#crime
A Boston court has issued an arrest warrant for the man detained by police Sunday for allegedly trying to copy early code for upcoming shooter Breach, Kotaku has learned. More »
[Photo: Kevin Kelly]
An attempted theft of Atomic Games' Breach code on the PAX East show floor on the last day of the event was thwarted by vigilant members of the studio. According to a representative for the company, the suspected thief managed to download some of the code and then run into the crowd after he was spotted. He was eventually apprehended in the large crowd and the game's code was found on his computer.
"The suspect did admit to us several times, including as he was doing it, that he was stealing the code. He said to myself and several other team members, after being caught, that it was not a big deal, he just really liked the game and wanted to play it with his friends," David Tractenberg, a spokesperson for Atomic, explained.
"This guy had only succeeded in copying about 14MB to his laptop before our staff caught him," Atomic Games President Peter Tamte told Joystiq. "Because of the work we do for military and intelligence organizations, we take security issues like this very seriously ... It is fortunate for him that we caught him before any of this ended up on the internet. Many of the hackers who stole Valve's Half-Life 2 code were tracked down by the FBI's Cybercrime Task Force."
On one of our many trips to Atomic Games' booth on the PAX East 2010 show floor, a representative of the developer told us Breach would see a release on PC in addition to Xbox Live Arcade. The multiplayer shooter will launch on XBLA this summer for $15, with the PC version expected to follow six weeks later. Breach on PC will only be available as a digital download; however, Atomic Games has not decided on a digital distribution platform yet.
Breach wants to go after Battlefield 1943. Atomic Games president Peter Tamte summed up DICE's digitally distributed title as a "stripped down version of a retail game," and believes that Breach can outdo last year's surprise XBLA hit with its accessibility and sandbox-style destructibility.
Atomic hopes to have the game on XBLA this summer with a price of $15. Focusing on eight-on-eight multiplayer with combative and objective-based game modes, the game heavily emphasizes utilizing cover ... and blowing stuff up.
We popped by Atomic Games' booth here at PAX to check out Breach, the dev's attempt to take on DICE's online-only, digitally distributed Battlefield 1943.
Atomic president Peter Tamte revealed during our play session that he hoped to get Breach on XBLA this summer (as previously estimated), and that the developer is targeting a $15 price point. Considering how polished the game was in the state we saw it, we certainly believe it can meet that deadline. Look for our hands-on impressions later today.
