Crispy Gamer News

Everyone knows the old saying, “Crime doesn’t pay.” But that doesn’t ever seem to stop people from trying. One UK-based software pirate learned that the hard way on Friday, sentenced to three years in jail on counterfeiting charges. What makes the story even more interesting, though, is how the crook chose to spend his ill-begotten gains.

According to the Entertainment Leisure and Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), Steven Raymond Adams,38, and his girlfriend/partner in crime, Julie Frendo, 33, lived in the lap of luxury by selling illegally copied games, film, and music at computer fairs and over the internet. The man owned a Spanish apartment, drove a Range Rover, and even appeared in a health and fitness article in UK tabloid, The Sun, bragging about spending £10,000 (roughly $9,000 USD) on extensive weight-loss surgery for himself and another £4,000 (roughly $6,000 USD) on breast enlargement for Frendo.
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It seems like a lot of 360 owners got a rude awakening this week, as various forums were lit up with reports of sweeping bans from Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE service. While most of the posters seemed stunned by the action, a common thread from many of these posters involved them having played “backup copies” or “early copies” of games like Gears of War 2, and using modified 360s to do so.

Well, if these guys had any doubts as to why they were banned, Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb, decided to clear things up over at his official blog:
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Poor, poor pitiful Microsoft. The “New Xbox Experience” has been leaked and is now being offered via torrent downloads all across the seedier neighborhoods of the Internet. Microsoft really needs a plumber because the company consistently suffers from severe leakage. The torrents reportedly offer a download that can be used to update the dashboard’s new features via a USB storage device.

But before you jump onto Pirate’s Bay or wherever people download their favorite ill-gotten gains, be warned - Microsoft may very well ban you in the short term (until the update officially goes live later this month) or in the long-term to make an example of you and teach you a life lesson.

Personally, having an avatar and being able to cycle through 3D menus isn’t worth getting banned from Xbox Live, so why not just wait? As for Microsoft, they should probably do something about these leaks… just  saying.. Look for NXE on November 19th.

In an interview with Gamasutra this morning EA’s Chief Executive Officer, John Riccitiello, said that he personally abhors digital rights management software but feels that it is a necessary evil in the fight against piracy. The hot button issue of DRM continues to outrage many gamers, but that certainly hasn’t hurt sales of Spore.

“I personally hate DRM. I don’t like the whole concept; it can be a little bit cumbersome. But I don’t like locks on my door, and I don’t like to use keys in my car… I’d like to live in a world where there are no passports. Unfortunately, we don’t – and I think the vast majority of people voted with their wallets and went out and bought Spore…”

Or perhaps the mainstream, high profile coverage of the game helped drive sales to a more casual demographic. Who knows? But the most interesting comments - sure to be disputed by zealous anti-DRM voices on the Internet - is that half of those people complaining about Spore’s copy protection were.. pirates.

“Everyone gets that we need some level of protection, or we’re going to be in business for free… [But it was] a minority of [anti-DRM] people that orchestrated a great PR program. They picked the highest-profile game they could find. I respect them for the success of their movement.”

“I’m guessing that half of them were pirates, and the other half were people caught up in something that they didn’t understand. If I’d had a chance to have a conversation with them, they’d have gotten it… There are different ways to do DRM; the most successful is what WoW does. They just charge you by the month.”

Of course that’s just his opinion and - I would imagine - it’s not based on anything more than a gut feeling. Anti-DRM opponents who are not pirates and find the kinds of copyright protection being deployed in modern PC games as nearing draconian levels will no doubt strongly and loudly disagree in a messy and public fashion shortly.

Source: Gamasutra

Cliff ‘cliffski’ Harris, the founder of Positech Games, posed a question to the internet: Why Do People Pirate My Games? That question got a HUGE response that surprised the guy behind such indie hits as Democracy and Kudos. Some of the responses were ridiculous (of course, some people cannot help but be insane), but many raised some interesting points on why people are motivated to play games without paying for them.

But the top reasons for why people pirate games? The lion’s share of responses pointed to pricing, game quality and DRM. People do not like DRM and find it a major hassle. Many companies that digitally distribute games - like Stardock’s Impulse - do not use it. The other obstacle was pricing; lots of youngsters without the money to buy every single game admitted that they pirated games, while others said that the price-point for many games is ridiculously high.

For his part, Harris is going to try harder to make his consumers happy. He has removed DRM from Democracy 2 (the one game that used it) and will no longer use it in future titles; he’ll cut the price of his games in an effort to make them more economical, and he’ll work harder to bring the level of quality to a whole new level.

While Harris’ response is an interesting one, reading all the reasons is absolutely intriguing. No matter what side of the piracy issue you are on, reading the laundry list of complaints and concerns posed by the community gives everyone a better understanding where people are coming from.

You can read his entire post here.

A spokesmen for ELSPA told GameIndustry.biz today that it never said that 90 percent of DS users were engaged in piracy. The trade group representing the interactive entertainment industry in the United Kingdom (and combating software piracy in the region) said it would never presume to comment about America.

The quote, which surfaced in The Sunday Post yesterday, quoted John Hillier, manager of ELSPA’’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit, as saying that 90 percent of DS owners were engaged in playing pirated software. The article was about the R4 chip, which allows DS users to circumvent copy protection to play hacked or copied DS games.

Today ELSPA distanced itself from the story, saying that it it was misquote:

The quotes from The Sunday Post were ascribed to his name from another article which originates from a website in Singapore. This, it appears, is where The Sunday Post first found out about the supposed R4 situation and for some reason unknown to John have quoted him on what this article said.

That’’s good news for Tiller, who no longer looks like the world’’s biggest ass-hat. The Sunday Post, on the other hand…

ELSPA (Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association) made a bold statement this week, claiming that 90 percent of North American DS owners are engaging in piracy using the R4 chip. The governing body of the interactive entertainment industry in the United Kingdom says that piracy is rampant everywhere and that the R4 chip is a big part of it. The R4 chip allows DS owners to play copies of DS games. The comments were made by John Hillier, ELSPA’’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit. Hillier said that the R4 enables piracy more efficiently because it allows users to download and play hacked games.

While piracy on consoles may very well be rampant here and in other parts of the world, the 90 percent part of the equation sounds impossible. That would mean that 9 out of every 10 DS players are engaging in piracy — and that’’s a pretty hard pill to swallow.