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Preys-World - EA Sports boss against suing file sharers

Sunday 24th of August, 2008 - 16:47:09 GMT

We already reported on the first Britsh pirate to receive a large fine for the advanced uploading of a game due for release next Friday.

However during our break, Peter Moore formerly of Microsoft and now firmly established at EA Sports, publicly ruled himself against legally chasing revenue from pirates.

"If we learned anything from the music business, they just don't win any friends by suing their consumers," said Moore. "Speaking personally, I think our industry does not want to fall foul of what happened with music."

He's right in saying that there won't be any easy solutions. However, it's clear that as the no.2 videogames publisher, they have the kind of time to find a workable solution that TopWare Interactive did not possess. British courts would probably never slam a pirate for six figures either, as happened in America. UKP 16,100 is the record, jumping up from the UKP 3,000 levied to a more profit-driven pirate last winter.

Also, EA has come up with more creative solutions; punishing pirates, for example, by dropping the multiplayer mode from games such as Crysis, moving that development to sequels and/or add-ons.

So, EA's attempts at piracy protection will be interesting to see as time goes on, starting with Crysis Warhead which arrives on 12th September.

If you want to read the full interview with Moore, use the gamesindustry.biz link at the bottom of the page because the Eurogamer address may change.

- Ken

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