Crysis 2 Leaked Over a Month Before Launch

iviv66 writes with this excerpt from Rock, Paper, Shotgun: "According to a thread on the Facepunch forums, a developer build of Crysis 2 containing the full game, multiplayer and the master key for the online authentication has been leaked, and is currently freely available from all sorts of astonishingly illegal websites. This sounds like it might be a serious tragedy for Crytek. Crysis 2 was scheduled for release on the 22nd of March, so the leaked build could be dangerously close to finished." EA and Crytek have responded to the leak, saying that the illicit copy is incomplete and unfinished, and that "Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market and the PC development community."

Comments

Obligatory....

[tanveer1979]

Now thats a crysis

Re:Obligatory....

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the game was released with "maximum speed."

Re:Obligatory....

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering crytek keeps their workers in "company provided" living spaces to make them work longer and underpay them quite strongly I say they deserve it.

Re:Obligatory....

[infolation]

I don't work for Crysis, but I know several 3-D devs and concept artists who've switched from film VFX to games and work for them.

crytek keeps their workers in "company provided" living spaces

Crytek Germany provide free accommodation to new developers who've relocated to Germany while they find their feet, and provide assistance finding private accommodation for longer term workers.

to make them work longer

Work longer hours, or work longer for the company? Quite a few of these people have to be persuaded to relocate from Crysis UK to Germany. Persuading people to relocate for a significant length of time requires carrots, not sticks.

Re:Obligatory....

[Metabolife]

It's a farcry from the Half-Life 2 leak.

Astonishing

[quiet down]

"...is currently freely available from all sorts of astonishingly illegal websites." So these websites aren't just illegal, they're *astonishingly* illegal! This changes damn near everything about my view of the story!

Re:Astonishing

[lul_wat]

I'm astonished there are illegal websites. You'd think the content of the website would be illegal but this takes it to a whole new level. Better put down those illegal magazines and that illegal sandwich.

Re:Astonishing

[McTickles]

Everything is "illegal" nowadays, im not astonished.

Only media corporations are pretending to be astonished so they can go and whine about the "astonishingly illegal" sites to politicians.

Re:Astonishing

[Urkki]

"...is currently freely available from all sorts of astonishingly illegal websites."

So these websites aren't just illegal, they're *astonishingly* illegal! This changes damn near everything about my view of the story!

Astonishingly illegal web site will contain material that illegally violates copyright laws, with exploits that will first illegally violate your computer, and after sending spam will illegally violate other peoples inboxes, and after intercepting your web banking session will illegally violate your bank account, and after getting you your web cam and photo collection may illegally violate your privacy (which may or may not involve pictures of someone being violated, but as long as it's all legal, it's not relevant here).

Sounds pretty astonishingly illegal to me.

Better stick to just non-astonishingly illegal web sites, as they'll be mostly limited to copyright infringement.

Remember the HL2 leak?

[assemblerex]

Valve went and changed the game substantially and for the better. I hope they take the chance to do the same to crysis 2, if they do (add more value) then no one will pirate the inferior version.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[RogueyWon]

The HL2 leak was of a build that was nowhere near ready. If I remember, Valve was somewhat guilty of having pretty heavily exaggerated how close HL2 was to being finished at the time. This doesn't in any way justify the leak, but it does explain why the game changed substantially and for the better - it wasn't really much to do with the leak at all. Crysis 2, on the other hand, has a release date that's not much more than a month and a half away. There's not much that can be done.

There isn't really an upside to this one. The only way there could be would be if whoever in the supply chain is responsible for this leak were to say, trip up and fall out of a third floor window into a skip full of broken glass and dogshit.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[geekprime]

Honestly, as much fun as the original was, I will buy the new one regardless of whether I download the pirate version or not.

Good games are worth what they cost, as long as they didn't totally screw the pooch, they already have MY money.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[somersault]

He didn't say anything against any of what you said, he only said that he hoped whoever was responsible for the leak gets punished. Because they are clearly not acting in the interests of Crytek as a "private company". The guy likely doesn't work for Crytek, otherwise he'd just be shooting himself in the foot by doing this (hence why RogueyWon mentioned the "supply chain"). Saying this is Crytek's responsibility is like blaming someone for having their car stolen while it was being repaired at a garage.

You are awfully quick to defend yourself even when no accusation is being made - guilty conscience much?

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[KDR_11k]

The pile of matter that works together to call itself "Stellian" apparently decided it lords over more piles of matter and that other piles of matter may not touch or manipulate those piles of matter.

You can make anything sound absurd by abstracting enough but there is no inalienable right to download, store and copy copyrighted works. Sure, nature itself won't prevent you from doing it but that's not a standard to form a society by.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[Nagrom]

If everyone thought like you then your supposed inalienable rights would be irrelevant as there'd really be no more games being made for you to download anymore anyway.

Well, ok, there'd still be floods of free Flash games and indie stuff but let's not pretend that anyone downloading this leak is disinterested in the kind of AAA games that depend upon the current publishing models. Making them is simply unsustainable in the face of sufficiently high piracy rates and this is primarily why most publishers barely care about PC anymore. (I work in the industry. This isn't just PC gamers bitching about inferior ports; the publishers really aren't very interested unless it's a low cost by-product of the console versions.)

I find it bizarre that so many people are incapable of appreciating that the economy and the nature of products being made have simply changed over the last decade or so. I see no reason why digital content should be inherently less valuable or worth protecting than physical product. The fact that no-one happens to have invented a way of magically cloning the latter without damaging the original isn't really relevant; the point is that without continuing the long-standing arrangement of someone investing money to make a product and then people paying for it if they want it, thereby providing a return on that investment, no-one will make the product anymore. Who exactly wins in this situation?

The music industry is a different case as there seems to be a very plausible and arguably superior model of artists providing their work more directly via the various alternative distribution channels that have sprung up in recent times. But for anyone that enjoys movies with non-trivial budgets or any form of cutting edge video games then the amount of money they require upfront to create is only viable in something like the traditional arrangement.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[Stellian]

there is no inalienable right to download, store and copy copyrighted works. Sure, nature itself won't prevent you from doing it but that's not a standard to form a society by.

Quite the contrary, I have the inalienable right to anything nature allows me, for as long as I don't overstep some other individual's inalienable rights.
I will use my property as I see fit (circumvention, duplication) and I will assembly with like-minded individuals (internet broadcasting) which are clearly inalienable rights inscribed in any the constitution of any free country. In doing so Crytek can claim their business plan was ruined however there's no inalienable right to a have a working business plan. Ruining other's people business is essential for competition and a fact of life in capitalism.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[somersault]

Okay, so what you are saying is, you think nobody should ever make big budget games any more because they shouldn't be allowed to sell them and can't make their money back? Likewise nobody should make big budget movies or try to sell their music?

If you don't like my car analogy, how about me saying "this is like someone copying your personal information off your hard drive while your computer is in for repair" or something along those lines? The point was not to do with the stealing, but to demonstrate that if it may have been a leak at the publisher's or by a tester, and in that case Crytek had no way of avoiding it.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[WankersRevenge]

Bill Bryson wrote (and I'm paraphrasing here) in his book "At Home" that often times aristocrats held unreasonable expectations of their servants because they had never preformed the work that the servants did.

I'm reference this because people who wrap themselves up in the ideology of "internet freedom fighters" probably don't understand the process of creating something and how debilitating it is to have that work released before it is ready. Especially after years of hard work and personal sacrifice went into it.

I don't expect you to understand because I'm not talking about laws and rights and the inherit freedom of digital bits - I'm talking about what it takes to be a good neighbor.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from the fact that your rant is TL;DR, you seem to miss the basic point. At this point in time, the only people that rightfully have access to the game are under non-disclosure agreements. So someone broke that contract, either willfully or unwittingly.

So the car theft analogy still stands. The point is that as long as Crytkek took all the measures they could (locking the car and handing the keys over to the repair shop), they're not as responsible as you say they are. It's like saying they shouldn't have taken their car to the shop that was going to be burglarized that day.

This isn't a matter of what you can and can't do with your copy. This isn't a matter of theft vs. violation. This isn't a matter of information wants to be free. Someone put the code in a compromised situation that they were legally bound not to do by contract.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[somersault]

It's not just voice acting and marketing, it's stuff like story/script, texturing, level design, modelling, animation and testing. Also, have you actually played any games with poor voice acting, or do you just prefer your games not to have voices in them? The second is acceptable in some types of games, the first just breaks your immersion from the game. You don't have to spend millions to get good voice actors either. If you're paying millions you're doing it for the name, not the talent.

I suppose by "big budget", I mean anything that can't be done by a small group of guys in their spare time, something that you actually need to pay people wages on so that they can devote the time they need to the project. Maybe "big budget" was the wrong term to use. Let's rephrase the question to: do you think that nobody should make games professionally? And stuff like putting advertising in only works for a limited number of game types.. sports sims and modern day city settings.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[stealth_finger]

There are no imaginary strings that force me to use my property in such a way as to support the goals or business objectives of other private individuals. The right to use my property as I see fit for my goals is the cornerstone of freedom. Conversely, the confiscation of my freedoms by a handful of powerful entities is totalitarianism.

I have the unalienable right to download, store and copy the leaked copy using my physical property, regardless of what the copyright or anti-circumvention laws claim. If Crytek can find the individual that leaked said secrets, and has some form of legal binding contract with said individual that covers confidentiality, they are well entitled to damages under that contract. But by all means, don't hold me responsible when your business model fails because of your own ineptitude. Using your clout to draft laws against me is not only unjust, but a violation of my inalienable rights.

That's kinda like shooting someone, then saying "there was a gun and I have the right to shoot it, it's not my fault he got in the way of the bullet!"

If you used your computer to hack into bank and transfer a load of funds to your account could you say I was just using my computer how I saw fit. They should've had better security. I don't think that'd fly to well. Or more like this situation someone else had done the hacking but just left it open for anyone else to get in. just because a door is open you're not necessarily allowed through it.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[RoFLKOPTr]

I have the unalienable right to download, store and copy the leaked copy using my physical property, regardless of what the copyright or anti-circumvention laws claim.

Um... if there's a law against something, then you, by very definition, do not have the unalienable right to do that thing, regardless of what your contradictory social ideals claim.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[simon0411]

>The complete liberalization of information exchanges will have such far reaching effects in our society that worrying about games is like pondering the future sales of hair wigs on the brink of finding a cancer cure.

But, without financial incentives, much of that "information" would not be shared or created in the first place. Even assuming an overwhelming amount of altruism - a privilege of those with excess resources - consider that becoming really good at something, particularly in the fields of art and science, involves a huge initial investment of time and devotion before one is able to produce something of substantial value. This isn't just games, but scientific research, art... any activity beyond immediate concerns of survival, i.e. putting food on the table or keeping a roof over one's head. Money is an abstraction of labor, work accumulated. Even with "free" models, somewhere along the line, someone has to pay.

Now, whether the best way to recoup that investment is through traditional methods or through free sharing is open to debate, but I imagine the right answer is unique to each individual, and it is the individual's right to determine the best course for himself.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[LrdDimwit]

You do not, and never did, have the right to use your property as you see fit with 100% zero restrictions of any kind. Anything you own is subject to restriction, and always has been. You're not allowed, for example, to run people over with your car. You're not allowed to point laser pointers at planes flying overhead. You're not even allowed to crank the volume on your sound system up to 11 at 2 in the morning.

In the case of your computers and hard drives, you most certainly do not have the inalienable right to download, store, and copy any information you please whatsoever; you have no right to use it to issue death threats, or to store embarrasing videos of other people that you're blackmailing them with.

And in the specific case at issue, just because you claim to have an inalienable right to download pirated material, doesn't make it so. The vast majority of the US population feels that copyright is a good idea (even if many of us do feel it is skewed), and that is reflected in the Constitution and in the copyright laws. If you disagree, you're free to argue that they should be abolished. But simply talking about your (alleged) rights isn't an argument. You have to explain why what you propose to do isn't a violation of anyone else's rights.

You say Crytek has the right to use their property to do as they please. This is an implicit acknowledgement that the code is their property. But then you say that if you don't like what they're doing with it, you have to right to take it.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[JackDW]

"I have the inalienable right to anything nature allows me, for as long as I don't overstep some other individual's inalienable rights."

Thing is, that's a circular definition. I might assert that I have the inalienable right to not have my software duplicated by you. So then we just end up arguing over whether that right is inalienable or not and we get nowhere. It's not like God is going to make a personal appearance and set the record straight.

This is clearly a subject you care very much about. But I think you are missing something. IP rights are actually socially useful, just like physical property rights. There are useful businesses that just could not exist without IP rights, i.e. businesses that benefit everyone. Yes, we can do without movies, games and musicians who don't tour if we have to; they may be entertaining but they're hardly essential.

But IP rights also protect things which are useful. Some software could simply never be written on the "free as in freedom" model. I'm thinking particularly about specialised tools, such as the EDA software used to design chips, or the simulation software used to model and analyse biological processes, or the CAD software used to design and manufacture physical objects.

These are a few examples of programs that take thousands of man-years to develop. They are engineering projects on a vast scale, which require huge investment but produce something useful that could not be produced any other way.

If not for IP rights, we would not be able to benefit from this sort of software, because it would be sold once and then pirated forever. Any investment would be worthless. The software would never be made, and therefore, whatever it enabled would also never be made. Technological progress would stagnate.

Thus, I think there is a pretty strong argument for governments enforcing IP rights like they enforce physical property rights. Just as physical property rights allow businesses such as shops to exist, IP rights enable the investment in highly specialised projects to be recouped. And that is valuable to everyone, not just the people making a profit from those investments. The ability to watch big-budget movies and play non-trivial games is just a nice side-effect.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[Dr Herbert West]

you do realise that "intellectual property" was invented only a few hundred years ago, right?

Wrong. For instance, goldsmiths since.... well, whenever.... have carefully guarded trade secrets to protect their methods and skills that they spent lifetimes to learn/master. It might not have been called "ip" back in the day, but it certainly is an example of information that doesn't "want" to be free.

When an artist, craftsman, or a business wants to protect these methods and techniques from lazy assholes that want to exploit their hard work without giving anything back to them or the community at large, why is it so many /.ers come up with the same tired "info free derp derp" meme?

There are shades of grey in this situation-- I don't buy Sony products because I don't like the way they treat members of the (mod) community that I feel their products should serve... and I publish my source code, tutorials of my own projects, etc, for free and to download because I want to contribute to the community that supports me and my work (and not just in a financial way-- support can take the form of inspiration or shared enthusiasm, which is often worth more to me than money).

IP laws (broken as they may be) are here to enforce the social contract between creators and consumers. The fact that some groups exploit these laws does not mean that this contract should not exist. If anyone believes differently, they're a fucking leech on society.

Re:Remember the HL2 leak?

[pookemon]

Mate, give up what you're smoking because it's already done some serious damage.

If a law is written and approved and upheld by the court then you have no right to violate that. The download of an illegally leaked copy of software, which you have no permission to use, is theft. Copyright theft is still theft - despite the MAFIAA's determined efforts to prove that claims for compensation against that theft is actually more like theft than the breach of copyright. Receipt of stolen goods, be they electronic or physical, is still receipt of stolen goods. Whether the receipt of those goods is through the purchase of those goods or simply downloading them from a web site or from torrents etc. it is still illegal.

Sure, the leak of their product is stupid, and someone deserves to get their arse kicked. But don't use your stupidity as a defense against breaking the law. You don't have the "right" to do so.

Just fantastic...

[RogueyWon]

Oh well that's just fantastic, isn't it?

Look, I know that there are all kinds of flaws in the copyright legal system. And yes, I know that there's plenty wrong with the approach that most of the industry takes towards DRM. But seriously, who the hell thought that leaking this was a good idea? All this is going to achieve - beyond letting a bunch of scabby teenagers play the game a bit earlier than they would have otherwise - is to seriously piss off one of the few remaining developers who really cares about the PC as a platform. Yes, Crysis 2 may be getting console ports, but everything I've seen so far suggests that it is still a PC game first and foremost and, most critically, one of the few around to really be pushing the limits of the platform.

PC gaming isn't dying. In fact, it should be positioned for a real comeback over the next few years. The current generation of console hardware is aging, there are no successors on the horizon and there are a lot of people out there who got into the development business because they want to make games for the latest and greatest technology. Whatever the corporate priorities, it's almost inevitable that we'll see games over the next five or so years on the PC that far outperform their console cousins - in terms of both graphics and gameplay (because like it or not, better technology does sometimes unlock new gameplay options). However, I say "almost" inevitable. Because, justified or not, if there's one thing that could prevent a PC renaissance, it's arseholery like this, which goes beyond even the usual day-one piracy. It's not just about the impact on sales - which slashdot can and does argue over all day on occasion - I can just imagine how galling it must be for developers to have people playing their work for free, before honest customers even have the chance to buy it. Particularly if the build is unfinished and the game is now going to get criticised for flaws not in the final version.

I'd like to think that people would just ignore the leak en masse. Sadly, we all know that isn't going to happen.

Re:Just fantastic...

[RogueyWon]

"Incomplete" almost certainly doesn't mean "the last two levels aren't in there". Not when the game is this close to release. Games development doesn't work that way any more. What it probably means is that "the final 20% of the serious bugs that we needed to eliminate before launch are still in there". In other words, if this differs from the version that gets submitted as gold master, any differences will be a pronounced negative and will be the kind of annoyance that will just put people off from buying anyway (and create the worst sort of pre-release publicity).

Re:Just fantastic...

[blahplusplus]

"is to seriously piss off one of the few remaining developers who really cares about the PC as a platform"

Headline: CEO Cevat Yerli defends EA’s controversial PDLC strategy, remains unsure on Crysis 2 demo...

http://www.develop-online.net/news/34545/Crytek-foresees-the-end-of-free-game-demos

Somebody who wants to charge for demos DOES NOT CARE about the PC as a platform. Most dev's these days (at AAA houses) couldn't give less of a shit as you see with their sloppy ports to PC and draconian DRM (assassins creed 2).

Re:Just fantastic...

[orphiuchus]

Its missing all ground textures and a lot of other textures, it doesn't run on any setting other than minimum, the screen constantly flickers when you play, you cant customize visuals, it crashes when you load a level for almost everyone, and the list goes on. Its a earlier beta than people are reporting.

If you download and play this you aren't playing crysis 2. This version is quite old. It shouldn't hurt sales.

The whining just gets more annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

EA and Crytek have responded to the leak, saying that the illicit copy is incomplete and unfinished, and that "Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market and the PC development community."

Then just hurry up and die already. Or pull out of the PC market.

What's that? You still make money hand over fist so you can't justify pulling out to your shareholders? Well fuck me, how unexpected.

Who cares?

[vampirbg]

Their games are mostly eye candy used to show off the engine... They make most of their money from selling the engine to other studios that use it to make good games...

It's a trap?

[Bensam123]

Has anyone wondered if this was done so Crytek can point a finger at piracy? This is a ridiculously huge blunder for such a huge company and they've pointed fingers at piracy before. That's allegedly why Crysis 2 is for both the PC and the consoles.

This could be a stunt for publicity as well. Something like beta builds of games aren't regularly leaked.

Re:It's a trap?

[Ansoni-San]

... This is a ridiculously huge blunder for such a huge company and they've pointed fingers at piracy before ...

Finally, someone talking about the main point. Exactly. This has nothing to do with piracy at all; along with any damage caused. They fucked up, plain and simple.

The tone of their response to the leak just sounds like posturing, by a management that may be looking to either impose some hair-brained DRM scheme, or more than likely *hang on to their jobs*. Ridiculous.

It's this new breed of management that is turning the PC gaming platform to shit and FUD.
Piracy is like the new "the dog ate my homework" for the 21st century.

And that

[MrQuacker]

Is why you pay your developers good money. So they don't fuck you over out of spite.

Shit happens

[Sait-kun]

If you have ever run or been part of a large project of any kind you know one thing you can count on:

Things NEVER go as planned. It's how you overcome those problems that makes or breaks your product.

Regrettable as this unplanned leak of of their game is you can't just stop and whine about like a little girl you come up with a solution!

For example and this is just one of the top of my head..

Issue a modding and/or mapping contest for the game! Release the editor by it self legally and people will use the leaked beta for testing come up with some cool prices and then on the release day you announce the winners.

This will show you can overcome something like this which will raise peoples opinion about your product and company. Give you a bunch of more PR and hell you even have some extra free content for the people that buy the game!

This changes nothing.

[AftanGustur]

The so called "Master key" for online play, is a developer key, not the commercial one. You won't be able to play the pirated game on the production servers with this key.

Secondly, this "Crysis 2 Crysis" will only do what all similar leaks do: It will amplify the effect the quality of the game, has on its sales.

Meaning, that if the game sucks. it will absolutely sink when it becomes available commercially.

And similarly, if the game is good, it's sales will skyrocket.

I know what I will do

[levicivita]

I will proactively go out and buy the game. The first Crisis remains the best looking FPS to date, although it was released almost 4 years ago. Computational power has continued to increase. As someone said here a few days ago, with a $150 GPU you can run any game on the market at maximum settings. Think about that! A few years ago that would have been unheard of. Game developers kept pushing the envelope, forcing gamers to constantly stay on top of the hardware arms race. Expensive? You bet. But a recipe for innovation.

There will be a cost. Companies like NVIDIA and ATI may slow their development pace since they can't monetize as well any future advancements. Who is willing to shell out $300 to run MW2 at 90fps vs. 50fps...? Are we done generating real time photo-realistic images? Does this look like a screenshot from an action movie yet? I for one don't think so.

We need the next Crisis. That game that will bring to a halt all but the top 1% of existing PCs on maximum settings. The industry needs it. I need it. You need it too - you just don't know it.

I call BS

[RMingin]

Both EA and Crytek have been whining for some time about how the PC is no longer viable as a gaming platform, and about how they need to drop it and focus on consoles. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but this could be an inside job. EA reviewed the gold master, realized it was another plotless tech demo like the first one and therefore unlikely to sell in great numbers, and decided to sacrifice Crysis 2 on the altar of public opinion, to help all their poor sheep consumers realize that "PC = EVIL". I hope I'm totally talking out my ass, but it sounds like 'logic' we've seen from EA before.

Re:I call BS

[denzacar]

EA reviewed the gold master, realized it was another plotless tech demo like the first one and therefore unlikely to sell in great numbers, and decided to sacrifice Crysis 2 on the altar of public opinion, to help all their poor sheep consumers realize that "PC = EVIL".

I hope I'm totally talking out my ass, but it sounds like 'logic' we've seen from EA before.

Oh, I wouldn't go THAT far... It's just that your paranoia is a bit misguided and under-informed. They are not evil for the sake of being evil - they are simply capitalists.
This "full game, multiplayer and the master key for the online authentication" leak allows them to delay the multiplayer game that clearly has issues with the multiplayer.

Within hours of its release, thousands of complaints were reported after numbers of players were met with disconnects from games, crashing during loading and, oddly, a temperamental incompatibility with the Xbox Wireless WiFi adaptor. Crytek issued a statement telling players it's aware of "technical issues" with the Xbox-exclusive multiplayer demo of Crysis 2, and is working on a fix.
While a pre-release multiplayer demo for PC has been confirmed, no release date has been given by either EA or Crytek.

They can even still publish the game "as is" (with slight delay, naturally), only have the multiplayer servers disabled until they fix the "leak issue".
Shit, what with online authentication master key out in the open, they can claim that they must re-code the entire multiplayer now - allowing them to "expand and improve it" in the process by wrapping in some of whatever they had planned for DLC.
Which in turn would allow them to delay multiplayer across all platforms - so that all of their customers could "enjoy the full experience".
And they get to blame all the problems on the "pirates".

The best part is where they get to keep the "pre-order" money, delay the distribution of the game and delay payment to their subcontractors based on the delay of the game - all that while extending their pre-order window allowing them to acquire more "money for nothing".
And they can sweeten the deal with more DLC wrapped in the package (read: stuff that doesn't cost them anything).

Re:Temptation

[Nikkos]

Show me a peer-reviewed article that specifically proves that digital piracy hurts sales.

Apple and the media companies are raking in huge dollars. Amazon is raking in huge dollars. Studies over the years have suggested that piracy actually helps sell albums, games, and movies (The Japanese just released a study regarding movie piracy.) Avatar is the most pirated movie of all time, but somehow still broke every sales record in the book. How is that possible?

Instead of coming up with a scenario you think sounds right, do some research.

EA damages PC gaming more than piracy does

[gumpish]

If EA really thinks PC gaming is such a waste of time and money maybe they should GTFO.

I for one wouldn't miss them. As it is now I have to check every game I look at on Steam to make sure it's not published by them. It'd be nice not to have to worry about making that mistake anymore.