I don't get it, what would the developers possibly gain out of this scheme though?
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What about fucking over the end-users/gamers? Does he get satisfaction out of that, too?
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Yeah, I thought it was really weird as well. Something was mentioned somewhere that it may be a negotiation technique(internally in the company), which is totally fucked.
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If it's true, he has gained an exciting new career opportunity as anything but a software developer because nobody will ever hire him or pay for one of his products after this. If it's true.
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stupid publisher/dev, hope their car/truck breaks down in the middle of the jungle.
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Bastards. Don't go fucking up my Russian truck game.
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What is wrong with people, is screwing the publisher worth destroying the game?
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I heard only good things about this game and it is on my wishlist, this really makes me sad, good game will be ruined and probably removed from steam soon because of dev and publisher fight.
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I'm guessing some kind of deal was struck between the publisher and the developer where an initial payment was made, and some sort of royalty payments were promised based on sales post release. If I was the dev that had done this, my thinking would be, if they reneg on further payment, I just dont remove the code.
From a legal standpoint however, the dev is now liable for any losses incurred by the published in effort to fix it.
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Not to mention that if he swallowed how contracts work, he would still have the future in the industry.
With a decision to include code like this, he essentially blacklisted himself from every publisher and customer for the future.
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minus whatever money the dev owed him.
If he's really, really, lucky, he will have an email (or other verifiable communication) indicating that the bug was there, in which case I'm sure a good lawyer can spin it to make it the publisher's responsibility.
Also, if the dev has no money, it doesn't matter what he's liable for.
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look at the bright side, at least spintires players still have their bank accounts intact..with people like these you never know
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Well....
Guess we have our first big scandal of the year then.
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Lmao, even tho I own the game, this is an amazingly interesting story.
EDIT: Was the publisher or the developers that put the time-bomb on the game?
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The single Russian developer. The publisher isn't responsible for anything beyond marketing and selling.
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What a load of bollocks. Everyone is jumping to conclusions without a shred of evidence. GG
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Which part? That particular thread sucks, but someone has taken it upon themselves to disassemble the game, analyze, and push out patches. The issues are also magically fixed if you use a program that intercepts the time-related Windows API calls and spoof the date to an earlier time.
While you might think there's a possibility that it was an unintentional flub handling the datetime, that is extremely unlikely if you've ever programmed and dealt with date-time. It is an extremely consistent format. The next Y2K isn't until 2038
If you read the disassembler's notes it becomes apparent
New bombs have weird dates, basically you're safe as long as year1235+month*35+day < hardcoded number. No idea why Pavel is using 35 day months, but that's why there are deadlines like the 34th of February.
Also from an official post
We are aware that it is date related, but at this time, it seems that there will be a lot of code that will need to be looked at in order for the root of the issue to be found.
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Wow.
I love to play this game with my friend.
Too bad this is happening. Hope they fix it soon.
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With the behavior of, ahem, certain developers I thought it was only a matter of time before someone vandalized their game. This was planned months in advance though. Quite brutal.
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Well, beside everything else, it's not like steam community is good in any way :P
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Well, there is a difference between steam community and our community. Also don't forget that we also aren't so saint :P
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This absolutely sucks. Totally love this game, even though I don't play it very often. So relaxing. Hope the dev removes the "timebombs" soon.
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Eh.. lol?
Thats a way to destroy your gaming dev career, if you have one that is.
Im curious if there will be refunds.
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If this is true what I saw in the topic title, let me take a wild guess: the developer who did this is Chinese or Eastern European. More likely the latter.
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Well this sucks. I own the game but never got around to even trying it out :/
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Yeah, things like that are the reasons why I wouldn't use steam if some games would be avalible on other platforms. This is the perfect example of what little power we have over things that we payed for. Our games can become unplayable in just few seconds.
This is also sad for other reason. Tool that can be used in such a good ways (updates for ETS2) can be also used to destroy our games.
FUN FACT: We all saw comments that steam is so good and cheap that downloading games from torrents is just plain stupid. Well, I bought my Spintires and I can't play it; my friend obtained it from torrents and he won't suffer any problems. Who is stupid now? :/
Yes, I heard about fix but it's not plaeyrs job to make games playable.
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Sadly this can be the case for other reasons. Microsoft pushed an update late last year that broke the big disc-based DRMs retroactively on Vista-8. While they thankfully only disabled the service instead of removing it (which can be undone), I think it says a lot that many "Games for Windows" can no longer be run on any version of Windows with MS' blessing since Vista was the oldest OS they supported.
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All I got from that article was NDA this, NDA that and geniuses are whiny bitches. Which I guess means the Oovee team aren't geniuses. XD
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Sucks for the consumers, but if the allegations against Oovee are true I can't really say I fault the developer.
I think I have a key for that laying around somewhere. ponders
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I'm thinking you can definitely fault the dev, as he ultimately chose to disable a game that thousands upon thousands of people spent money on. Oovee may be a pile of shit as a company, but the dev is an even bigger pile of shit for sinking to this level and using this 'tactic'.
We don't always have to pick a side...it's okay for us(the customer) to think that both sides are enormous assholes for allowing their squabble to bleed over into affecting the people that paid for the product.
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I'm thinking you can definitely fault the dev
I could, yes.
it's okay for us(the customer) to think that both sides are enormous assholes
I agree. I for one, will not purchase anything made by the developer or published by Oovee in the future. Even if the truth exonerates the developer he still has to earn back the respect of the consumer.
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The goal this guy acomplishes doing this is that no one will buy a game from Pavel or Oovee again.
If he wants to save a bit of his reputation then a prompt fix is mandatory with a public statement/apology. But so far everything is developing on backstage with other users finding out and Oovee not disclosing anything.
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Well the problem with a public statement/apology would be the NDA nonsense surrounding this thing. He can say "sorry, here's a fix" but I won't accept that, I want a reason, and the NDA prevents that.
The goal this guy acomplishes doing this is that no one will buy a game from Pavel or Oovee again.
This.
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I think that thanks to this NDA bullsh*** the dev can't talk about his problem with Oovee, so he decided to break the game.
I can't say that it was the wisest decision because now I can't play the game, but I can understand his reasons.
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Yep, and in the Eurogamer interview, Oovee generously uses their NDA to avoid every question.
The only explanation they give is "Pavel is often upset, I'm afraid that geniuses are often like that."
Didn't realize it was you who linked the article when I typed the reply. Just woke up! xD
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Would you be interested in trading that key? Regardless of all this, I'm still rather interested in playing the game if the problem gets sorted.
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I'll check when I wake up. I'm not 100% sure it's a SPINTIRES key I have though so don't get your hopes up!
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I really don't care about the reasons behind it this time, yet again paying customers are being used as pawns between a developer and publisher who can't seem to figure out that being a bunch of drama queens is the quickest way to earn the wrong kind of rep on here. If they have problems with one another, they should resolve them IN PRIVATE and quit attempting to use us as some kind of now righteously enraged go-between.
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Screwing over customers and fans of your game just because you have issues with the publisher is not okay and cannot be justified.
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Unless I'm misunderstanding things, the dev is the one who is at fault here.
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well he didnt put the thing because he was bored, he put it because of the shitty publisher, it is the consumer who is fucked but still, im sure the dev would prefer to be able to update the game and make a great product.
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No. Sorry, but no matter the publisher's deeds, there is no excuse for the dev's actions. Destroying his own work and screwing paying customers over a financial squabble that they have no part in shows a fundamental disrespect and disregard for consumers and video games in general. Not only that, but this behavior is incredibly short-sighted in that no one will want to hire or work with this guy after such a display. Barring some superhuman damage control, he may have ended his own career.
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he probably acted over the only thing he has control over, cant blame him tbh, spintires is not the work of someone who has no respec for videogames, its clearly a labor of passion and love.
What else can he do, the people who own the game arent gona help him clearly.
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but thats kind of the thing, he is not getting the money for his game.
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but that dosent change the stuation he is in, like when people march on the streets, whatever they are crying for is no the fault of the random worker who is gonna get late to work.
Desperate times, Desperate measures.
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but in that analogy, you didnt pay him for the fence, you payed the bank, and the bank is all like "im not giving you a cent" then yes... he has all the right to come and collet the job he is not getting payed for.
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So for a better analog: if I order a pizza delivery, and cook decides to spike it with laxatives because the delivery guy doesn't hand over toe cook's share of the cash he gets from me, that's perfectly fine too ?
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thats gona get you to yell at the pizza place, thats exactly what he wants.
He porbably just wants off the contract, idk.
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No,me never doing business with them again would be only the start.
I would also make it as public as I can, and if there's enough other victims it would also spark a shitstorm that will draw the attention of the authoroties, get them invesitgated for food poisoning, which gets traced back to the cook and will get him in a load of legal trouble.
Sure, the delivery guy gets hurt too, but the cook will face the worst of it.
Bottom line is that sabotaging your own product is an incredibly short-sighted and self-destructive dick move that will not gain you any sympathy from the majority of your customers.
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yeah you are right.
thankfully this is not food, so nobody is gonna get hurt, and if you call the police they probably chuckle at you.
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Yes. Yes, you can blame him. If you are fucked over because you couldn't read a contract properly, the answer is not sabotaging the product. It'll get you sued at best, jailed at worst. This is why I asked before if dev is Chinese or Eastern European, because nowhere else can you find this combination of arrogance + sheer idiocy to pull a stunt like that and truly believe you can just get away with it.
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im not saying its legal, i just get where he is coming from, spintires is his first game this was probably the first ever contract he signed, you can get gazed by ideas like "getting payed for making games" and being part of the "game industry".
Look at spintires, that its clearly not the job of a incompetent idiot, what changed from when this was a school project demo to now, the publisher. He clearly made this so he can get noise towards the publisher and get him and the game out of this situation, and no that is not fair for us but i cant get on the side of a faceless publisher, who saw someones labor of love and saw a way to make a quick buck, f them.
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Then take it as a lesson of life and move on. He is not the first dev, especially from this region, who is royally fucked over by a publisher. Google Xing Interactive once and you'll see that this publisher of Spintiers is a saint no matter what the real story is. And Xing is just one (and a decent one, to be even sadder) among the many really low-tier indie publishers that plague the gaming scene since the 80s.
What happened here is the equivalent of people torching their old homes after they were evicted for some big plan. You can sympathise with them and blame the greedy government, but in the end he still committed a crime and will be jailed for it. Acting like some little child and not being able to learn of the harsher lessons of life won't make you look like some people's hero, it will make you look like someone who cannot grow up and thinks doing large scale childish pranks will still get you nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
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However, you're forgetting the other side of the coin. If Oovee broke their contract and hasn't paid the man what he's due they'll be brought up on charges as well.
Everyone gets what they deserve.
I'm not excusing what he did, but until we know the full story, which won't happen soon thanks to the NDA, I'm content with believing they're both assholes.
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If the publisher broke the contract, then the dev is an even bigger idiot because whereas he may have had some chance at court, now the publisher can supply hard evidence that the person they had a contract with broke said contract, sabotaged the product, and caused massive amounts of loss in revenue. So, the dev now will end up cheated, jailed, and in debt for the rest of his life. 100% worth it. To use a silly meme: 11/10, would totally ruin the rest of my entire life again for petty revenge again. Because even if he somehow, by a miracle, avoids legal punishment, no way in hell anyone ever would hire him as a software developer ever again.
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If the publisher broke the contract, then the dev is an even bigger idiot
This is true, though I'm quite curious about that NDA since the game has been out since 2014. What exactly are they still trying to protect, and how long is this NDA even valid for?
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Depending on the company standards, it can be anywhere between 2 and 7 years. My last NDA I signed was 2, my current one is 3 – but I'm in a position where I cannot really have access to too sensitive information that wouldn't be more or less publicly available in 12-24 months.
(Well, technically, the NDA is without time limit for me on some things, but that is also normal. Also, those things are so specific that I could only use them to a small degree at the direct competition, and even there, it'd be purely symbolic.)
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I kinda understand the devs tbh. I'd get angry too if I'd done a job and wasn't paid in return (true I don't have the urge to play it right now).
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Now I've seen everything...
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/48jtbl/spintires_publisher_installed_a_time_bomb_in_the/
edit - No matter who is at fault, Oovee or Pavel, one thing is for sure - the only 100% innocent party in this, and the ones getting screwed the hardest, are the customers. Sad state of affairs...
Oovee statement - http://www.oovee.co.uk/forum/topic/12604-official-statement-re-bug-issue-and-sabotage-allegations/#entry93224
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