Thanks Euphoria for bringing this to my attention.
When Gabe Newell, founder of Valve Software, confirmed last October that hackers had wormed their way into the developer"s network and stolen the source code to "Half-Life 2," it sent shock waves through the gaming industry. "Half-Life 2," you see, wasn"t just a title any gamer worth his or her salt was drooling over, it was the title industry insiders were counting on to help revive the struggling PC gaming business.
As Valve developers gathered their wits, an executive from publisher Vivendi Universal Games told media outlets that the theft would delay the game until April 2004. That date was nothing more than a blind guess, though. Valve, the only company that really had a firm grasp on the impact of the theft, wrapped itself in a cocoon, refusing all questions from the media and not saying a word about when the game would hit shelves – until now. While still shying away from giving a firm date, Doug Lombardi, Valve"s director of marketing, told me the company "is currently targeting this summer for the completion of Half-Life 2".