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{subhead} Editorial{def}
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By Chris Seward
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Hello and welcome to issue 21 of Amiga Information Online. Like last
issue i've decided to talk about something topical or something that
maybe of some interest to you the readers. Normally i'd start with
introducing you to the magazine and then talk about whats been happening
with the magazine over the past month, this is all set to change and
as long as I can find some interesting topics to talk about each
month i'll either sum up whats been happening in the Amiga world or
write about a specific topic. I'll also be keeping you up to date on
whats new in AIO and some of the best bits to look out for.
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This month i've decided to talk about the recent problems with
clickBOOM and the so called programmer or team who got ripped off
by them. Before I even start what I have to say i'd like to state that
I am not taking any side but mearly looking into what each party
says and coming up with possible truths about what could or may
have happend to let this whole thing blow up.
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For those of you who have not yet heard, clickBOOM have been accused
of taking advantage of certain Serbian programmers and then not paying
them for their work on Capital Punishment or Myst. The story is that
a person called Djordje Djurdjevic has written a text stating that he
worked on Myst and did nearly all of the code for the Amiga version,
his payment was very little accourding to the text that he wrote. The
main proof he has is that he says he has hidden a secret text file inside
a Myst picture, which can be found in,
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{bold}Myst:GFX/Myst/Vault_controlpanel_(buttn).pic{nobold}
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The text is said to be hidden in a way that some text is in serbian,
some in english and some in french, the result when decoded gives you
a text stating that Djordje Djurdjevic had worked on Myst but not been
given any credit and little payment for his work and that is why he
stored the text inside the file. I have seen this text that was hidden
in the file but could not say yet at this early date if it came from
the picture that Djordje Djurdjevic claims it is in or not.
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I have been asked by clickBOOM not to release the text written by
Djordje Djurdjevic and so currently I will not be putting the file in
the magazine for you to read until the truth is out and settled by
a court which clickBOOM will currently be taking up the matter in.
If the text is found inside the picture then this can be very bad
for clickBOOM indeed. Not all of what the writter (Djordje Djurdjevic)
of the text has to be true but if he did manage to hide a secret
file inside one of the pictures then the rest of the story he tells
will probably be believed instantly. As well as the text hidden in the
file there are two other text files floating around, one is a full
story on how the head of clickBOOM has cheated various people over
a period of time and it goes back to when clickBOOM started. This text
is 51k long and has obviously taken someone a great deal of time
to write and if not true to think it all up would be quite a long
and boring task. This leaves the question, why would anyone go to
such lenghts to write so much if he wasn't telling the truth. The second
text claims to be from the other former members of clickBOOM which
back up what Djordje Djurdjevic states in his texts.
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In the longest text where the main story is Djordje Djurdjevic says that
if you check out the LHA keyfile in Capital Punishment you will see that
it is a pirtated copy and that clickBOOM use mostly pirated software
even though they say they are totally against it. I have been unable
to check out if this is true or not because I do not have a copy of
CP to see the keyfile. Other statements Djordje Djurdjevic makes in his
story is that magazines where bribed to give CP a higher score than
in should. If this is the case why didn't clickBOOM bribe magazines
to give Myst a high score? after all they did need to convince Cyan
it was worth converting and with Myst 2 being released on Mac/PC
there was a chance that it could also be ported to the Amiga in future,
surely clickBOOM would want this chance and if they had bribed people
to give CP a high score then I'm sure they would try to bribe people
to give higher scores to Myst. AIO did not review CP but when we did
review Myst shortly after release I can assure you 100% that clickBOOM
in no way tried to alter my decision on what the game would be rated.
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There seem to be a number of possible reasons why someone could do this
to a company that is doing very successful in the Amiga market. clickBOOM
have alot to thank especially with porting Quake and Myst to the Amiga
it has opened the eyes of some non-believers and companys like ID Soft
and Cyan have seen what the Amiga is capeable of. Maybe Djordje Djurdjevic
had a bad experience with clickBOOM in another way, maybe bad service
but it all seems to be a bit extreme for something like that. In each
text there could be some truth which could be honestly accounted for
by clickBOOM and the writter has blown everything up to make his side
look better. The group he is in now could be doing this as and act to
get publicity for their group. On the last hand it could all be truth
or all lies, who knows and does it really matter?
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Obviously we would all feel angry that people who care for the Amiga
have been ripped off but the Amiga as a whole does not need this at
the moment and it shouldn't effect anything. Djordje Djurdjevic should
have timed this alot better and now is not the time to start arguing
over things. If it is true then of course he should take action but
not in the way he has done, he should have gone through the correct
channels and at the time he claims all this to have happened he should
have taken a legal route. Now it seems he has landed himself a court
battle and that is the last thing anyone wants. Overall does this
change your view or attitude? do you think it will effect the sales
of Napalm? My personal views are staying private until the time is
right and I will let you know what my honest view is when all truth
is released.
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{bold}UPDATE 20/2/99{nobold}
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As of today I have received two emails one from clickBOOM and one from
the team, Juice. I had emailed them both to find out some more information
and on this day of release I give you the latest news.
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clickBOOM have told me that yes, they admit there is a file on the Myst
CD, so that suggests that Djordje Djurdjevic would have had access to the
source code {bold}but{nobold} they deny that what he has said in the text
is true and they will prove this in a court of law.
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The second piece of information comes from the Juice team, below you will
find a few questions I asked them.
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{bold}Name?{nobold}
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juice team
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{bold}Why did you now come forward?{nobold}
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This is one of the most common questions we've been asked the last few days.
We were all very disappointed after our team was cheated and it was too painful
for us to think more about it. We just wanted to forget about it. In the mean time
we realised that the name of our ex-team became very famous but nobody actually
knew anything about us, it's former members. We had to react and tell people
the true story about us.
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{bold}Is there any small clip of code you can show us now from Myst or
CP that will prove that you produced the game?{nobold}
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You obviously aren't a programmer :) A small clip of code wouldn't prove anything
just as well as a small graphic clip of one of the characters of Capital Punishment,
for example wouldn't prove anything - it could be ripped from the game.
However, we have all the development material of Capital Punishment and the
development stages of Myst code (about 70% of it). Please keep in mind that
Myst was not finished by any of the former members of our team and therefore the
final code might not look exactly like the code we have, but there shouldn't be
any important changes on the basic structure of the engine.
As that material is very important, we can't make it public.
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{bold}What are your feelings that clickBOOM are going to court with you
or members of your team?{nobold}
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The problem is that we know that we are right, and we know that it all
happened the way you were able to read in the text from Djordje.
Being accused for revealing the truth to the public isn't something anybody
would like. clickBOOM could have contacted us and perhaps we could find out an
agreement that would be acceptable for both of us ?
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{bold}If this goes to court and you loose are you likely to give in on
your quest to expose clickBOOM if what you say is true?{nobold}
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We are sorry, but our knowledge of english is limited. We are not sure
what means the expression "to give in". Does it mean "continue" ?
What would be the purpose of our giving in ? If the law is on their side
we can't work against it. But that would, once again, prove that the law
doesn't have much in common with the justice.
Please, keep in mind that our intention was not to expose clickBOOM to
persuade everybody to stop buying their software. We think that people
should  decide what to do themselves.  If they like clickBOOM games, and
don't pay attention to what some people had gone through to make those
games, then they should buy them.
This is something that every user should decide for himself.
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{bold}Any other evidence that will back-up your claim?{nobold}
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Well, as a computer user, you should know that all the computer data is
very easily moved, erased, changed without a trace of the previous version.
Which means, that kind of evidence can't be 100% reliable. What kind of
evidence would you like us to show out ?
However, all our evidence is not just the computer data. Many people who live
here can confirm our story. Of course we are not asking you to come here and
check out:)
Aleksandar Petrovic could confirm our story (well, most of it) but he surely
won't do so. We understand that.
This is a matter of trust.  If the hidden files on Myst CD aren't enough
for anybody to realise that there was something quite strange regarding the
development of the game, if people don't  find strange that an original game
isn't signed by it's creators, then we think there's no need to try to tell
out the truth.
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We would like to thank all people for e-mails of support, and to apologize to
all which we didn't have time to answer
(we will as soon as we get some free time).
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You can check our home page at:{p}
{link http://www.net.yu/~juice}http://www.net.yu/~juice{end}