OT: PB News

[puck]

Punkbuster News

Tuesday 9.25.2001 [10:30AM]

Lots of news to follow ...

First, we hope to have our email accounts and lists working again very soon. Unfortunately, our web host has not been able to recover very well from the crash that messed up several domains (including ours) on one of their hosting machines. We have considered moving to a different web/email host, but for various reasons, have not made the jump at this point. Hopefully, things will be back to normal very soon.

Next, PunkBuster is very close to moving into the realm of commercial software. A corporation has been formed, Even Balance, Inc., to handle all aspects of the PunkBuster project going forward. A U.S. patent has also been filed and accepted on the software technology integral to the workings of PunkBuster. We are currently in 'Patent Pending' status.

On a sad note to honest players of Counter-Strike and Half-Life mods, we have determined that the current version of PunkBuster cannot be appreciably improved without the direct support of VALVe. We have offered to do business with VALVe on multiple occasions in the way of integrating proven Anti-Cheat technology directly into their games. At this time, we are suspending development of the Half-Life version to focus on game platforms where the developer is willing to support the effort. We sincerely believe that we have had a positive impact on the Half-Life community and we truly appreciate the support of our hundreds of thousands of users. However, from the beginning we have said that we did not want to charge users directly for our product and we intend to abide by that decision. The remaining bugs, problems, issues, etc. with the Half-Life version cannot be addressed properly without direct integration with the game, and at this time, there is no hope of that even being a possibility.

The good news is that we are aware of some really awesome games coming out soon that will break new ground in the area of preventing and detecting cheaters. We intend to put our full support behind these games and developers. As soon as we are able, we will post details here on our website.

At this point, I want to sincerely thank the PunkBuster staff members (all volunteer) who have been tireless in their efforts of supporting the product to this point. It has been a real pleasure working with all of you. Some of the staff may continue in supporting the existing Half-Life clan tag registry and in helping Half-Life users/admins on our forums. Others will move forward to the next big thing that is coming. Keep watching here for details to unfold as we are able to share.