David Braben slams PS3 hackers
"Right now it is Sony that is hurting."
PS3 hackers who cling to misguided 'I own the console so I can do what I like' arguments are hurting game developers and buyers and publishers - the lot.
That's the opinion of David Braben, creator of Elite and founder of Frontier Developments (LostWinds, Kinectimals).
"It really annoys me when hackers claim they can do what they like with what they find, especially when it is destructive to the security of all the other PS3 machines," declared Braben on Develop.
"These people are damaging to everyone with a PS3, not just to the games dev community, because of future security measures that will be needed. But there seems to be a blind-spot among some players perhaps because they imagine it will mean free stuff in the future."
Working out how to hack PS3 is like working out how to break into a car, Braben analysed. If you shout about it to everybody, who benefits - punters or crooks?
"There have been suggestions that releasing hacking information is an issue of freedom of speech," wrote Braben. "That is such rubbish."
"It is all about what is reasonable," he added. "Hacking into a machine as an academic exercise is one thing. Broadcasting the information is another.
"We should all be prepared to roundly condemn such people. Right now it is Sony that is hurting. Tomorrow it will affect all of us in the development community, so we should stand against it together, now."
Braben's tirade concerns Sony's on-going war against PS3 Jailbreak and figurehead George "Geohot" Hotz. Sony upped the ante recently by threatening to bar anyone caught using "unauthorised or pirated software" from PlayStation Network or Qriocity.