Just last week in our gaming podcast we were talking about how Gears of War 2 wasn’t going to make a PC debut because it has a bit of a problem with piracy. We were afraid this movement was going to cause game developers and publishers to stick with console’s “big can of DRM” over the PC for many future releases.
Turns out, Fallout 3 was stolen before it was announced as finished and has begun to show up on torrents around the Internet. This, of course, has lead folks to believe the leak took place at the manufacturing plant given the obvious circumstances behind the event. Sure, the title could have been leaked at the developers studio, but who would want to cause their products sales to suffer? Perhaps a hacker broke into the studio and stole the raw images?
There are plenty of possibilities, but the fact of the matter is this is the “DRM” console version of the game. It has been stolen and downloaded by thousands of people who are going to actually take the time to make it work on their ‘tweaked’ console. Just when we said “it’s too hard to hack the Xbox 360 and its games,” some pirate comes out and does it!
While the pirates set sea with the glorious booty that is Fallout 3, Bethesda’s staying hush about the incident for now. In odd timing, Ubisoft came out, prior to this event, talking in respect to Tom Clancy EndWar saying:
“To be honest, if PC wasn’t pirated to hell and back, there’d probably be a PC version coming out the same day as the other two.” (gamasutra)
Perhaps, the pirates want to bring some attention to the console market in terms of piracy so developers continue to produce PC titles? If nobody is safe, there will be no one safe-haven console to run to when pirates are stealing “potential sales.”
@Do it like it’s 2013
It’s good to see Nintendo finally getting it’s stuff together. But I still say they missed their chance. They had a large release advantage over Xbox One and PS4 and they wasted it. They are now forever cursed to play catch up.
@All your videos are belong to us
I kick this right into the lawyer’s ball park. I remember the days of the Xbox and PS2, when I gave developers money for their game and that was the end of our interaction. But the modern game industry spawned this horrible mutation of gaming, where developers still have a considerable impact on my gaming experience post release. After Xbox 360 I got used to continuous updates. But it keeps getting worse. The gaming industry is nurturing it’s own Big Brother, which is largely controlled by non-gaming people. No good will come of this.
@Cell Games
I agree with Jonah. I was impressed with the inFamous games. But I didn’t see any differences between multiplatform titles. Cell was a poor choice for Sony; much like HD DVD was for Xbox 360. I am eager to pick up a PS4 and see what Sony’s new hardware is capable off.
@Plus one Paul!
Earlist thing I remember. How long has it been since then? I will miss Paul. He brought a very unique and interestig point of view to the gaming industry. I learned a lot about game development from him. I also realised that I never want to be a game developer. Good luck to you Paul. And get a proper job. It’s time you started puling your weight for the economy (mandatory hate mail).