mcwizardry
Member
I'd be curious to know how that CD ended up in the box in the first place. Did some disgruntled employee steal it? How many copies do you think exist in total?
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Guy finds Starcraft source code and returns it to Blizzard
- Thread starter dmr87
- Start date
FZeroRacer
Neo Member
I have made my case, which is 'companies very easily can and do lose source code as long as only they have access to it'. Even if it's an active IP. A great example is Square Enix and the original Kingdom Hearts, or even the Silent Hill HD fiasco because they lost the source for 2 and 3. Those games are also a fair amount more recent than Starcraft!
It can be remarkably easy to lose access to code if you don't adequately take care of it.
These cases are the vocal exceptions. There are much more cases where preservation is not hindered by corporare incompetency.
Yeah it was smart of him to give it back, even though it would have been amazing for modders and non-commercial games.
Dude would be potentially fucking over his life otherwise, and it'd probably cause some medium hassles to Blizzard and literally kill Starcraft 1 competitive / online play.
Dude would be potentially fucking over his life otherwise, and it'd probably cause some medium hassles to Blizzard and literally kill Starcraft 1 competitive / online play.
jetsetnickradio
Member
I doubt it was anything like that. You hear about developers losing old source code all of the time. I think devs are generally more cautious about it these days, but a lot of old source code either never got backed up and the computers it was saved on died or were sold off or whatever. Then there's cases probably like this were the source code was backed up, but it got stored away in a box and then they forgot it was in the box and sent it home with someone to clear out space in the office, ect. It's also possible that this wasn't the only copy of the source code, but Blizzard wanted it back anyway to keep it from getting released.
Cuningas de Häme
Member
Guy made the right thing. Very honourable from him. It is nice to see that there is some good people out there still.
Useless leeches wanting to plunder that source code to make countless codes of the game... The thought makes me sick.
It is so weird to see how low morals people have.
Useless leeches wanting to plunder that source code to make countless codes of the game... The thought makes me sick.
It is so weird to see how low morals people have.
SmartWaffles
Member
Pretty sure Blizzard never lost the source code since they are updating the original with patches and a remaster, this is simply an asset retrieval, but still awesome on both sides for doing the right thing.
GabeTheGrouch76
Member
This is honestly where I'm leaning towards on the debate, and I consider myself as someone who does hold an interest in media preservation, especially for games.
If the Starcraft IP was literally abandoned (that is to say, it's unsupported and undistributed by the people who own the rights, and that's assuming that its even known who the rights-owners are in the first place); then I think uploading the source code online would had been totally fair. But Starcraft doesn't fall into that category--Blizzard still owns the IP, they're still producing new installments to the series (the 2010 sequel and its expansion packs), and they're still distributing copies of the original game (for free, even).
In light of that, I don't really blame the guy who by miracle's chance obtained the source code disc for giving it back to Blizzard (especially if Blizzard's legal team had a influential say on the matter). Helps that Blizzard was pretty gracious in showing him their gratitude on getting the disc back too.
Professor Beef
Banned
I probably would've asked for a new computer or something. It's nice of them to offer Overwatch, but my laptop can't run it (which is the truth, since this thing is getting on in years). Damn nice of Blizzard to do all of that for him. I probably would've done the same thing if the source code for SC fell into my lap like that, but then again I've never been the biggest SC fan so those slings and arrows from Reddit wouldn't affect me in the slightest.
joecanada
Member
Are you seriously suggesting this guy take the fall for the gaming community as a whole?
truestatic
Member
How can so many people defend exposing secrets they have no right to know as being a morally right thing with a straight face? Blizzard did nothing morally dubious by making or selling this game, so taking their trade secrets and making them public knowledge isn't righting some wrong. This isn't The One Ring of Power and they aren't Sauron. This is their property, and "We Could Have Done Cool Shit With It" is not a justification to do whatever the fuck you like with someone else's property. What the fuck. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
He did the right thing, even if not necessarily for the most upstanding of reasons.
Yup. "The greater good." This thread, man.
Dreamwriter
Member
That was 20 years ago. People lose things over 20 years, or even throw them out. I worked on GBC games in the early 2000's, you can be sure the company didn't keep source code longer than 5 years let alone 20, especially after the company was sold. A couple employees kept source code for their favorite projects, but that wasn't a company thing.
FZeroRacer
Neo Member
Would you say the same if say, Nintendo threatened the person who found the Nintendo Playstation prototype and ordered them to hand it over because it's their property? A lot of things are corporate property and defining things purely in black and white 'it's theirs, therefore they are the only ones who can control it' leads to things like Disney despite the huge cultural and historical relevance parts of their IP may have.
It's not a 1-to-1 situation because of Starcraft Remaster but making the IP argument is a particularly lazy one and a good way to ensure that nothing ever enters the public sphere. I'm not advocating people go out and start raiding corporate HQs for stuff just for the sake of tossing it on the internet but if you collect something incidentally through Goodwill, eBay etc then I don't think you have a moral imperative to return it to the company unless it can be absolutely proven that it was maliciously stolen by someone else.
Professor Beef
Banned
I probably would, yeah. Brownie points from randoms on the internet aren't really worth anything.
You can't actually damage a still thriving game with your Nintendo Playstation prototype. Like, it represents literally zero downside. You can't even argue any similarity in the strictest sense at all. The source code is the key to basically destroying SC1, and probably the remaster that they're ABOUT to release (Since it has to run so much of the old stuff anyway, to the point that it can cross play and use replays), which has a very real impact for the worse.
truestatic
Member
Isn't that what Blizzard not-quite-so-subtly did? They had their lawyers contact him and advise him to return it. Sounds like a barely veiled threat to me. And yes, my opinion remains unchanged. He had this thing that didn't belong to him and wasn't sure what he should do with it. I appreciate the appeal of the morally dubious choice to publish the code "for posterity" or "for cool shit," it's hard to get something like that and not wonder where it will take you. I can't blame him for being tempted by it at all. But ultimately I think he was being tempted to do something amoral.
I don't think that preservation as a cultural imperative that overrides all else, and I certainly do not think it merits an ounce of fucking weight in this case, where as others have said, this ip, hell, this GAME remains under active operation and development. And while in 70 years or whatever Disney has currently managed to kick the can down the road to, I think that it makes sense for their IP to fall out of legally protected status, I don't think we are ever owed the knowledge of how it was made.
GabeTheGrouch76
Member
I've already said my two cents in this topic and I'm not actively getting further involved in the discussion, but I don't think using the Nintendo PlayStation prototype is the best product analogy for the Starcraft source code. It's not based on a product that was released to the general market (well, you could argue it technically did see release as Sony's PlayStation, but that's clearly a different beast altogether), nor is it still being actively produced/distributed. Moreover, prototype hardware produced on a very limited scale isn't as easily accessible to the public compared to software source code anyone could access on the web.
psynergylover
Member
so exactly what could he have done with the disc? rewrote the game or something?
FZeroRacer
Neo Member
On your first point, you absolutely could. Nintendo could make the argument that it damages the Nintendo brand by allowing the prototype to circulate in the wild and that would be a perfectly valid one.
Similarly, there's a valid argument to be made that the source code of SC1 does not at all affect the remaster. I have a strong belief that the disc copy of the source code was likely the original release source without any updates or modifications. So it would not include any of the updates they've done throughout the life cycle of the game. It may not even include expansion code.
It would be an early primitive version of the game good for archival purposes and potential modification. Framing it as the key to destroying the original is highly disingenuous.
truestatic
Member
It's the game's code, as written by the programmers, relatively understandable and modifiable by other programmers. As opposed to the compiled versions that are released for public use, which are almost? basically? actually impossible? not 100%, here, but... not easy to decipher.
Risk Breaker
Member
I'm pretty sure half of those people haven't even played Starcraft.
Another one
videogamephilosopher
Banned
It would have been an even better gesture for Blizzard to give him every new blizzard game upon release.
I say 90%.
AbandonedTrolley
Member
This so much, yes people could learn from it, but at the end of the day it's Blizzards code and if they wanted people to learn and mess about with it then they would have published it by now.
WHY WON'T IT READ?
I know Its a joke that people don't read OP's let alone links but guys pls.
Twinsen343
Member
I wonder if it had denuvo?
TyrantGuardian
Member
Eh, legality and stuff aside - having the source code for a game like this freely modifiable would have been... intense. Source ports are a thing where the sky is the limit. Though I guess Blizzard would have hunted down any release like rabid dogs either way.
GreenMonkey
Member
If you're not a techie, think of it as the recipe for a really fancy cake.
You can take the final cake and reverse engineer it, maybe guess how it was made, but not be sure of it. It's guesswork.
With the source code, you have the full recipe.
Makes a big difference if you want to update it. Or, the source code in the hands of people that want to cheat is really bad...Makes it easy for them to figure out exploits.
KojiKnight
Member
Bingo. This isn't data that was ever going to be "lost" despite what some think. My god, the game just got a massive patch last month!
As for people worried about this making cheats... The source code is nearly 20 years old, and both hackers and protections have come a long way in 20 years...
EatinOlives
Member
I would've uploaded that shit in a heartbeat, without even making it public by going to Reddit. The possibilities afforded by having the source code of one of the greatest games of all time is just too much, no amount if keyboards and store credit would've been a true substitute for me. I'm not even a fan of StarCraft.
But that's just me. I don't blame him for returning the code at all: I've returned plenty of things that most anyone would've kept for themselves just because it's the right thing to do.
But that's just me. I don't blame him for returning the code at all: I've returned plenty of things that most anyone would've kept for themselves just because it's the right thing to do.
John Kowalski
Banned
Really wish he had leaked it instead.
TatteredHat
Member
Does it really matter that he didn't leak it? Aside from satisfying people's curiosity I don't see how much would have come from it.
It would of really opened up the door for Starcraft modding if the source code was leaked.
Professor Beef
Banned
I gotta say, the salt on Reddit over this is that good shit lmao. Got a dude over there saying "WHY WOULD YOU RETURN THIS? WOULD YOU RETURN A NUKE TO NORTH KOREA???"
Megatron
Member
I'm not sure how illegal it would have even been. He bought something online and put it on the internet. Don't think anything there is illegal. The company can c&d him, and he can take it down, but too late at that point.
Unless it's about 30 seconds, it's too late. Once it's uploaded it would be downloaded thousands of time in the first hour. No way to undo that.
nephilimdj
Member
Imagine if he sent it to EA, considering Blizzard recruited Westwood stuff to make this game, im sure there is some reused code.
Maybe I don't quite have a grasp of the extent to which these mods would work, but Starcraft 1 already seems pretty modable. To what extent are we talking about changing things, exactly?