Crack dot Com

Last updated
Crack dot Com
Company type Video game industry
Founded1996
Defunct1998
Products Abuse

Crack dot Com was a computer game development company co-founded by ex-id Software programmer Dave Taylor, and Jonathan Clark. [1]

Contents

History

Crack dot com started from home with a staff of just four people. [2] Their first completed game, which had Internal Revenue Service agents as the enemies, was never released. [2] The company released only one game, Abuse , an MS-DOS scrolling platform shooter which sold over 80,000 copies worldwide. Based on a public source code release, Abuse was ported to a wide variety of platforms including Microsoft Windows, MacOS, AIX, SGI Irix, Amiga/AmigaOS, and Linux. [3]

Prior to the company's closing in October 1998, [4] they were working on Golgotha , a hybrid of first-person shooter and real-time strategy. Citing publisher interference in the creative design of Abuse, Crack dot com opted not to accept any offers from publishers until the game was completed. [2] The game was never finished and Crack dot com made the source and data for Golgotha (as with Abuse) public domain.

The company experienced a setback on January 13, 1997 [5] when their file server was broken into by way of their web server, [6] and the source code to Golgotha and also the Quake engine they had licensed from id was stolen. [7] This did result in a number of unofficial ports for Quake , including an SVGAlib version for Linux that was later mainlined by id, [8] as well as unauthorized ports to OS/2, Amiga, Java VMs, and Mac OS. [9] The source code for both Quake and Golgotha were later legally released. [10]

References

  1. ↑ Jonathan Clark (26–30 October 1998). "So Long, Crack.com". loonygames. loonyboi productions. Archived from the original on 21 October 2020. Retrieved 13 February 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 "The Crack Alternative". Next Generation . No. 36. Imagine Media. December 1997. pp. 86–87.
  3. ↑ Software, AntonioR (2023-06-12), Abuse README, archived from the original on 2019-12-16, retrieved 2023-06-29
  4. ↑ sengan (22 October 1998). "Crack.com closes shop". Slashdot. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2016.
  5. ↑ "Bill Wall's list of 195 famous computer exploits". Fred Cohen & Associates. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  6. ↑ "Maximum Security: A Hacker's Guide to Protecting Your Internet Site and Network" (PDF). Angel722 Computer Publishing. p. 57-58. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2023-02-28. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  7. ↑ Savage, Annaliza (1997-01-10). "Hackers Hack Crack, Steal Quake". Wired . Archived from the original on 2023-02-15. Retrieved 2023-02-14.
  8. ↑ Wilson, Hamish (2023-02-27). "Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 27: Lost Souls". GamingOnLinux. Archived from the original on 2024-12-19. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  9. ↑ Hildinger, Colin L. (1997). "Quake for OS/2". OS/2 eZine!. Archived from the original on 2024-05-26. Retrieved 2025-02-25.
  10. ↑ Mullen, Michael (2003-05-14). "Quake Source Code Released". GameSpot . Archived from the original on 2023-02-28. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
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