GTA - San Andreas leaked

[Supreme Cmdr]

Gamespot has the scoop

This is crazy, just crazy. I keep saying this over and over, pirates should get the death penality. Its the only way to be sure.

[LostInSpace]

How the hell are they getting their hands on these. Has to be inside jobs.

[Eclipse]

or someone where they replicate the cds

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eclipse:

or someone where they replicate the cds

---

uhm, thats considered an inside job too

[Kevin Trotter]

Nothing is going to change til they catch someone and give em five years in the state pen

[Takvah]

Unfortunately, there is never going to be a way to stop this entirely. The internet while manageable just has to many cracks and crevaces to hide in. Someone with a decent knowledge of it can effectively shield themselves from scrutiny. The ability to share things peer to peer is never going to be stopped. The genie as they say is out of the bottle. Even if a game isn't leaked by inside sources as soon as it hits the shelves the hack is being developed and the game is being uploaded to newsgroups etc., worldwide. It sucks but this is a price of doing business when your business can be digitized. Music, literature or games it doesn't matter... it is all in play.

So the real choices that companies have is limited. They can prosecute and they can litigate. This cost will be passed onto the law-minded rather than those that are actually stealing. They can reduce the costs of their games, music, etc. and offer it over the web making it less attractive to steal it. More than litigation, I think the cheap download services will eventually curb (NOT END) music theft. The songs should have a digital signature that is traceable to the purchaser as well.

Games are another matter. Perhaps transferring games to players over the internet will be a way to reduce costs and make games less tempting to steal. I bought HL2 over the web (still waiting for the release) and have been playing CS:S. They saved themselves a bit of money on splits with retailers and the production costs of manuals and CDs and I got immediate gratification (sort of). They charge about the same for the download as they do the packaged product which is why I don't see a decrease in cracked versions of CS:S being played. The problem is rampant and has law abiding people miffed (including myself)... however in time a service like Steam used fairly (reduced prices for offering people a license and not the actual product) might be the answer. Especially since your game can also have some kind of imbedded digital signature that is unique to you. If you buy it from a retailer, good luck figuring out who it is that is duplicating and pirating your software. Console games... welp, until they have internet capabilities comprabable to PCs for obtaining content, they're screwed.

The whole thing is a mess but as internet speeds increase theft is only on the rise. Perhaps using that speed to deliver your product in a few hours time to the consumer while reducing the price in a way that is commensorate with your reduced costs is the answer. I don't know... I'm just some schmuck out here in the forest *snickers*.

Peace