Oh my, they didn't just leak the game. It also includes the editor for the new CryEngine and the master key for their DRM. That is probably pretty much the worst case scenario for every developer studio...
This isn't really as bad as everyone thinks. What people don't realize is that pirates aren't the same people who go out and buy these games on launch day. Pirates wouldn't have bought the game anyway. The only sales they're potentially losing are to people who play this because it was an early leak and decide the game isn't good enough to buy. But for everyone of those, there are people who will like it enough to support the developer.
The master key thing is a wee bit of a red herring. Before release, all they have to do is change the crypto and the old master becomes useless.
http://exophase.com/21408/ea-responds-t ... 2-pc-leak/ "Please don't download it, it's not finished yet. BAWWW."
True, but if they have already pressed DVDs they can incinerate them now. As for the engine editor: Who knows how many licensed plug-ins the editor contains. That's probably a huge problem on its own. That's not the tool they give to the modding community, that's the dev version... I hope Crysis 2 sells okay anyway.
I agree with this. It's preposterous to say that every person that pirates something would have otherwise went out and bought it at full retail price if the pirated version were not available. Except that's exactly what media companies do when they report the damages that pirating causes to their sales.
