
Crysis (EA game) leak - ifesdjeen
http://www.ea.com/crysis-2/blog/crysis-leak
======
_delirium
That's a weirdly worded paragraph. The first three sentences are fine, then
the fourth sentence is marketing copy awkwardly squeezed in ("Nanosuit lets
you be the weapon as you defend NYC from an alien invasion"), then closes with
a generic statement about piracy.

Will be interesting to see what effects this has, though. Apart from the
simple fact of early availability to pirates, these kinds of leaks can change
the early review climate, since now reviews can come from all sorts of
sources, not just the journalists given preview copies. What effect _that_ has
might depend on how good the game is (and how close to done the leaked version
is).

A worse outcome than just the leaked version being available would be if it
led to a flurry of negative reviews of the pre-release version, the way leaks
of bad films have a much more negative effect on opening-weekend sales than
leaks of good films do--- the didn't-see-it-because-everyone-said-it-sucked
effect can be larger than the didn't-see-it-because-I-already-pirated-it
effect.

The best outcome for EA would probably be a flood of reviews of the form: "wow
this is an _amazing_ game but a few things are broken in the leaked version,
which I assume will be fixed by release".

~~~
Qz
A similar thing happened many years ago when an early version of Half-Life 2
got leaked. Reaction was tepid at best, Valve went back and basically re-made
the entire game (delaying an already delayed game for substantially longer),
but ultimately resulting in an award-winning game with an amazing (for the
time) new engine. The pirating of the leak was of course highly illegal, but
you could easily argue that Valve wouldn't be where they are now without it.
(Half-Life 2 also contributed to the success of the Steam download service,
another first for the company.)

~~~
83457
My recollection of this is...The person who leaked HL2 actually hacked into
Valve's network and could not find anything that could be considered a game,
just a bunch of tech demos and assets (I downloaded and played the E3 demo).
He essentially announced that Valve was lying to the public about their
progress on HL2 right before the originally scheduled release date and delay.
I believe Steam was announced before the leak, and released well before HL2
release.

~~~
electromagnetic
It was released well before the HL2 release, because I remember having HL2
pre-downloaded for day of release.

~~~
Maxious
Steam in various forms had existed for a while; firstly in 2002 as a more
efficient distribution engine for Counter Strike then to provide
authentication and matchmaking for the HL1 multiplayer after Valve's publisher
Sierra planned to turn off their servers in 2004. They offered upgrades for
all old HL1 cdkeys to a steam account and then started selling their games (I
think Counter Strike: Condition Zero was the first new release) through it
too... which wasn't appreciated by Sierra:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation#Valve_vs_Vive...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation#Valve_vs_Vivendi_case)

------
djtumolo
Here's a rewrite that I think is much more pleasant, and would build good
will, and probably increase sales:

Crytek has been alerted that an early incomplete, unfinished build of Crysis 2
has appeared on Torrent sites. Crytek and EA are a bit shocked, but
surprisingly ok with the news. Saves us the trouble of writing a demo! So
check out the pirated, unofficial demo, and be sure to buy the full game when
it comes out on March 22nd.

And try not to spoil yourself too much on the leak, the full game is much
better already!

~~~
ZoFreX
I'm not sure how wise this was. I couldn't resist the Half-Life 2 leak, and it
did actually detract from my experience of the final game. It was buggy,
crashed a lot, many of the levels were completely untextured or unscripted,
but there was enough dialogue already in the game to spoil the plot. I agree
it could use a more pleasant rewrite, but in their position I would want to
put people off playing the leak for that reason alone.

Oh, and they have made a demo - it's been out on the 360 for a couple of weeks
I think.

------
rlm
Maybe they should be trying to find the internal source instead of blaming
everything on "piracy".

~~~
lionhearted
They're probably trying a lot of things... that message there, blaming piracy,
it's not meant for you.

It's also not meant for people who play console games but don't use the
internet much and don't know how to use a torrent site.

It's meant for the marginal person who could go either way - who might
grudgingly torrent a movie or music album that can't be bought in his home
country, but feels guilty about it and wants to support content creators.

There's people who are going to buy, no matter what - this message doesn't
affect them. There's people who aren't going to buy, no matter what - this
message doesn't affect them. There's also a marginal group of people who might
buy or might not - they're trying to appeal to them.

Or who knows, maybe they really are just blaming piracy while letting the ship
sink. I'd buy that explanation too.

~~~
psykotic
> There's people who are going to buy, no matter what

Most of those people do it out of convenience. They want to play on their
console, in the living room with the big screen, and they don't want to fuck
around with torrenting ISOs and hacking their machine so it can play copied
games. Next to convenience, morality takes a distant second place; they
probably pirate music and movies without hesitation. But fans of Crysis 2 have
long been awaiting its release, and being able to play it months before its
street date, even if it means playing on PC and hitting the torrents, might
tip the convenience equation.

That is why this is so dangerous for Crytek.

~~~
Derbasti
I, for one, will certainly buy it. I am a programmer myself and I want other
people to pay money for my work--hence, I can't justify not paying for other
people's work.

I also believe that polishing up a game is just about the most agonizing--and
important--work there is (in the games industry). Polish makes all the
difference in games. Downoading a pirated pre-release, under-polished version
of a game is getting you a sub-par, less fun version of the game and thus
undermines the very reason to play the game: to have fun.

~~~
psykotic
I am a programmer in the game industry. Games I have worked on have sold
millions of copies. That said, I've pirated plenty of things when the
convenience made up for the dubious morality of it. I'm not proud of it or
justifying it but that's how it goes.

Since Steam took off, I haven't pirated a single PC game. In fact, I've only
played a third of the games in my Steam library because the sales have made it
so easy and enticing to buy on a whim. Close the convenience gap and offer
extra benefits and you can easily turn most normal middle-class adults like
myself into happy paying customers.

> Downoading a pirated pre-release, under-polished version of a game is
> getting you a sub-par, less fun version of the game and thus undermines the
> very reason to play the game: to have fun.

That is correct. But if you think this will prevent most fans who have been
eagerly waiting for the game then you are mistaken. It's the short-sightedness
of human nature.

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beaumartinez
Ultimately I think this is very unfortunate. I seem to remember reading that
Crytek said that they were releasing Crysis 2 on consoles as well as on PC due
to the high piracy the original Crysis had (the original being a PC exclusive,
and piracy on consoles being much less than on PC).

Something like this could be the straw breaking the camel's back for Crytek
releasing their next game on PC (and I don't blame them).

------
MichaelGG
"Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market"

That sounds quite oddly phrased. Why is it not "the PC gaming market" or
something to that effect? Why should anyone care about a specific distribution
model?

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GrandMasterBirt
Ok, let me make a nice analysis of responses about that post:

1) EA is obviously upset. They are asking people to wait to buy the game. This
has two main reasons. The first being that the beta release is still buggy and
will give a bad impression. The second being that they don't want people who
would have otherwise bought the game get impatient and download it. Possibly
seeing what a heap of crap it is.

2) EA did not bash the community. They just said "fans, please support us,
piracy hurts our industry." Piracy of course referring to actually downloading
and helping spread it. The response is basically "piracy is good, stfu, fuck
off, you deserve it assholes". The response is completely blown out of
proportion unless the OP was modified later on.

3) EA has nobody to blame but themselves. However they know this, and did not
blame anyone else in the post. The responders seem to think otherwise.

4) I hate EA as much as the next buy, but lets be fair here.

That is all.

