Did Rockstar Use Pirate Game Code For Steam Max Payne 2?
According to an eagle-eyed game buyer, Rockstar could have caused themselves quite a bit of embarrassment when they made Max Payne 2 available on Steam. A close examination of the game’s executable reveals that it contains the ASCII text logo of game piracy group Myth.
Back in 2008 we reported that software giant Ubisoft had embarrassed themselves by getting a little closer to the piracy world than they would’ve liked.
Due to DRM problems with Rainbow Six: Vegas2, Ubisoft uploaded a patch which they said would fix the problem. However, an enterprising individual ran it through a HEX editor and discovered that the fix was not Ubisoft code, but actually a no-CD crack released by the Scene group RELOADED.
Now, just under 2 years later, it seems that Rockstar have some similar embarrassing questions to answer.
According to a game buyer on the official Steam forums, the executable for Max Payne 2 available via the digital distribution platform has a rather unexpected easter egg inside.
Apparently, if one examines the code with a HEX editor, the ASCII logo of the Scene group Myth can be viewed, as per the screenshot below;
A clearer version of its ASCII logo included in Myth’s NFOs can be seen below;
At this point it is unclear why the logo exists in the release. Myth was a Scene group which ceased to exist after it was targeted in the FBI “Operation Site Down” raids in 2005. The speculation is that rather than program a no-CD version, the easy route of using a ready-made crack was taken by Rockstar instead.
It’s unlikely the company will explain, but we’ll try to find out.
