Comment on A Former Sega Developer Has Helped Recover Games Lost for More Than 30 Years
fonix232@fedia.io 20 hours ago
And, software devs, THIS is why you keep a copy of the code and documentation when you leave.
Not because you might want to use it for malicious reasons. That can backfire.
But, one, your local copy will always be there for your reference, so you can recall a funky solution, or a weird bug and it's workarounds.
But most importantly... who knows if in 30-50 years that code won't become something highly sought after?
jay@pie.zerojay.com 19 hours ago
With the way gamedev works these days, that would be entirely against the NDAs you sign with the company and open you up to legal and financial repercussions on top of essentially making you unemployable by any other game company out there. Doesn’t matter if you leave the company, the NDAs still survive. I completely get where you are coming from and why you are saying that, but it’s just not a good idea in today’s day and age, sadly.
fonix232@fedia.io 8 hours ago
That's why I said SAVE the code, not USE it.
in 20-30 years that company will be dust. Or at best, trying to get that code back. In which case you can swoop in and deliver a saviour package - "hey guys I worked here some 30 years ago and kiiiiinda didn't delete the code when I left, now I know it's against my contract, but rest assured it was only used for archival purposes - anyway heard you wanted backups because you lost yours, so here it is"
jay@pie.zerojay.com 7 hours ago
Unfortunately “archival purposes” doesn’t save you at all here. Any act of taking anything out of the office, physical or not, would get caught right now and get you prosecuted.
fonix232@fedia.io 4 hours ago
"right now" - interesting, it hasn't happened to me yet.
Also interestingly, worked at "high security" places where IT literally was unaware that a middle manager used their work laptop to torrent bestiality porn - they only saw it once the police raided the manager and confiscated their work laptop and IT had to check wtf was going on.
Monitoring is rarely as thorough as your IT dept would have you believe.