotel accomodations alone ends up being worth 1.5-2k for the stay (3-4 nights, $500 ish a night at the Hilton anaheim), and I suspect he's going to be there a bit longer as they'll surely show him around the Blizzard campus in Irvine (and they did say they'll take him out for drinks etc). I would estimate they are likely spending up to 4k usd on this guy, just from what he said they're doing.
- jfoutz 9y agoI would never want to go up against blizzard legal, but I have a hard time with the "trade secret" bit when the box came from eBay. The guy didn't sign a contract with blizzard. I have cds with intellectual property on them. It's not like he's copying it all willy nilly. No different than finding a manual of procedures for some random organization. The only "real" risk seems to be possessing stolen property (maybe, could have been a gift or souvenir). But stolen 20 years ago and never reported. I can't understand how keeping the disk is particularly bad. But good for them for giving it back. I think it belongs in a museum, but back home at blizzard is ok too.
- fatman13gg 9y agoThat's the beauty of the legal system. The point is not that you are not breaking any laws. It's the process will exhaust you and force you to sign a deal or something. You always lose in this case.
- scottlamb 9y ago> I would never want to go up against blizzard legal, but I have a hard time with the "trade secret" bit when the box came from eBay. The guy didn't sign a contract with blizzard. From what he wrote, I don't think they said he was under legal obligation to return it to them. I think they said why they wanted him to, they asked nicely, and they thanked him afterward. Seems perfectly appropriate to me.
- jfoutz 9y agoCorporations have a bad track record at preserving stuff like this. Celluloid movies are a great example. And blizzard already lost this one once. But, yeah, this is ok.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- corobo 9y agoYou ask nicely first to see if the person will play ball, you pay lawyers if they don't
- jakebasile 9y agoIt looks like someone found a copy of Blizzard's copyrighted source code, returned it to Blizzard, and got a reward. Why are people upset about this? It seems like the right thing to do to my mind. If someone found a copy of my own source laying in the street I'd be very happy if they returned it instead of releasing it on the net.
- eridius 9y agoI don't know. A lot of people in this thread apparently never learned to tell right from wrong.
- scrollaway 9y agoDid you? :) Starcraft influenced the culture and politics of an entire nation and became a national sport. It pioneered "e-sports". It's a piece of history, and this disc is standalone a piece of history as well. I think I know right from wrong, but I would still have absolutely no idea what to do if that disc landed on my doorstep. Edit: I cannot believe this is such a controversial thing to say. Shame on the people who think this is an easy decision to make, put yourself in someone else's shoes for a while.
- jakebasile 9y agoBut it's still owned by Blizzard. It doesn't matter how important it was, they still own it. I am 100% sure the guy did the right thing in returning it, not only legally but morally as well. If Blizzard were to MIT license it that'd be amazing but they're the only ones with the power to do so, no matter who finds a copy in a box.
- scrollaway 9y agoIt's unclear whether it's a legal obligation given that the disc was found, it's even less clear whether it's a moral obligation. If you didn't know anything about Blizzard, what would you speculate? Someone elsewhere in the thread for example is speculating Blizzard would destroy the copy -- if I thought that'd be a possibility, I would personally never send it their way and you could in no world convince me it's moral to send a piece of history to its demise.
- huehehue 9y agoDamn people are tearing this guy apart, the reddit threads are particularly brutal. It's a video game. The finder has no obligation to risk legal trouble so that a game can be modified, played, or even preserved. I'm all for archiving these sorts of things, and agree there's probably no great reason to keep the source private. But if I have the (likely) stolen property of a large company and they ask for its return, I'm sure as hell not going to go all cowboy to make some enthusiasts happy.
- jpgvm 9y agoIt's actually pretty simple. If you find yourself in the same situation: 1. Rip disk 2. Send to archive.org 3. Mail disk to Blizzard. Blizzard will destroy this copy or at least make sure it never circulates again, by sending it to archive.org you have relieved yourself of the burden of releasing it. They may or may not choose to release it but they will at least keep it archived so that if Blizzard is to be lost then history will not be lost with it.
- scrollaway 9y agoI can't make you a legal guarantee of that, but Blizzard will not destroy the copy. It seems unlikely they'll release it any time soon given SC Remastered, but they're not idiots.
- jpgvm 9y agoRemoving from circulation permanently is basically the same as destruction for the purposes of archival.
- scrollaway 9y agoI highly doubt it's going to be removed from circulation forever. My guess is it'll be archived internally, the disc itself will end up in their campus museum, and at some point legal will sign off on releasing it to the public. SC1 is coming up on its 20th anniversary next year, who knows what they'll do for the occasion.
- Kenji 9y agoI wouldn't have returned the source code for 10000$, let alone a measly 250$.
- ricardobeat 9y agoHave you considered a career as a kidnapper? Taking it a bit too far but think about the why. The code is proprietary regardless.
- Kenji 9y agoGiving back the source code is like burying an ancient Egyptian mummy you just found. Of course the Pharaohs would protest you taking away the mummy but who cares? It is about preserving culture and making its intricate details visible to everyone.
- ricardobeat 9y agoNot like that at all. The source is Blizzard's intellectual property, doesn't matter where you found it (not to mention you're overestimating the cultural value of the source files). If culture is to be preserved I'm sure some of the original developers would make so. On the other hand, we could definitely do with shorter IP rights like 20-30 years, so that devs could legally release it within their lifetimes.
- Dylan16807 9y ago>The source is Blizzard's intellectual property The tomb and its contents are the property of the Pharaoh in it.
- IsmaOlvey 9y agoExcept the Pharaoh would still be alive(!?) in this case.
- 9y ago
- goldenkey 9y agoThis is why there are two types of people. Those that ruin it for everybody else, and those that don't. What a dunce.
- kgu 9y agoI can't find it viscerally in me to take moral issue with the guy releasing the code. I understand it belongs to Blizzard, but I just don't feel sorry for them. Not defending that, just stating a fact about the absence of an emotion in me. That said: if you believe the guy would've been right to distribute the code, it follows that you believe the right thing for Blizzard to do is to release the code themselves. Instead of arguing morality here, one might spend one's energy articulating that argument to Blizzard instead.
- peterwwillis 9y agoSo, instead of giving back to their community, or giving some underprivileged kid an opportunity to have an amazing experience, or donating to Child's Play, or something for someone who might need some help, Blizzard instead pays for the expensive flight, hotel, con, and drinks for a 32 year old white male computer nerd who accidentally found a CD in a storage unit and then agonized over returning it until being threatened by a lawyer. And everyone is upset - not from the waste of money or opportunity to do good, but upset that they didn't get to steal someone's property. This speaks volumes about that community's values. edit: I hit the post rate limiter so I can't reply, so i'll add this: demographics have a direct correlation to opportunities people get (as every startup hiring manager knows) and his particular demographic gets the most benefit even though they need it the least. I'm not saying this as a sjw, I'm just sick of people like myself (also a 32 year old white male computer nerd) getting handed an unnecessarily gratuitous amount of favor while people who could actually use a hand get jack shit. Perhaps my feeling is misguided, but it still felt gratuitous and wasteful.
- peferron 9y agoWait, is the "32 year old white male computer nerd" just a drive-by stereotype, or did you actually research the real life information of this person just to be able to post this? I'm not sure which is worse.
- peterwwillis 9y agoI took the 30 seconds to look up who he was before I rushed to judgement. I briskly walked to judgement.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago> Blizzard instead pays for the expensive flight, hotel, con, and drinks for a 32 year old white male computer nerd who accidentally found a CD in a storage unit I'm all for charity, but wait, so rewarding a person _actually involved_ and who actually did the good (for the company) deed is somehow bad these days? Also, white male computer nerds are people too, you know.
- d--b 9y agoCome on guys... Had any of you made Starcraft, you'd be very happy to have the disc back. Blizzard's behaved ok I believe in flying the guy to blizzcon and giving him the perks he got. While it's interesting to have the code, there's probably nothing really amazing about it. However, the game is still being played, so releasing the source code may help people cheat.
- uranian 9y agoFair chance Blizzard expected he had at least made a copy. Their being so generous with gifts and inviting him to speak with him personally seems to me a desperate effort to generate even more loyalty in him, which is actually really smart. It's their best chance for very little money and effort to prevent this source code to circulate on the internet.
- FrozenVoid 9y agoThats C++ source from v1.00 pre-expansion, an early version that is quite not the polished game that v1.07/v1.08 was, written on pre-c++98 MSVC code by inexpirienced and overworked programmers, when win95 was the mainstream OS and 128mB of ram was plenty and 3D cards were luxury products(most used motherboard graphics). https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/tough-times-on-the-road-to-starcraft https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/tough-times-on-the-road-to-...
- blkhawk 9y agoWhen Windows 95 was the Mainstream OS 32 MB was what most people had and 64mb was plenty. Most people used PCI or VLB 2D graphics cards. There was simply not enough memory on the board for IGU. Most PCs had not even got USB by that point.
- FrozenVoid 9y agoPeople who couldn't afford video cards would use motherboard graphics. They were usually not fit for gaming, except for low-resource games, and 3D/2D accelerator cards were sought after. http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1209125 http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1209125 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Integrated_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Integrated_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_810 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_810 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel740 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel740
- vatotemking 9y agon-gate.com is so gonna love this thread
- infinityplus1 9y agoMany are blaming him for not releasing the source code anonymously. Do you really think he had the knowledge to do that safely? He would have already done that if he could. It's really simple, don't play with fire if you don't know how to handle it.
- yomly 9y agoHow would you release something anonymously? Tor?
- infinityplus1 9y agoTOR seems to be the best option. But even I don't know much regarding the best practices.
- slackingoff2017 9y agoWtf? Who make a "gold disc" for source code?? Wouldn't the gold master be compiled code? And who the fuck makes a "gold source" disc that's also "professionally printed"? That implies they gave the source to somebody to have the CD made. Yeah right. Also, the game takes up most of a CD, the assets would use far more space than that. There's so many holes in this story, it's obvious bullshit and everyone is soaking it up. 100% chance this is a lame viral marketing stunt to drum up interest in StarCraft remastered. It's clearly paid placement, and frankly a bit sensational to even be possible. Blizzard is known for quietly paying people for product placement and bullshit stories like this. Don't be sheeple. Edit: I did some reading and other sources actually name the person and mention he's a game collector (with pictures of some of his collection). Surprisingly, this looks to be legit. http://www.dualshockers.com/2017/05/03/long-lost-starcraft-gold-master-disc-found-20-years/ http://www.dualshockers.com/2017/05/03/long-lost-starcraft-g...
- dagw 9y agoWho make a "gold disc" for source code The company I used to work for always made an archive copy of the exact source code we had compiled for each major release, so that there would never be any doubt about exactly which source code we had compiled to make each version of our game. And who the fuck makes a "gold source" disc that's also "professionally printed"? That disc does not look professionally printed. It looks like it was printed on one those cd-rom inkjet printers that where so popular back in the day.
- slackingoff2017 9y agoFair points, but I don't think CD-R was ever used as a serious archive format. Even back then it was known that the inks were prone to fading. I just think the likelihood of the source being in this format is extremely low and when coupled with the timing of this article it's all but certain that this is a marketing piece. Looking at the reddit user that found this disc... He was looking for a job at a "big name" tech employer a few months back, and he's definitely into gaming. He mentioned that blizzard told him the disc was stolen, which would be slightly more believable if returning it prompted an investigation rather than showering him with gifts.
- jvdl 9y agoWow, this thread. Plenty of people insisting on gaining access to source code they didn't write and had no part in developing. News flash: it's not your product, you don't own it, and you have no rights to insist on hijacking someone else's product for your own gain.
- acuozzo 9y ago> News flash: it's not your product, you don't own it, and you have no rights to insist on hijacking someone else's product for your own gain. Shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Fox_vault_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Fox_vault_fire Happens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_MGM_vault_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_MGM_vault_fire If something is culturally significant then it should be preserved and these two hyperlinks should easily make the case that preservation requires distribution.
- jlebrech 9y agoand not long afterwards they re-release the game for free with a new installer. looks like they finally found that long lost source code.
- jbmorgado 9y agoI think we are mixing two terms here: Intelectual Property and Trade Secrets. The code doesn't seem protected by intellectual property but it's a trade secret. Just like Mona Lisa was intellectual property of Leonardo, but the way he created the different paint colours was his trade secret. A trade secret don't necessarily have to be protected by law, the moment it gets out, then people are free to use it as they see fit. That's what I think about this source code: it got out somehow (even if the way it got out was illegal or not), but the moment it comes to public it becomes general knowledge.
- braveo 9y agoright, so now you're back to the whole "we should respect property rights... except in this one case, but I'm totally not going to just tell you it's because I prefer it that way! nosirreeeeeeeee! It's because after lots of hand waving morals and 20 years and coOOoooooOOOoode.". The 20 years is irrelevant to this discussion. Blizzard owns the IP to the software and since ownership itself is a fairly central idea in our legal system the rest doesn't matter anywhere except in your head. People should be allowed to own things, and they are allowed to own things, and they are allowed to protect themselves from people like you who think your rights and wants as an individual should outweigh their rights and wants as an individual. Furthermore, just because you make a claim such as "there's no purpose to it being against the law" doesn't make it so. IP rights go all the way back to the days of Rome, and you'll be hard pressed to find a society who doesn't have a system of laws surrounding IP. That's pretty fucking consistent for something that you claim "has no purpose". Or maybe it does have a purpose and you're being purposefully obtuse because you want to put your grubby fucking hands on something that isn't yours.
- Dylan16807 9y agoI'm not arguing against the existence of all IP rights. I just think some of the inclusions and durations are wrong. I don't know why you're trying to strawman me into being anti-property and making this so personal. Would you be this rude if I was insisting on 28 years, the original limit? You act like the current copyright lengths are objectively correct, and anyone who disagrees is deluding themselves. Why? And for the record I actually don't want these starcraft files, if that information can let you see past the strawman you've made of me.
- braveo 9y ago> That's like saying that robbing Bill Gates and distributing the money to millions of poor people is morally good because it's good for many people. - FooBarWidget > That degrades property rights, so it's bad for the many. - Dylan16807 Straight out of the horses mouth, that's not a strawman, it's literally what you said. We shouldn't take money from the rich and give to the poor because property rights, but we should take source code from Blizzard and make it public even though Blizzard has property rights to said code because ... it's 20 year old code. Which has nothing to do with anything, it's their property, they can do with it as they please.