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[BY2K]

http://news.yahoo.com/us-prosecutors-video-game-makers-secrets-swiped-000420895.html

San Francisco (AFP) - US prosecutors said Tuesday that a staff member of video game maker Machine Zone has been charged with stealing trade secrets after learning he was to lose his job.

Jing Zeng, 42, could be sentenced to a maximum of ten years in prison and a fine of $250,000 if convicted in the case filed in US federal court in San Francisco.

Zeng downloaded more than 100 files containing proprietary information from a confidential data base at the Northern California company behind "Game of War: Fire Age," US attorney Melinda Haag and San Francisco FBI special agent in charge David Johnson said.

Zeng used a company laptop to download the digital files, transferred them to an external storage drive, then wiped and reformatted the laptop before returning it to Machine Zone, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Tuesday.

Zeng was arrested as he prepared to board a flight from San Francisco to China on August 20, prosecutors said.

Zeng was released on $100,000 bail and placed on electronic monitoring pending trial.

"Game of War" is a popular massive multi-player online action strategy game for play on computers or mobile devices, and is known for ads starring model and actress Kate Upton.

10 years? Ouch.

 

[Wario64]

1 less app clone on the store

 

[Trace]

An even scummier developer stealing from a scummy developer.

What has the world come to.

 

[Somnid]

I don't know what's sadder:

-Game of War has "trade secrets"
-Someone wanted to steal said secrets
-Guy goes to jail for 10 years for attempting to steal said secrets

 

[Myggen]

I don't know what's sadder:

-Game of War has "trade secrets"
-Someone wanted to steal said secrets
-Guy goes to jail for 10 years for attempting to steal said secrets

Game of War is doing the really shitty, in your face f2p thing better than almost anyone else, and is earning huge money. I'm sure a lot of devs would want to know more about how they're doing it.

 

[Sou Da]

Game of War is doing the really shitty, in your face f2p thing better than almost anyone else, and is earning huge money. I'm sure a lot of devs would want to know more about how they're doing it.

Titties?

 

[pislit]

The trade secrets better be photos of Kate Upton's wardrobe malfunctions or that 10 years ain't worth it!

 

[Warablo]

Titties?

^^

 

[Somnid]

Game of War is doing the really shitty, in your face f2p thing better than almost anyone else, and is earning huge money. I'm sure a lot of devs would want to know more about how they're doing it.

Nothing they are doing is particularly special, they just got lucky, got a lot of early cash and spent it like crazy on hyper aggressive, sexualized advertising.

 

[NateDrake]

Using Kate Upton in TV ads to promote your game is considered a trade secret now?

 

[kafiend]

Using Kate Upton in TV ads to promote your game is considered a trade secret now?

Well it was until you blabbed it to everyone.

 

[jediyoshi]

Wow I went the entire article and the thread reading before I realized it was Game of War and not Gears of War.

 

[neojubei]

10 years? people get less than that for murder

 

[Timedog]

Trade Secrets...from Game of War???

Wat.

Game of War is doing the really shitty, in your face f2p thing better than almost anyone else, and is earning huge money. I'm sure a lot of devs would want to know more about how they're doing it.

How they are doing what? It's the type of game that you can play and pretty much tell exactly what they are doing. It's not like they got a 5.2 Weissman score or something.

 

[7DollarHagane]

let me guess, it was 3 gigabytes of text files containing simply the text "COME PLAY MY LORD"

 

[Azure Dream]

They can get people arrested for stealing trade secrets, but won't be punished for stealing artwork and photos for advertisements (until they decided to pay for Kate Upton's cleavage).