Remembering the Half Life 2 Heist

HL2 Source Code

If you recall, one of the most famous gaming heists of all time occurred back in October of 2003, when a lone hacker cracked into Valve’s servers and lifted all of Half Life 2’s source code in its entirety. Even in the days before sensationalist gaming blogs, this was a monstrously huge deal, and the news of it swept over the gaming community like a tsunami.

Several months later, German student Axel Gembe was arrested by police officers in order to keep the hacker from being picked up by the FBI in America, under a presumed trip to visit Valve for a job interview. That’s the part of the story you might not be aware of. Eurogamer recently did an interview with Gembe, who has set his life on a different path since all of that craziness went down. It’s one of the cooler gaming articles I’ve ever read, especially looking back on all that’s happened since then with Valve and its meteoric rise in the industry.

Anyway, give it a read if you think it’s something that would catch your fancy. Do you guys remember when this went down? What did you think of the article? What do you think of Gembe’s remorse and the changes he’s made in his life?

Source – Eurogamer