AfterDawn: Tech news

EA boss is against suing file-sharers

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 21 Aug 2008 3:35 User comments (27)

EA boss is against suing file-sharers Upon hearing that five game companies were planning to sue 25,000 UK citizens over piracy, EA boss Peter Moore noted that he is against the suing of consumers for illegal downloading. In his words, "it didn't work for the music industry."
"I'm not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer," he said. "Albeit these people have clearly stolen intellectual property, I think there are better ways of resolving this within our power as developers and publishers.

"Yes, we've got to find solutions,"
Moore added. "We absolutely should crack down on piracy. People put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into their content and deserve to get paid for it. It's absolutely wrong, it is stealing.



"But at the same time I think there are better solutions than chasing people for money. I'm not sure what they are, other than to build game experiences that make it more difficult for there to be any value in pirating games."


Adding what many Afterdawners have been saying for years, "if we learned anything from the music business, they just don't win any friends by suing their consumers. Speaking personally, I think our industry does not want to fall foul of what happened with music."

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27 user comments

121.8.2008 16:20

its true.. sue us and we wont come back.. people tend to pirate games to see how it would play on their machines.. the music industry is destroyed.. we will support good artist.. i bought 2 copies of carter 3.. but for the most part.. EA is holding it down with having the best games.. ever since road rash on sega.. i love EA.. =] the new red alert is gonna ownn the world. =] take a different approach.. like blizzard is doing.. download the game.. buy serial number.. its that easy.

221.8.2008 16:43

What a refreshing statement from what would seem to be a very unlikely source. I'd say EA is probably the Gaming worlds nearest equivalent to a massive record industry label yet even it sees that prevention is better than punishment. EA has gone massively up in my estimation.

321.8.2008 17:00

and i always hated EA for ruining the c&c series...(no offence intended lxfactor)...EA, your respect has gone up with me...

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 21 Aug 2008 @ 5:03

421.8.2008 17:27

screw EA, yea i play their games but only because i have to. i hate companies that instead of winning competition over by product they win it over by buying exclusive rights to everything. whatever EA says their business practices will always outweigh their statements. they've already screwed over the PS3 owners... don't think we forgot about the orange box.

521.8.2008 18:06

if you put out quality games like ea does you dont have to worry as much as other companys i will always be a fan of ea

621.8.2008 18:53

i guess u forgot about the cheaper sega football games that were arguable better than madden.

721.8.2008 19:02

Quote:
Albeit these people have clearly stolen intellectual property
No, this has nothing whatsoever to do with thievery. It shows that this guy, along with a scary number of higher-ups, have no idea how Copyright law works.

Here's a crash course. You create something. You have full ownership of it. The moment it's published, you're granted an exclusive license to distribute that work. You no longer own it.

Something can only be stolen when it's owned. When they published their idea, they surrendered that ownership in exchange for an exclusive license.

Look it up. Copyright doesn't work the way they pretend it does.

I'm sick to death of seeing the words stolen and theft associated with Copyrights. It's called Copyright Infringement, and it's got nothing to do with stealing.

Anyone who tries to claim ownership of a published idea needs to brush up on Copyright law. And then look for a new occupation.

821.8.2008 20:47

Originally posted by Bladerz05:
and i always hated EA for ruining the c&c series...(no offence intended lxfactor)...EA, your respect has gone up with me...
yeah i know.. they uped the graphics.. but everyone knows from the original c&c its not about gfx.. but the new one is gonna be killer =]

921.8.2008 20:53
varnull
Inactive

Originally posted by grkblood:
screw EA, yea i play their games but only because i have to
Do they come into your house and make you play at gunpoint?

What a strange thing to say.. Nobody makes me do anything.

1021.8.2008 21:09

Perhaps the RIAA should replace their current boss with Peter Moore...

1121.8.2008 21:20

varnull, seriously...

don't act like you didnt get what i was saying. everyone knows that if you want to play a major sports game with the exception of the nba and mlb you are forced to buy an EA product. the nba is the only organization that i know of that hasnt sold its exclusive rights off.

1221.8.2008 23:46

Quote:
screw EA, yea i play their games but only because i have to
No you don't. If you don't like EA don't play there games. Simple. It's not like that have had anything good in a long, LONG time.

Also, it's refreshing to see that there is some sensibility within the higher echelons of the entertainment industry.
This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 22 Aug 2008 @ 3:48

1321.8.2008 23:58

Originally posted by grkblood:
i guess u forgot about the cheaper sega football games that were arguable better than madden.
lol i dont think they were even close

1422.8.2008 00:06

All very true. I only buy from artist's I like and download what I'm trying out. Similar with games, I could choose to play World of Warcraft on a free server, but I choose to play on official because it is a good quality game, and I can't wait for the expansion.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 22 Aug 2008 @ 12:08

1522.8.2008 00:42

yes i do download games just to try them out then i buy them when they get to a descent price

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 22 Aug 2008 @ 12:43

1622.8.2008 01:08

Quote:
Also, it refreshing to see that there is some sensibility within the higher echelons of the entertainment industry.
The operative word here being some. After all, the man still calls file-sharing stealing and believes that a business can have a right to "get paid for their work". :/

1722.8.2008 08:26

Quote:
lol i dont think they were even close
go to ign and look at the scores. they flip flop back and forth, always very close.

1822.8.2008 10:44

I like that.. ;) Build a better game and get the consumer interested that way. :) EA makes some great games and my kiddies love them too. ROFL.... They "make" me buy them... :P varnull if you have kiddies you know what I mean... lol.

...gm

1922.8.2008 12:24
emugamer
Inactive

EA used to make me play their games. Now I wear a tin-foil hat.

2022.8.2008 15:49

Quote:
EA used to make me play their games. Now I wear a tin-foil hat.

I bought mine to keep E.T. from finding me again...
http://zapatopi.net/afdb/

2122.8.2008 16:57

Quote:
Quote:
EA used to make me play their games. Now I wear a tin-foil hat.

I bought mine to keep E.T. from finding me again...
http://zapatopi.net/afdb/


lol, that was a good one. seriously though, if yall dont see a problem with companies buying exclusive rights to force consumers to only have one option in the gaming industry then their is seriously something wrong.

2222.8.2008 18:31

Quote:
It's absolutely wrong, it is stealing.
sorry, stealing means you no longer have the original because i took it, this is "coppying". theyll call it stealing till the day they die because they FEEL like they are being stolen from because they arent making any money, but unfortunatly its just the market finding better alternative to being ass-raped at the cash registar. figure out how to make money on the free model and shut your greedy mouth.

plus EA makes consol games, WAAAAY lower rate of piracy. PC games are pretty much done, even in america more than half of all pc games are "cracked".

i HIGHLY dought ea would be singing this tune if cracking games on the xbox was as easy as on XP.

2322.8.2008 23:23
djdoubt03
Inactive

Originally posted by grkblood:
screw EA, yea i play their games but only because i have to. i hate companies that instead of winning competition over by product they win it over by buying exclusive rights to everything. whatever EA says their business practices will always outweigh their statements. they've already screwed over the PS3 owners... don't think we forgot about the orange box.
Umm...The orange box was released by Valve.


Click To GO

2423.8.2008 02:18

Quote:
Originally posted by grkblood:
screw EA, yea i play their games but only because i have to. i hate companies that instead of winning competition over by product they win it over by buying exclusive rights to everything. whatever EA says their business practices will always outweigh their statements. they've already screwed over the PS3 owners... don't think we forgot about the orange box.
Umm...The orange box was released by Valve.
EA did the Orange Box for PS3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Orange_Box

2524.8.2008 01:13

This is probably the first right thing being said by a Gaming Giant Executive. I for one, rarely buy games that I get pirated, but only because for most of the time they suck !! The games I find really worth it, I buy it without hesitation, even after getting the pirated copy. For example Call of Duty 4, I just had to pay the developers for making such an awesome game!! or the upcoming GTA IV. I will pre-order it the min. amazon starts taking in orders. So yea we will buy without having to sue us, but only when the game is very good and we feel it deserves our money.

2624.8.2008 14:02
deadbeat5
Inactive

I'm very pleasantly surprised to hear a top EA guy say this. What he says is very true and he probably understands that every pirated copy of a game does not translate to a lost sale. For example, how many of us downloaded Crysis just to test out our system? I recently won a legit copy of Crysis and I'm still working on trying to make multiplayer have more tolerable FPS. In the end, I'd never buy it, unlike Call of Duty 4, which runs and looks amazing. Not the best gameplay, but loads of fun for a while, and the optimization is done so well, I actually WANT to support the developers for that reason alone. That's why thousands of people can play CoD4 and very few are playing Crysis multiplayer, despite it actually being fun (I tried it yesterday and I have to say, Deathmatch is loads of fun).

2725.8.2008 10:48

deadbeat5 brings a fair point I wouldn't pay for any of the games I have on my PC-there darn expensive and the fair majority of the time crap-I have half-life 2 on it and being a driving game fan I would never have bought it. That isn't a lost sale but then it is free advertising after playing it I have recommended it to several people who have then bought the Orange box who otherwise wouldn't have got it.

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