Lineage III Source Code Codenapped!
It appears that the source code for the next iteration of the Korean MMORPG powerhouse series, Lineage III has been stolen - and the Seoul Metropolitan Police suspect seven members of the NCsoft development team behind the project of having sold the tech to a "major Japanese game company." Initial estimates of potential damages have pointed as high as $1 billion, and considering that sales of the two previous games combined climbed higher than $1.5 billion, that's at least ballpark-y.
It seems the seven left NCsoft in February and permitted the undisclosed Japanese company to view the software during a job interview, where police speculate the tech might have been copies - the same employees are also suspected of leaking the program design of Lineage III last September.
Meanwhile, NCsoft is reportedly suffering management problems, including the firing of a senior game developer for reasons of "poor leadership skills," who took most of the 90-member team with him when he departed.
Alexis Carrington, anyone? Sidney Bristow? Hiro Nakamura meets Office Space? This is juicy stuff; we'll keep you in the know!
Game Programmers Suspected of Stealing Code [Chosun]
[via Slashdot]
tiny dancer
Posted to Video Games on 2 May 2007
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: code theft, drama!, lineage iii, ncsoft
oh mah gawd, maybe because of this they'll actually make a GOOD MMO for Lineage 3!
I mean, I'm sure all those players are going to sorely miss their empires of players that they have to deal with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week just to stay on top >.>
Everyone jokes about people not having lives who play MMOs, but people who play Lineage are like that x20,000 :)