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Attention: Fable Series Development This page contains information regarding the development of the Fable series, people and/or companies directly or indirectly involved in it. |
Kibitz is the name of a now disbanded hacking group from the early 2000s. They became infamous in the Fable community for allegedly trolling the staff that worked at Lionhead Studios, during the development of the original game for the very first Xbox. This was done by hacking into the "Lionhead Studios Forums" servers and then leaking any screenshots that they managed to find (which were never meant to be released to the public in the first place). This also includes the very popular screenshot of the Hero Killing A Child that was created by the Lead Assistant Tester; Charlton Edwards, which was intended as an inside joke amongst the developers.
Thanks to Sam Van Tilburgh and his team, it was later revealed that the entity known as "Kibitz" wasn't actually a hacking group at all. But rather, it was one single anonymous male fan, who used the name as an online alias for their publicly available website, where all they wanted to do was share the content which they managed to acquire by hacking into the servers for Lionhead Studios at the time of Fable's development.
To this day (most likely for legal reasons) the creator of the "Kibitz" website and the person responsible for finding out their actual indentity, has never been made available to the public.
History[]
When Fable was being developed in the very early 2000s, there was a group that went by the name of 'Kibitz'. They went onto forums that were created by Lionhead Studio, claiming that they had screenshots and important information relating to the company. They also shared a collection of these images on their own website and threatened the company that they would leak even more of this sensitive material to the public.
It is believed that the hacking group managed to receive these screenshots by gaining access to the Lionhead Studios servers and since hacking security wasn't as air-tight as it is today, they managed to snoop around on the servers for days without the studio even knowing about it. They would then publish the screenshots to the Lionhead Forums for other users to see. However, this proved to be a big mistake on Kibitz part as the hacking group never masked their IP, which meant that the company knew the exact location of the primary hacker.
Fable Community Director, Sam Van Tilburgh and his team managed to hire a "person" to find the name and location of the hackers. However, it was later revealed that Kibitz wasn't actually a group of hackers but rather a 16-year old boy who was a fan of the game, that really wanted to share the content that they managed to find on the Lionhead Studios servers.
In order to prove to the hacker that they are aware of their name and location, Lionhead Studios sent a message directly to them stating "You have got to stop this now, otherwise I pass all this information on to your mom". Sam Van Tilburgh and his team would also send them the introduction to a poem that the hacker wrote whilst they were attending school. After making these threats to the hacker, these ceased leaking information about Fable.
Team[]
Anonymous - (Hacker)
Trivia[]
- Lionhead Studios often refer to this event as the "Lionhead Troll" incident.
- Kibitz is actually another slang word for having a conversation or giving unwanted advice.
- According to some of the developers, the guy responsible for Kibitz still went to Lionhead Conventions after the incident.
- Due to them being a minor at the time of the incident, the person responsible for Kibitz has never had their name made public. While it is not known where they originate from, it is very likely that this was based on American law. This is because in the United Kingdom, people of age 16 or above are considered adults.
- The person responsible for uncovering the identity of "Kibitz" has never had their identity made public, either.
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