Man Hacks Skylanders, Gets Nasty Letter From Activision

Kotaku: To pass the time, hacker Brandon Wilson - who normally messes around with graphics calculators - decided a few months back he'd take a look under the hood of Activision's Skylanders action figures, see what makes them tick.

[CRASHBASHUK]

wait does cod get hacked? dont hear of any news of it happening to cod demand hacked files to be removed from the internet

[WhiteLightning]

I'm guessing it's because they have a good thing going with Skylanders

All these "good reviewers" in my opinion are BS since the game is a total rip off. I mean £6 for a figure to unlock more content already on the disc.

They know COD fans will eat up any old crap thrown at them but if a bad example is placed of Skylanders which is targeted at the casual adueince they don't want to put people off.

[CRASHBASHUK]

u said it in all in once peace spyro its not spyro any more

[hellvaguy]

You realize the same could be said of many other games who changed thier focus audience to avoid bankruptcy. Look at Mario and Zelda. The first one or two were very hardcore, now they are casual and people go nuts for the series.

[LastDance]

you also get a collectable figurine as well. It's actually a good deal because the if they released separate figures for the game, it would be that price ANYWAY.

in the store I work kids go crazy for those figurines and are having a lot of fun.

[WhiteLightning]

@LastDance

LOL...it's a good deal because you get a collectable, little gimmicks for games like this are not collectables.

Thats just a silly thing Activision said so people feel like it was money well spent

[Nitrowolf2]

Skylanders actually a pretty good game once you sit down and play with it. By no means is it a Spyro game and the name is simply there for marketing purposes. The toys though, those are just a but expensive like you said.

[ATi_Elite]

Man hacks are those flying saws in the sewers of Half Life 2.

man i hate those things.

[CRASHBASHUK]

hmm lets think most spyro fans who played it on ps1 are around 15 years older since the first one came out(you know the ps is 15 years old etc)
u must be a big kid to collect thoes toys
spyro games up to the legend of spyro dawn of the dragon which i did enjoy was aimed at all ages
tbh i hope they dont do the same to crash bandicoot

[wallis]

Activision - taking the "industry" in "games industry" and beating the living shit out of "games" so hard that the fun and creativity launches out of it's arse at record high speeds.

[noxeven]

God just cause of this i hope someone release a hack and it spread over the net seriously activison gonna care about this game more then others. look at pokemon which essentially this game is. that game was hacked to all hell did Nintendo give 2 shits nope

[Lord_Sloth]

Write him a nasty letter. That oughta teach him!

[NeXXXuS]

i lol'd :)

[GraveLord]

Shouldn't have posted it on his website.
Technically he was reverse engineering....its fine if you will keep it to yourself but he is hosting this on his website which makes it illegal. dumbass.

[morganfell]

I have to agree with you. He states there is no indication the file was accessed.

"This "zip" file was placed in its location for my temporary use and was not intended for public consumption. The general public was unaware of this file's existence during the brief time it was located on the server, and I am aware of no evidence to the contrary."

The how did Activision know that it existed at all? No, something is amiss and we are not being provided the entire story. Not just "anyone" could have accessed the file and then understood what to do with it.

According to the article and the response, his efforts were not a ready made installer where the average joe could have have utilized them. There would seem to be more to this story than we are being told. I dislike Activision as much as the next person but as Hamlet stated, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

[Grip]

so reverse engineering is a dark magic in USA?

[Kran]

OK Normally I hate hacking. But here im in the middle:

1. If a person hacks something that won't be a danger to the community, and just does something for themselves (or perhaps a few friends) but, as i just said, doesn't affect anybody else, then sure, that should be fine.

but...

2. He did publicly release it, which is not a good thing to do. So I say he should have been a bit more careful because stuff like letters do happen.

Imagine how he felt. Must have been like getting a letter sent home from school to tell your parents youve been bad :P

[iNFAMOUZ1]

how is that nasty? it never went over the top at all, it was a very direct polite letter actually, wow, someones looking for hits...

[b_one]

its Activision for a god sake, what did u expect, mercy?

[FinaLXiii]

Activision´s Skylanders is ripping off kids nuff said.

[PygmelionHunter]

that's like saying that Pokemon and G.I. Joe ripped off kids.

[Skizelli]

Likely to cause immense harm, they say? This coming from a company that practically rolls around in their billions from a regurgitated product (COD), and are the only company greedy enough to charge $15 for a map pack. Immense harm my ass. Just another day at Activision.

[Skizelli]

Aww, did I offend a few Activision cheerleaders? Sorry. (No, I'm not.)

[PixL]

I'm scared of mutinous figurines taking over the world now ;)

[phatfreddy1978]

O.o

[urwifeminder]

Anyone see the new anonymous threat to sony because of the sopa bill i wonder if they will attack again, they are certainly being very active again stealing money and giving it to charity.

[SSultan]

When I get off work I am going to play MW3. Who's with me?

[Skizelli]

You mean Call of Duty 4.3?

[SSultan]

Nobody was supposed to reply. Good job.

[Knightofelemia]

I can understand seeing how it works I mean people do it. People have hacked the Kinnect and came up with great ideas for it. Tech geeks stand in line when a new console is launched so they can either play it or take it apart and see whats under the hood. This guy is no different than a tech geek his problem was that he posted something by accident. I can see the letter if he hacked the game and changed the coding to benefit him like making his character to be invincible or have the ability to shit out rainbow colored eggs. Personally I think Activision is jumping the gun if the guy is not gonna post the code for every hacker out there to hack the game. Activision is just pissed someone out there figured out the code and the game sells great besides COD. Its only time before hackers will hack Skylanders for their own benefit.

[Neko_Mega]

Activision doing something about a hack? Yet they don't care about their COD games, but mess with their games outside of it.

OH we be busting out with the lawyers then.

[floetry101]

First of all, this article blows the letter way out of proportion in the title alone. The letter is a simple cease and desist notice that talks about the man potentially jeopardising the game for a younger demographic. Essentially, he isn't causing too much harm, but releasing his notes online can lead to others ruining the game.

Secondly, people complaining that Activision don't care about the Call of Duty hacks are laughably simple-minded. Call of Duty does juggernaut numbers over Skylanders, upwards of 10 times the sales Skylanders did. To not expect a bigger number of potential hackers is undermining the massive audience Call of Duty attracts.

[playboi28]

I agree. I really don't believe that he is as innocent as he pretends to be. How would Activision even know what he was doing if he didn't post it online? I believe he is seeking fame and trying to land a job or something. If he was just being curious, he should have just put his results on his own PC or server. But you know the saying, once something is uploaded to the internet, it's there forever...