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How do games get leaked?
- Thread starter RiZ III
- Start date
Cold Shadow
Member
Review copies, Beta copys. Reviewers have to play the games somehow, and there is always 1 man who decides that he wants to share it with someone.
A part of the Xbox site could have possibly been hacked. Possibly a games database? Also, people could have robbed a pressing plant. An engineer could have nabbed a copy. Or, people at Bungie could have slipped it out on purpose, since purportedly this copy erases your HDD. Then there's the rumor of another copy :O.
not in the case of this one. MS isn't handing out code. well, at least in NA. maybe they are in europe, which might explain this. but it seems hard to believe they'd do that, given the situation with this game.
more likely someone stole it from a replication plant. believe it or not, warez groups pay money for shit like this, sometimes.
more likely someone stole it from a replication plant. believe it or not, warez groups pay money for shit like this, sometimes.
Sonic Advance 3 got released 3ish months before the actual release, it was the bug tester version, but everything was basically there.
Sonic Heroes Alpha got leaked too, but not widely onto the internet. Some fellows [again, French I think] got a hold of an early copy which had all of the levels in it, but still very buggy.
The e3 Demo got released as well.
In fact, shitloads of Sonic games have been leaked over the years. I've got information over at http://sost.emulationzone.org/
Sonic Heroes Alpha got leaked too, but not widely onto the internet. Some fellows [again, French I think] got a hold of an early copy which had all of the levels in it, but still very buggy.
The e3 Demo got released as well.
In fact, shitloads of Sonic games have been leaked over the years. I've got information over at http://sost.emulationzone.org/
Leaks tend to occur in this order (further down the list is less likely)
- Distribution. Stores get it early, someone dumps it either from a store or transport company.
- Review copies. Loads are sent out, people at mags don't really care about your game.
- Duplication. Gold masters arrive, someone takes a copy home
- Testing. Testers get multiple copies of each game, sometimes two or three updates a day at crunch time. It's always easy to loose track of a disk and for it to walk out of the office
- Production. Disgruntled eployee dumps the game, someone in management gives a copy to a trusted outsider who dumps it, someone takes it home and dumps it. security isn't always that tight for dev companies when there are multiple burns being made 24/7 for weeks at a time at the end of a project.
it always sucks - and you would think with the money at stake more care would be taken but shit happens. Most companies knowingly use pirated software (or their empolyees do) so they shouldnt be shocked when their own stuff gets pirated. For games like this sales are still gonna be massive regardless but it does suck.
I've heard of plenty of schemes to try to stop this including labeling every version of a game sent out of the office in the code itself - but then these always fail as the mag/distributer/whoever that received the disk that has been leaked just turns around and says "you can't prove you didn't give a copy of that bulld of the game to someone else - we'll sue you for defamation" etc..
to be honest, if it's early it's a mag that's leaked it. You don't work in this industry for 15 years without figuring that out pretty quickly.
- Distribution. Stores get it early, someone dumps it either from a store or transport company.
- Review copies. Loads are sent out, people at mags don't really care about your game.
- Duplication. Gold masters arrive, someone takes a copy home
- Testing. Testers get multiple copies of each game, sometimes two or three updates a day at crunch time. It's always easy to loose track of a disk and for it to walk out of the office
- Production. Disgruntled eployee dumps the game, someone in management gives a copy to a trusted outsider who dumps it, someone takes it home and dumps it. security isn't always that tight for dev companies when there are multiple burns being made 24/7 for weeks at a time at the end of a project.
it always sucks - and you would think with the money at stake more care would be taken but shit happens. Most companies knowingly use pirated software (or their empolyees do) so they shouldnt be shocked when their own stuff gets pirated. For games like this sales are still gonna be massive regardless but it does suck.
I've heard of plenty of schemes to try to stop this including labeling every version of a game sent out of the office in the code itself - but then these always fail as the mag/distributer/whoever that received the disk that has been leaked just turns around and says "you can't prove you didn't give a copy of that bulld of the game to someone else - we'll sue you for defamation" etc..
to be honest, if it's early it's a mag that's leaked it. You don't work in this industry for 15 years without figuring that out pretty quickly.
SiegfriedFM
Member
None of the three big Swedish magazines have a copy. We will all be invited to Microsoft a few days to play it.
We got electricity 2 years ago, and since then a lot of stuff happened quickly. We are still pressing DVDs manually with very tiny hammers and nails, but we get the work done.Ghost said:
Kidding aside, yes we have some major replicating plants here in France, especially MPO.
DaCocoBrova
Finally bought a new PSP, but then pushed the demon onto someone else. Jesus.
Usually when a game is sent off for duplication. It's thievery.
The english psx FF games always got leaked way in advance. Didnt Gamefan get raided by the police for selling FF7, or was it Metal Gear Solid review copies to a piracy group? I believe that I read that on a previous incarnation of this forum. I remember reading that FF8 was released like a full month and a half. I mean it happens all the time, it's a race for these pirate groups. They dont care about the work that went behind it. It's for the glory of the race and who releases the big titles first.
TheGreenGiant
Banned
Sho Nuff said:
if only it were that easy; to do the whole encoding would take a lot of time and then to do individualised copies? Its just not worth it (although in the instance of HALO2.. they probably should have)
this is rather nasty news for MS but seriously; you'd be able to torrent a copy after the game hits retail anyhow - its not like you can't buy / rip / return.. etc. especially on a modded xbox.
back on topic
warez groups have people everywhere (and then there's the asian market)
He meant to encode just the ID string (then again if it's a serial num it should be a numeral to start with so that's already encoded in some way only developer would know about), so it's pretty small change from one copy to another.
It's not guaranteed to work either way though - if pirates get ahold of two Different review copies, they could trace down and change the ID pretty easily...
The only real sollution is to come up with a non-piratable medium and then only have specific plants making that media. nobobody outside of the development team or someone with access to a devkit woudl then be able to use a copy of the code.
Nintendo have the right approach with GODs - even devs can't burn a GOD and while they can now be ripped, i've still yet to see a copied GOD running on real hardware. I expect all the major developers will follow this route next gen. Of course the pirates will just try even harder.. but still, anything that slows them down is good.
Of course, you could just refuse to give any magazines copies of the game in advance but even that seems to have failed this time.
oh yeah - i wasn't saying a magazine had leaked halo2 (i have no idea where it came from just like you guys) but in my experience it's nearly always review copies that are the ones that are leaked early.. the last three titles i've worked on the versions available for download are not the final game - they are all review versions still full of bugs and unfinished features. Just goes to show how little pirates really care about what they are releasing as nobody has ever released final versions of any of them.. they just want to be first! (oh the fame! the glory! idiots.)
Nintendo have the right approach with GODs - even devs can't burn a GOD and while they can now be ripped, i've still yet to see a copied GOD running on real hardware. I expect all the major developers will follow this route next gen. Of course the pirates will just try even harder.. but still, anything that slows them down is good.
Of course, you could just refuse to give any magazines copies of the game in advance but even that seems to have failed this time.
oh yeah - i wasn't saying a magazine had leaked halo2 (i have no idea where it came from just like you guys) but in my experience it's nearly always review copies that are the ones that are leaked early.. the last three titles i've worked on the versions available for download are not the final game - they are all review versions still full of bugs and unfinished features. Just goes to show how little pirates really care about what they are releasing as nobody has ever released final versions of any of them.. they just want to be first! (oh the fame! the glory! idiots.)
Nintendo realise that GBA piracy is rampant. I can't imagine the DS won't have better protection (i.e. any protection at all!) than the GBA. Seriously, everyone harps on at why handheld tie ratios are so low - there's your answer right there, it's just too damn easy to pirate them.
DJ Demon J
Banned
ferricide said:
And organized crime in Russia/Southeast Asia pay the leaders of warez groups to acquire these releases. I've seen evidence of this firsthand several years ago with some now-defunct warez groups.
That may be true of GBA games in the US, but not of Europe and Japan. It's scary how fast JP and EU GBA ROMS get put out; often two weeks or more before the games themselves hit.
Actually, ferris, that begs a question. Being the weak ass peon that I am, I've never encountered a lockboxed SP with game cart in it. Does Nintendo cover up the link port too? Because, ummm, if not... it should be possible to use a USB-GBA cable and a compatible flash software to rip whatever game is in the slot.
Actually, ferris, that begs a question. Being the weak ass peon that I am, I've never encountered a lockboxed SP with game cart in it. Does Nintendo cover up the link port too? Because, ummm, if not... it should be possible to use a USB-GBA cable and a compatible flash software to rip whatever game is in the slot.
The Faceless Master
Member
good point... some cart programmers use multiboot mode...mosaic said:
shuri said:
Resident Evil 2. It wasn't sold, exactly -- somebody at GF just made a copy for a friend, who made a copy for a friend, who made a copy for a friend, and so on down the line until one of the "friends" happened to be connected with a Hong Kong piracy operation. The code was tagged as the version sent to Gamefan (as I recall, it was the version they were using to do the official strategy guide), and so Capcom sicked the dogs on them.
Capcom had beef with Halverson for years over that, until the very last days of Gamers' Republic.
DFS.
Mr_Furious
Member
The press is a significant factor in leaked warez
DJ Demon J
Banned
WarPig said:
Deservedly so.
Crazymoogle
Member
ferricide said:
If so, then their heads are definitely in the sand. Flashcarts and USB-GBA cables are cheap and (suprisingly) useful for actual game development. What I've seen in changes to Nintendo's GBA dev carts over the past few years would indicate that they've been trying to compete on some level with them.
On the other side of the stick, with emulation super simple and easy flashcart solutions, the piracy effect is a lot worse. If you guys think Halo 2 leaking early was bad, just think about Metroid Fusion, which as I recall also leaked 4+ weeks ahead of schedule.
..which sounds like plenty of room for a link cable solution. Yikes.
Hey Nintendo, it only costs $14 + between $40-180 to steal your games. Ummm, design a better lockbox.
Just a suggestion. Although I bet it's moot since Nintendo will probably transition right into DS and call GBA a day after Minish Cap... and if DS doesn't have ample copy protection or safeguards, then the company just doesn't actually want to stop piracy.
Just a suggestion. Although I bet it's moot since Nintendo will probably transition right into DS and call GBA a day after Minish Cap... and if DS doesn't have ample copy protection or safeguards, then the company just doesn't actually want to stop piracy.
The Faceless Master
Member
hey mosaic, you just linked to a site that sells flashcarts, wtf?mosaic said:
Is it against TOS to link to a site that sells such hardware? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the sale and purchase of that stuff is legal, right, while the actual usage is not?
Mods, If the link is against TOS, feel free to take out the link or let me know and I'll do it. Mainly put it there to support the fact that it is so cheap and easy to outright steal GBA games these days.
Mods, If the link is against TOS, feel free to take out the link or let me know and I'll do it. Mainly put it there to support the fact that it is so cheap and easy to outright steal GBA games these days.
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