Andre Yoskowitz
8 Aug 2008 13:35
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.