Lara Croft Team Accused of Raiding Budapest Software Tombs

British video game publisher SCi, the cats behind polygon-heavy Lara Croft (pictured in a compromising position, right), have been charged by their team of Hungarian developers of taking a page out of their swashbuckling heroine's source code. The two victims of their alleged Croft-style breaking and entering are Budapest-based MGE and Mithis, who were originally tasked by SCI with developing the long-, long-awaited "Battlestation: Midway" a WWII marine combat game. But that was some time ago, 2002 in fact, and the relationship was finally terminated when the developers failed to deliver for probably the umpteenth time. In these cases, the contractor has the right to reclaim the source code and related data, but not by the theft and sabotage of which they are accused. Most of the details of this international conflict were published in this weekend's Sunday Times, but we are here to fill in the blanks.

According to an article published by Hungarian geek site IT.news before Christmas, Mithis was already in digital hot water for "borrowing" the Panther engine from another game developed in Hungary by Stormregion Kft., "Codename Panzers", and using it in its own game, "Joint Task Force". The dispute has since been resolved, even though the company had to be dissolved and its website shut down. Now, both SCi and Mithis claim ownership of the Battlestations: Midway source code, some of which is likely to overlap with other Mithis games as the confusing lawyer's statement in Times article suggests:

“A number of complaints have been filed with the Budapest police with regard to the illegal removal of software and hardware connected to the Battlestation: Midway Joint Task Force and other games."

In fact, the missing comma suggests that Battlestations: Midway and Joint Task Force are one and the same game...

Playing the games sure is simpler than making them, and nobody wants to be caught up in the legal crossfire, least of all us..