11 ms·

The original fix’s author updated the post about this: https://nee.lv/2021/02/28/How-I-cut-GTA-Online-loading-times-by-70/ https://nee.lv/2021/02/28/How-I-cut-G

The original fix’s author updated the post about this: https://nee.lv/2021/02/28/How-I-cut-GTA-Online-loading-times-by-70/ https://nee.lv/2021/02/28/How-I-cut-GTA-Online-loading-times... Rockstar awarded them 10k for it.

dang 6y ago
Recent and related: How I cut GTA Online loading times by 70% - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26296339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26296339 - Feb 2021 (697 comments)
- anonytrary 6y ago
  It's funny because reducing load times by 70% is almost certainly worth way more than $10k if calculated.
  - josephg 6y ago
    I can see both sides of this. On one side, yeah - the work he did will be worth a lot more than $10k to Rockstar. They've had lots of people complain about & stop playing GTA online because of the slow loading times. And this issue would probably never be found or fixed otherwise. On the other hand, he did it for fun (without any expectation of reward). $10k isn't massive and we can quibble over the reward amount, but its delightful that companies are rewarding people at all for fixes like this. A few years ago he'd be lucky to get sent a GTA t-shirt. Its definitely the right direction we should be moving in - bug bounties are a thing in security, and we should be celebrating any movement toward rolling them out in other circumstances.
    - majani 6y ago
      And also they have to balance out internal politics as well. Putting massive incentives on the discovery of bugs could really mess up the motivations of internal staff.
    - jack_riminton 6y ago
      Indeed there were stories on that previous thread of people being banned for 'hacking' when they've pointed out flaws to game developers
    - wombatmobile 6y ago
      > On the other hand, he did it for fun This might be an argument for him to console himself (or just keep smiling) in the event that he received nothing. It isn't a valid consideration for Rockstar, which should take heed of the calculus you stated with your first hand only, because for the beneficiary of a windfall, karma awaits.
  - creato 6y ago
    If some engineer at Rockstar had done this work, they would have gotten their regular salary and probably not much else, which probably would have worked out to less than $10k for the amount of time spent on this issue.
    - JaTochNietDan 6y ago
      Yeah but to be fair, that's what he's actually supposed to be doing.
      - pfranz 6y ago
        As a company that's technically true. As an individual engineer they would probably have been sneaking time to work on it and have to be a pet project of someone senior enough to get it merged and released.
      - twelvedogs 6y ago
        not really, there's a lot of great work i could have been doing on my past projects that wasn't a management priority
    - curiousgal 6y ago
      A Rockstar employee would have had access to the source code probably. Running a profiler would have taken them significantly less time than the author.
      - bayindirh 6y ago
        Further, a Rockstar employee would just isolate the parser, feed json files, graph processing times and look in awe to the resulting plot.
    - woko 6y ago
      And yet, in practice, none of the engineers at Rockstar has done this work in 7 years and a half. I do not believe that it is fair to value *a posteriori* a one-million-dollar fix with "if" sentences. Let us spin it differently: contact Rockstar before publishing the details of the fix, and offer to help them on this issue. How much do you believe that Rockstar would value the fix *a priori*? The truth is this kind of fix is worth a lot, but it is always tempting for the company to be penny-pinching (and come up with justifications for being so) after the fact.
  - jmiskovic 6y ago
    The author also publicly mocked them and forced their hand in changing 7 years old code. They didn't even mention this $10k reward in their PR issue.
sdfhbdf 6y ago
It's a really nice and wholesome use of HackerOne. Nice that they acknowledged and awarded as opposed to some companies that try their best to push a security disclosure out of scope and not pay out a bounty [0] [1] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9278832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9278832 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16000550 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16000550
rvz 6y ago
> Rockstar awarded them 10k for it. The original post, analysis and the actual fix of this bug is beyond impressive. Strangely, Rockstar awarding $10k for that is like someone searching for lost treasure, identifies historical references which leads to finding a ton of it and somehow leaves with 1/8th of it, even though they did 98% of all the work. For that detailed effort, analysis and with a fix, I'd say that is worth around $80k. At least Rockstar was generous enough to award them in the first place; so I'll give them that.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  > For that detailed effort, analysis and with a fix, I'd say that is worth around $80k. No good deed goes unpunished. Rockstar went out of their way to thank this person and send them a check equivalent to several weeks of median developer salary. Can we not shame them for this goodwill gesture? $80K would be on the order of half of the annual salary of most developers outside of SFBA.
  - scrapcode 6y ago
    Half? I live in the Midwestern US. Have been dabbling in software for most of my life, have some decent working examples and am finishing my BS:CS this year. I can't even get close to my current salary in my current unrelated field ($85k) to even consider a career switch. Are the jumps from junior to mid-level/pm that high? I am a PM in construction so that may end up being my path.
    - srswtf123 6y ago
      As someone searching for employment in the Midwest, I feel your pain. I saw a position yesterday that wanted 15+ years of experience and paid, I kid you not, $17/hr. Compensation in the Midwest is a joke. If my family weren’t here, I’d return to one of the coasts.
      - wavefunction 6y ago
        They're looking to fill the position with a foreign contractor, almost certainly. I wrote some PHP sites 20 years ago and get contacted every now and then about taking a 2 month contract for $16 an hour writing PHP in Pittsburgh, which I'm sure has its charms but is also halfway across the country from me.
nootropicat 6y ago
>Rockstar awarded them 10k for it that's insulting tbh
- Quillbert182 6y ago
  How is that insulting? They are under no obligation to give them anything at all.
  - BuyMyBitcoins 6y ago
    I honestly expected Rockstar to do nothing at all about the situation. I’m genuinely surprised they’d implement his findings and give him some money as well.
    - autoexec 6y ago
      At this point, I wouldn't have been surprised if a video game company sued someone for DMCA violations for something like this. Rockstar and Take-Two in particular are no strangers to handing out DMCA take downs, cease and desist letters, or lawsuits. I'm glad they're being cool about this.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    Maybe you were not aware that GTA has taken in a billion dollars? Or don't know what that number means? Most people don't: <https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/ https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/>
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      Maybe you don't realize that taking in $1B means they were doing just fine without this bug fix. Faster load times amount to "Oh isn't that's nice". After reading his account of finding this, how long do you think it took him? 10 hours? 20? 40? That's $250 to $1000/hour for something he did out of curiosity.
      - 6y ago
dmix 6y ago
Note: he lists his address as living in Latvia. Still I’d give him more for the significance and PR. But these things tend to be fixed rather than subjective for a reason. https://github.com/tostercx https://github.com/tostercx
xwdv 6y ago
The only reason he got paid at all IMO was the widespread exposure the original article got. When you find something this significant you’re almost obligated to do a song and dance and tell the world about it, so you can get the attention you need and be paid. Frankly for an introvert with no public online presence or audience that’s just not very appealing. There’s easier ways for software developers to make $10k: just wait for two paychecks.
- jgwil2 6y ago
  I think the author was motivated by intellectual curiosity rather than money. Thankfully he was enthusiastic enough about it to share it with the rest of us.
sundvor 6y ago
That's fantastic. Hopefully a few coffees as well, from that amazing write up. :)
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  Hot coffee is banned at Rockstar
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
user32456 6y ago
That's awesome! I didn't think Rockstar would act on it.

dang 6y ago

Recent and related: How I cut GTA Online loading times by 70% - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26296339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26296339 - Feb 2021 (697 comments)

anonytrary 6y ago
It's funny because reducing load times by 70% is almost certainly worth way more than $10k if calculated.
- josephg 6y ago
  I can see both sides of this. On one side, yeah - the work he did will be worth a lot more than $10k to Rockstar. They've had lots of people complain about & stop playing GTA online because of the slow loading times. And this issue would probably never be found or fixed otherwise. On the other hand, he did it for fun (without any expectation of reward). $10k isn't massive and we can quibble over the reward amount, but its delightful that companies are rewarding people at all for fixes like this. A few years ago he'd be lucky to get sent a GTA t-shirt. Its definitely the right direction we should be moving in - bug bounties are a thing in security, and we should be celebrating any movement toward rolling them out in other circumstances.
  - majani 6y ago
    And also they have to balance out internal politics as well. Putting massive incentives on the discovery of bugs could really mess up the motivations of internal staff.
  - jack_riminton 6y ago
    Indeed there were stories on that previous thread of people being banned for 'hacking' when they've pointed out flaws to game developers
  - wombatmobile 6y ago
    > On the other hand, he did it for fun This might be an argument for him to console himself (or just keep smiling) in the event that he received nothing. It isn't a valid consideration for Rockstar, which should take heed of the calculus you stated with your first hand only, because for the beneficiary of a windfall, karma awaits.
- creato 6y ago
  If some engineer at Rockstar had done this work, they would have gotten their regular salary and probably not much else, which probably would have worked out to less than $10k for the amount of time spent on this issue.
  - JaTochNietDan 6y ago
    Yeah but to be fair, that's what he's actually supposed to be doing.
    - pfranz 6y ago
      As a company that's technically true. As an individual engineer they would probably have been sneaking time to work on it and have to be a pet project of someone senior enough to get it merged and released.
    - twelvedogs 6y ago
      not really, there's a lot of great work i could have been doing on my past projects that wasn't a management priority
  - curiousgal 6y ago
    A Rockstar employee would have had access to the source code probably. Running a profiler would have taken them significantly less time than the author.
    - bayindirh 6y ago
      Further, a Rockstar employee would just isolate the parser, feed json files, graph processing times and look in awe to the resulting plot.
  - woko 6y ago
    And yet, in practice, none of the engineers at Rockstar has done this work in 7 years and a half. I do not believe that it is fair to value *a posteriori* a one-million-dollar fix with "if" sentences. Let us spin it differently: contact Rockstar before publishing the details of the fix, and offer to help them on this issue. How much do you believe that Rockstar would value the fix *a priori*? The truth is this kind of fix is worth a lot, but it is always tempting for the company to be penny-pinching (and come up with justifications for being so) after the fact.
- jmiskovic 6y ago
  The author also publicly mocked them and forced their hand in changing 7 years old code. They didn't even mention this $10k reward in their PR issue.

sdfhbdf 6y ago

It's a really nice and wholesome use of HackerOne. Nice that they acknowledged and awarded as opposed to some companies that try their best to push a security disclosure out of scope and not pay out a bounty [0] [1] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9278832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9278832 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16000550 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16000550

rvz 6y ago

> Rockstar awarded them 10k for it. The original post, analysis and the actual fix of this bug is beyond impressive. Strangely, Rockstar awarding $10k for that is like someone searching for lost treasure, identifies historical references which leads to finding a ton of it and somehow leaves with 1/8th of it, even though they did 98% of all the work. For that detailed effort, analysis and with a fix, I'd say that is worth around $80k. At least Rockstar was generous enough to award them in the first place; so I'll give them that.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> For that detailed effort, analysis and with a fix, I'd say that is worth around $80k. No good deed goes unpunished. Rockstar went out of their way to thank this person and send them a check equivalent to several weeks of median developer salary. Can we not shame them for this goodwill gesture? $80K would be on the order of half of the annual salary of most developers outside of SFBA.
- scrapcode 6y ago
  Half? I live in the Midwestern US. Have been dabbling in software for most of my life, have some decent working examples and am finishing my BS:CS this year. I can't even get close to my current salary in my current unrelated field ($85k) to even consider a career switch. Are the jumps from junior to mid-level/pm that high? I am a PM in construction so that may end up being my path.
  - srswtf123 6y ago
    As someone searching for employment in the Midwest, I feel your pain. I saw a position yesterday that wanted 15+ years of experience and paid, I kid you not, $17/hr. Compensation in the Midwest is a joke. If my family weren’t here, I’d return to one of the coasts.
    - wavefunction 6y ago
      They're looking to fill the position with a foreign contractor, almost certainly. I wrote some PHP sites 20 years ago and get contacted every now and then about taking a 2 month contract for $16 an hour writing PHP in Pittsburgh, which I'm sure has its charms but is also halfway across the country from me.

nootropicat 6y ago

>Rockstar awarded them 10k for it that's insulting tbh

Quillbert182 6y ago
How is that insulting? They are under no obligation to give them anything at all.
- BuyMyBitcoins 6y ago
  I honestly expected Rockstar to do nothing at all about the situation. I’m genuinely surprised they’d implement his findings and give him some money as well.
  - autoexec 6y ago
    At this point, I wouldn't have been surprised if a video game company sued someone for DMCA violations for something like this. Rockstar and Take-Two in particular are no strangers to handing out DMCA take downs, cease and desist letters, or lawsuits. I'm glad they're being cool about this.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  Maybe you were not aware that GTA has taken in a billion dollars? Or don't know what that number means? Most people don't: <https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/ https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/>
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Maybe you don't realize that taking in $1B means they were doing just fine without this bug fix. Faster load times amount to "Oh isn't that's nice". After reading his account of finding this, how long do you think it took him? 10 hours? 20? 40? That's $250 to $1000/hour for something he did out of curiosity.
    - 6y ago

dmix 6y ago

Note: he lists his address as living in Latvia. Still I’d give him more for the significance and PR. But these things tend to be fixed rather than subjective for a reason. https://github.com/tostercx https://github.com/tostercx

xwdv 6y ago

The only reason he got paid at all IMO was the widespread exposure the original article got. When you find something this significant you’re almost obligated to do a song and dance and tell the world about it, so you can get the attention you need and be paid. Frankly for an introvert with no public online presence or audience that’s just not very appealing. There’s easier ways for software developers to make $10k: just wait for two paychecks.

jgwil2 6y ago
I think the author was motivated by intellectual curiosity rather than money. Thankfully he was enthusiastic enough about it to share it with the rest of us.

sundvor 6y ago

That's fantastic. Hopefully a few coffees as well, from that amazing write up. :)

tinus_hn 6y ago
Hot coffee is banned at Rockstar
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

user32456 6y ago

That's awesome! I didn't think Rockstar would act on it.