10 Embarrassing Accidental Video Game Leaks
8. Half-Life 2
Once upon a time in 2002, a young German programmer by the name of Axel Gembe attempted to hack into Valve's network to find out juicy details about the planned sequel for his favourite game. Miraculously, his first attempt accidentally succeeded and he spent weeks poking and prodding around inside Valve's online valves without being detected.
Eventually Axel decided to push his luck and delve a little deeper, and this is when he stumbled across the source code for Half Life 2. It needed a little bit of tinkering to run on his computer, but there it was, plain as day, a working section of the unreleased game.
A former friend of Axel's leaked the source code online in October 2003 and this was understandably met with an extremely upset Gabe Newell, fearing for the future of his company, and also hordes of angry fans, who would clearly see how far off the game was from completion, despite being scheduled for release a few weeks earlier.
Feeling guilty, Axel emailed Valve several months later, taking ownership for his actions, apologizing, and following up with asking for a job on their security team.
Newell accepted his proposal, although needless to say this was a trap to convict and capture the young hacker. Luckily for Axel, the German police got to him first and he was sentenced accordingly.