We speak to authorities on video-game piracy — including everyone from well-known game hackers to anti-piracy officials — to learn how this isn’t something that merely impacts developers but jeopardizes the very strength of our industry.
In 2006, Stan bought his first Nintendo DS. He had absolutely no programming or hacking experience, but within a day, he was able to augment his new handheld with functions like the capability to play MP3s and movies-as well as dozens of pirated video games.
“I did some research through Google,” says Stan, who requests we don’t use his real name. “I found out there’s actually a lot of people with YouTube tutorials on how to do this stuff. It was actually extremely easy to learn everything.”
YouTube videos and advice on video-game forums showed him what to buy-like an R4 Revolution Flash cartridge-where to buy what he needed, and where to download the “homebrew” applications that run free (and illegal) copies of games. Since then, the homebrew community has grown with a proliferation of “how to” websites thanks to a core group of hackers.
The Nintendo DS is in no way alone in this; hackers have “cracked” virtually every other game device on the market. In recent years, the DS, the PlayStation Portable, and, more recently, the iPhone have been among the most cracked systems. It’s the hackers who take care of the nuts and bolts of cracking a device, and in some cases they make it literally as simple as clicking a button for the average person to hack successfully.
Read more…
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has set several records this year, including the most units sold in a single month (over 6 million in November alone). But according to TorrentFreak, a site that covers the world of torrent downloads, the game was also the most pirated title of 2009.
According to the site, Modern Warfare 2′s PC version was downloaded on torrent sites a whopping 4.1 million times, which is more than twice as many downloads as 2008′s most-pirated game, Spore. The Xbox 360 version of Modern Warfare 2 was downloaded 970,000 times.
Those numbers are all the more impressive when one considers that the game was downloaded over a period of just two months.
TorrentFreak also released its findings for other top pirated games. The Sims 3, Prototype, Need for Speed Shift, and Street Fighter IV rounded out the list of most-pirated PC games. Street Fighter IV and Prototype were second and third on the most-pirated Xbox 360 games, following Modern Warfare 2. Dirt 2 and UFC 2009 Undisputed placed in fourth and fifth places, respectively.
Read more…
Electronic Arts chief executive John Riccitiello is no hard-liner when it comes to software piracy, and in an interview with Kotaku
The Korean unit of Japan
Are you an Xbox 360 owner recently banned from Xbox Live? Has the ban left you feeling short changed? Perhaps you
Thousands of gamers may have been cut off from Microsoft’s online gaming service Xbox Live for modifying their consoles to play pirated games.
Online reports suggest that as many as 600,000 gamers may have been affected.
Microsoft confirmed that it had banned a “small percentage” of the 20 million Xbox Live users worldwide.
Microsoft said that modifying an Xbox 360 console “violates” the service’s “terms of use” and would result in a player being disconnected.
“All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and that modifying their Xbox 360 console to play pirated discs violates the Xbox Live terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox Live,” Microsoft has said in a statement.
“The health of the video game business depends on customers paying for the genuine products and services they receive from manufacturers, retailers, and the third parties that support them.”
Read more…
Faced with The Truth that
Now we’ve established that, we can move on to Nintendo’s newly formed Retail Police, which are bringing the boot down hard on Japanese shops that continued to sell DS flash carts after the Big N (along with 54 other companies) successfully lobbied the Tokyo District Court to ban the import of such devices.
The lack of compliance has since encouraged Nintendo to send out letters to these evil shopkeepers demanding they stop selling flash carts, taking up the reins after the law apparently wasn’t quick enough.
Unfortunately, it seems these retailers had the audacity to ignore Nintendo, and a new suit has been filed by the 55 game companies who are now looking to extract damages from the shops.
To further its campaign, Nintendo has launched a website allowing the good people of the Japanese internet to report any such retailers, along with details of any illegal game downloads found on the web.
Read more…
Sony Computer Entertainment Asia president Tetsuhiko Yasuda has noted this week at the GC Asia conference in Singapore that the company will continue its anti-piracy efforts in South-East Asia, and added a strong warning to the governments of those nations where piracy is rampant.
Yasuda specifically commended Singapore, adding: “I would like to extend my gratitude to the solid efforts that the Singapore government has made. However, with just a moment of relaxation in efforts to uphold copyright protection, it’s possible that the same old problem will occur again.
“Therefore it is essential for the country to understand that upholding copyright protection is indispensable for the stable development of the software industry.”
The president continued on by noting the company’s recent deal with Nanyang Polytechnic, which will teach college students how to develop for the PS3.
Read more…
Nintendo has expanded its anti-piracy team with the appointment of Neil Boyd as European anti-piracy counsel. Boyd joins the platform holder from Warner Brothers, where directed the firm’s anti-piracy strategy. He will be assisted by Jonathan Tully and Matthias Damm, Nintendo’s European anti-piracy legal advisors.
“Creating a pan-European anti-piracy team shows how seriously Nintendo takes the threat of videogames piracy and our willingness to take action against criminals who are making money out of the infringement of games developers’ copyright,” said Jodi Daugherty, Nintendo’s senior director for anti-piracy.
Read more…
The ESA (Entertainment Software Association) has long been fighting the piracy of video games and are getting increasingly concerned by its rate of growth. In fact, the association estimates in the month of December 2008th over 6.5 million gamers were illegally downloaded.
While the whole world is to be blamed, the ESA focused in on two countries, Italy and Spain, and have said that they make up for 17.1% of and 15.1% of the world’s video game piracy, respectively.
Read more…
