As was widely reported on the 'Net GSC Game World was accused of pilfering art assets from Doom 3 and Half-life 2 for it's game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. As it turns out GSC did not steal the assets The Inquirer is reporting.

"Textures used by both Valve and GSC GameWorld, the makers of STALKER, come from a texture pack sold by Marlin Studios."

It looks like each company purchased some of the same third party art assets. Hmm. Could the gaming community have really jumped to a conclusion too soon? In this age of instant, always on, twenty four hour news is this really avoidable? Since the truth came out in the end, what's the harm?

people see ghosts everywhere, always

Game development is so expensive these days developers use 3rd party assets like programming libraries and art/sound archives because it saves them from having to reinvent the wheel. Everyone does it, it's no big deal

This is nothing particularly new... in fact, playing games and watching different movies and TV shows... I occasionally come across a "smash", "gunshot", "beep" or "scream" or etc that I know I've heard before somewhere else. Just like the textures described, there are common libraries of sound effects that can be added (usually in post production) to any content that needs it. For instance the "beep" sound that comes when you activate a computer in Republic Commando, might not have been something that anyone particularly thought about designing until they reached the end of development with the game and realized that it needed a sound effect of some kind.

It comes as no surprise to me to find that certain textures are being distributed around as often as the average clipart. And those get sold as production material also.

As an aside, there's this certain "scream" sound effect that I hear in a lot of movies (actually more often the trailer to a movie) and TV shows... that my ear always recognizes. The first time I heard the particular sound effect was in Dark Forces, when Kyle falls off a cliff... and to my ear, it sounded more like a TIE Fighter than a scream... anyway, it's been almost 15 years since that game was released and I'm still hearing the exact same "scream" used in Hollywood.

A Wilhelm Scream!

Wow, good call, Depeche Mike! There's a Wikipedia article that lists the places it's been used, and an audio file - maybe they just missed that game?

scream

My favourite over-used sound-effect is the 'Shi-Kouff' noise that was used on the final level of DOOM II, when the boss spits out one of those spinning cube objects.

That noise has been used EVERYWHERE in movies, TV shows and commercials! It cracks me up everytime I hear it :)

Not the one I was thinking of... but if it's just as overused... :)

Here's a clip of various Wilhelm Screams: http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=23697