So someone is going to make a game with this? By the time it [if] ever comes to market, CD Project is going to be on the next or subsequent engine anyway --
I don't think Carmack was ever any worse for the wear after releasing the Quake engine when Quake II came to market, etc.
No one could use it since trying to release a commercial product using their engine would get the company sued in oblivion. Maybe some Chinese company that doesn't give a fuck about selling it outside of China would do it, but no existing studio would touch it. The only other reason I can think of for someone to buy it is to try to see if there's a way to backdoor some kind of malware into the game so that it spies on you or mines crypto currencies on the GPU while the game is running.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Friday February 12, 2021 @07:23AM (#61055252)
It's actually even more complex than that. After the Half-Life 2 source code was leaked there was a legitimate warning that no devs under any circumstance should look at it.
The reason being that if you wrote an algorithm in a game as a professional developer and subsequently someone working alongside you left and went to work for Valve and said "Hey, I saw this algorithm used at my last employer" then this opens the door for legal discovery against your former employer, and potentially you as an individual. If it turns out you had the Half-Life 2 source code on your employers network or your work PC then Valve would have a solid argument to argue you engage in not just civil, but criminal copyright infringement.
Thus, the act of even having and looking at that source code, even if you subconsciously repeat one of it's protected (i.e. patented) algorithms in future puts you and potentially your employer in potentially very serious legal hot bother.
What's the value? (Score:2)
I don't think Carmack was ever any worse for the wear after releasing the Quake engine when Quake II came to market, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:What's the value? (Score:1)
It's actually even more complex than that. After the Half-Life 2 source code was leaked there was a legitimate warning that no devs under any circumstance should look at it.
The reason being that if you wrote an algorithm in a game as a professional developer and subsequently someone working alongside you left and went to work for Valve and said "Hey, I saw this algorithm used at my last employer" then this opens the door for legal discovery against your former employer, and potentially you as an individual. If it turns out you had the Half-Life 2 source code on your employers network or your work PC then Valve would have a solid argument to argue you engage in not just civil, but criminal copyright infringement.
Thus, the act of even having and looking at that source code, even if you subconsciously repeat one of it's protected (i.e. patented) algorithms in future puts you and potentially your employer in potentially very serious legal hot bother.