EA Responds to Crysis 2 Leak, Once Again Saddened by PC Piracy

[Shawn Zipay]

Another "blow" to developers came today when Crysis 2 was leaked almost two months ahead of its scheduled release. EA has responded to the leak and once more, is deeply concerned about the role piracy has on PC gaming.

Crytek has been alerted that an early incomplete, unfinished build of Crysis 2 has appeared on Torrent sites. Crytek and EA are deeply disappointed by the news. We encourage fans to support the game and the development team by waiting and purchasing the final, polished game on March 22. Crysis 2 is still in development and promises to be the ultimate action blockbuster as the series’ signature Nanosuit lets you be the weapon as you defend NYC from an alien invasion. Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market and the PC development community.

The emphasis on the quote above is ours. With that said, how long until publishers and developers completely abandon PC gamers and focus on console releases?

Keep in mind that piracy on consoles is a reality and does happen quite frequently. Also keep in mind that this leak of Crysis 2 was of a developer build, meaning someone within the studio sort of screwed up to have this appear online this early. There is also rumored to be a leak of the Xbox 360 version of the game out there, but nobody seems to be saying much about that one.

[The_Eliminator]

This is a ridiculous statement by EA and it infuriates me. This imo isnt PC Piracy at all! If one of their employee developers leaked the game how is it in anyway the PC markets fault?

You mean to tell me that if a leading xbox developer leaked a game 2 months early none of the console playerbase would hit up the download straight away?

It annoys me how big publishers blame the PC when really its their own employee misconduct that they need to be watching out for.

[Iwantcable]

Re: EA Responds to Crysis 2 Leak, Once Again Saddened by PC Piracy

Yeah this really has nothing to do with the PC platform.

[^Garf*uk*]

there just blaming the pc

[jimykx]

I doubt if they will still release a pc demo after what happened?

[CptainCrunch]

Re: EA Responds to Crysis 2 Leak, Once Again Saddened by PC Piracy

I agree. This isnt piracy, this is theft. Whats the difference? To me, piracy is when a released product is then altered and distributed to the masses for free when it should have cost to it. Its stealing, its theft.

This on the otherhand is something that shouldnt even be on the market yet. It should have been under lock and key with some type of control system to prevent this.

There is no excuse for this EA. Unplug your testing/development machines from the internet and have an intranet only environment. Its laziness on your part for not securing your infrastructure for this to get out. Its one thing to have millions of CDs in stores and it gets ripped off, its another when the only place it could have come from was the inside of EA itself. You better do an employee check and fire some people, starting with your CSO.

Then, once you implement all that, look at the rampent theft on console and quit being so biast against PC because thats the trend.

Crunch

[[MyIS]Dan]

Re: EA Responds to Crysis 2 Leak, Once Again Saddened by PC Piracy

It wouldn't shock me if they let this be leaked just so they can have more of a moan about PC Piracy.

[jimykx]

Re: EA Responds to Crysis 2 Leak, Once Again Saddened by PC Piracy

what if it was done on purpose??

edit:

It wouldn't shock me if they let this be leaked just so they can have more of a moan about PC Piracy.

yeah thats what i meant

[CptainCrunch]

Re: EA Responds to Crysis 2 Leak, Once Again Saddened by PC Piracy

Could be Dan. Take a page out of the political playbook. Create a crises (how ironic) and claim victim in need of more regulation on the industry or reason to clamp down.

Crunch

[Spik3d]

Re: EA Responds to Crysis 2 Leak, Once Again Saddened by PC Piracy

Well Crysis 2 obviously wasn't designed for PC, so what difference does it make to them?

Nobody really seems to care about PC because it's a less profitable platform than consoles. With consoles, developers/publishers control all of the content. With PC, the community has a say. Games last longer on PC than on console because of modding. Even if they don't provide mod tools, the game can still be modded (not as easily and no custom maps though). Look at the length of CoD4 on PC vs on console, there are still many PC servers going, but most of those who got it for console have already moved onto MW2 or Black Ops (consolers didn't like WaW as much as PCers).

[Vreki]

Re: EA Responds to Crysis 2 Leak, Once Again Saddened by PC Piracy

It was theft when somebody stole the unfinished game, but is is pircay when people start to download. So it does make some sense to blame piracy, because without it it would just be one guy playing the stolen game in his basement.

But still, what consequences does this really have? The game is not a "secret" in itself like a list of undercover agents, and those who pirate it now are the same people who would pirate it anyhow. The damage seems limited.

Also:

We encourage fans to support the game and the development team by waiting and purchasing the final, polished game

Yeah right, who wants to guess how many times the "final, polished" game will have been patched three months from release?

[stilla-killa]

Re: EA Responds to Crysis 2 Leak, Once Again Saddened by PC Piracy

Well I am not going to say if I downloaded it or not but you are going to need a bad ass computer to take advantage of cry-engine 3 which the game runs on.

[Unregistered]

Re: EA Responds to Crysis 2 Leak, Once Again Saddened by PC Piracy

Odd, since piracy has had a positive effect on the sales of all forms of media (especially digital). Of course at first glance this seems counter-intuitive to the age-old, and quite completely understood fact, that piracy does indeed hurt the sale of physical products (i.e. they are gone and are irreplaceable). Personally because of piracy I became a gamer, and have spent in the quadruple digits for this new piracy borne hobby. It's also spread to my friends who got into piracy and now spend money on the developers and games they like. I have sprung nearly 10,000 grand into the industry because of piracy, a horrible thing? No?

Here's a basic video to slingshot a few of you into understanding digital piracy and it's effect on the world (not for the slow kids). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI

TRY and look at this with an open mind, if you stay in a shell of ignorance nothing will open your eyes.

[Vreki]

Re: EA Responds to Crysis 2 Leak, Once Again Saddened by PC Piracy

TRY and look at this with an open mind, if you stay in a shell of ignorance nothing will open your eyes.

Ha, that could be an exact quote from any conspiracy theorist. "If you disagree, you must be stupid"

Anyway, it is a very interesting anecdote, and it might be true for books.
However, there are a few important difference:
1) Books are still very much physical objects, and it is rarely cost-effective to copy a whole book. If you lend it from someone, they are going without it, and if you want you own copy you need to buy it. eBooks might change that, why buy a book if you can just copy it from your friend?
2) Piracy encourages cheaters, because they have nothing to lose when banned. At worst the have lost zero $, and often they will just get another copy.

If piracy has a positive effect on sales, then one should think that the same effect could be had by making quality demos. And here the finger is pointing at the publishers. IMHO games without demos are usually relying upon hype to sell their game rather than quality.

Regardless, piracy is illegal and against the wishes of those who own the rights to the product.
They way to complain about overpriced crap is to avoid buying it, not stealing it. That yields the moral high ground to the publishers, and make us look hypocritical.

I can forgive kids for not understanding the big deal about copying a game, purely hypothetically, I might have been there myself
But an adult doesn't really have an excuse, games are not what you would call a basic necessity.