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'Assassin's Creed' leak leads to lawsuit

8 August 2008 13:35 by Andre "DVDBack23" Yoskowitz | 15 comments

Ubisoft has filed a lawsuit against Optical Experts Manufacturing (OEM) over the leak of Ubisoft's hit PC game Assassin's Creed which hit torrents a full two months before it hit retail shelves.

OEM had been contracted to reproduce copies of the game disc however Ubisoft claims "an extraordinary breach of trust and gross negligence" led to an employee of OEM taking a copy of the game home and posting it on the Internet 6 weeks before it was set to hit retailers.

The publisher also claims that OEM had contractually agreed to security procedures to prevent any leak but that they admitted to not following through on these "security commitments." One obvious security procedure was to never allow the game to leave OEM premises.

Ubisoft tracked where the pirated copy of the game came from online and found it to match the address of an OEM employee. A subsequent search of his home revealed a copy.

The NPD Group says the game was purchased 40,000 times through retailers as of June, but Ubisoft claims the leaked version has been downloaded over 700,000 times, costing the publisher a fortune in possible sales.

The publisher also claims its "reputation was hurt" by the leak, as consumers were confused by reviews of the leaked (and apparently bug-equipped edition) and the retail edition.

Ubisoft is suing for copyright infringement, breach of contract, and negligence and is asking for $10 million USD for each breach of contract.

Permalink to this article

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Discuss this article!
13thHouR (Inactive) 8 August 2008 13:57
so is this a huge publicity stunt for their inability to create code as the one that was released to tracker sites was "bug ridden" and rather than take a fall, blame poor slaes on anti-piracy measures causing a bad reputation. The game did look nice on my pc especially from the vantage points and the horse riding, but it was very repetitive game play as even the sub missions were identical in every area. Not quite as good as bio-shock but loads better than devil may cry 4. Sequels and graphic benchmark setting titles, are becoming very poor even gta4 sucks in comparison to previous episodes, what is happening to game play, i think i'm going to install black and white, civilisation, gta san andreas and far cry and not ever bother to purchase another game again. [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 8 August 2008 14:09
SDF_GR (Member) 8 August 2008 15:18
No matter if the game was good or not, we liked it or not, UBI did the right thing 100%, 2 months is way too much. [ + quote]
grkblood (Senior Member) 8 August 2008 15:40
remind me again why companies still make PC games [ + quote]
windsong (Junior Member) 8 August 2008 18:04
*Originally posted by grkblood:* remind me again why companies still make PC games Because consoles suck? Between the Xflop motherboards RROD 10 times every 6 months, and the PS3 being a pain in the ass to program for (ask Valve), I think I speak for most ADULT gamers when I say the PC rules over all, and it will be all the moreso when GTA IV, Mafia 2, Diablo III and Dragon Age come out. Can't imagine playing those games with a gamepad and trying to aim properly. Same with Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock (and probably will be for Bioshock 2). And while I'm dropping names, there is Divine Divinity II, which begs for a mouse/kb control setup: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=192049 [ + quote]
Footie979 (Junior Member) 8 August 2008 18:32
Ubi is known for shipping out bug-ridden console games: Prince of Persia series and Assassin's Creed for console are prime examples. The QA is what they should be embarrassed about. [ + quote]
OneMember (AfterDawn Addict) 8 August 2008 18:42
*Quote:* The NPD Group says the game was purchased 40,000 times through retailers as of June, but Ubisoft claims the leaked version has been downloaded over 700,000 times, costing the publisher a fortune in possible sales. What did they expect after releasing this bad coded console translation? [ + quote]
jutsu (Junior Member) 9 August 2008 0:05
The NPD Group says the game was purchased 40,000 times through retailers as of June, but Ubisoft claims the leaked version has been downloaded over 700,000 times, costing the publisher a fortune in possible sales. the potential buyer will buy the original game. but people from asia, china, malaysia, indonesia, they just pirate everything.......... [ + quote]
tefarko (Junior Member) 9 August 2008 0:15
the PS3 version was dubbed "Assassin's Freeze"... I wonder why the PC version sales were down... [ + quote]
grkblood (Senior Member) 9 August 2008 0:41
*Quote:* *Originally posted by grkblood:* remind me again why companies still make PC games Because consoles suck? Between the Xflop motherboards RROD 10 times every 6 months, and the PS3 being a pain in the ass to program for (ask Valve), I think I speak for most ADULT gamers when I say the PC rules over all, and it will be all the moreso when GTA IV, Mafia 2, Diablo III and Dragon Age come out. Can't imagine playing those games with a gamepad and trying to aim properly. Same with Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock (and probably will be for Bioshock 2). And while I'm dropping names, there is Divine Divinity II, which begs for a mouse/kb control setup: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/art...=192049 yes, the reason developers make PC games is because consoles suck and not because PCs have awesome sales numbers. please... [ + quote]
jove (Newbie) 9 August 2008 1:49
thank you for posting this. i might give it a try. lol [ + quote]
fgamer (Member) 9 August 2008 15:26
Maybe Ubisoft should start building PC games from the ground up on the PC for the PC besides relying on a simple port that us PC gamers aren't down for. So I think the game flopped because "us" PC gamers are smarter when it comes down to making a game selection that's gonna take advantage of our gamer PC's...we don't upgrade to expensive CPU's and and Graphic Card just to have some silly half ass game port come out. A truely good game will sell well for the PC if the necessary developer would take the HONEST time out for it and invest in it. Piracy or no piracy, PC gamers CANT be fooled!! [ + quote]
ZippyDSM (AfterDawn Addict) 9 August 2008 18:23
700K world wide is kinda small..... [ + quote]
goldstooo (Inactive) 11 August 2008 2:43
spam removed [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 11 August 2008 6:14
13thHouR (Inactive) 11 August 2008 3:39
*Originally posted by goldstooo:* spam removed wow love the spam, who in their right mind would use this crappy bit of software over the thousands of free options already in existence? i see its been spammed in mostly all threads. [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 11 August 2008 6:15
chrissd (Newbie) 18 August 2008 8:42
Sooo... The company that was hired to "reproduce copies of the game disc" was given a "bug-equipped edition"? Right... Since when do companies hired to make copies of the game get given a bug-ridden copy? They get given a final copy, which means that the game itself was buggy. So the only reason its reputation was hurt was because it produced a buggy, graphics hog of a game. Most people are quite happy to download a crap game but not spend any money on it. With any luck ubi will concentrate on making good games instead of graphics intensive pieces of junk that can only run on the most expensive machine available. Till then there's always the oldies to keep us entertained. Counter Strike for example.. : D [ + quote]