Crysis 2 Leaked–PC Pirates to Blame??

EA announced, via their Corporate Blog, that an early version of Crysis 2, for the PC, was leaked onto the Internet. Their full statement on the matter:

Crytek has been alerted that an early incomplete, unfinished build of Crysis 2 has appeared on Torrent sites. Crytek and EA are deeply disappointed by the news. We encourage fans to support the game and the development team by waiting and purchasing the final, polished game on March 22. Crysis 2 is still in development and promises to be the ultimate action blockbuster as the series’ signature Nanosuit lets you be the weapon as you defend NYC from an alien invasion. Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market and the PC development community.

I, for one, am offended at EA calling out a handful of PC gamers for downloading an eagerly anticipated title that has not been released yet. While the piracy of PC games was bad in the past–the console is where the majority of piracy takes place. Doing a quick search on any of the torrent sites will find the big AAA releases are available for consoles on day one and weeks/months before their actual release. The PC version shows up much later–if ever.

Calling out the PC market for ruining sales, on beta– unreleased title, due to an early leaked build, is an emotional response from EA that has very little to do with the actual problems the PC market faces. Publishers, like EA and Activision, have raised the price of PC games to match the console price, provide a watered-down experience, and do not take advantage of the unique, and superior, controls the PC platform offers. Remember Developers and Publishers–PC players do not want to simply “plug in an Xbox 360 controller” to play your game. This is why God gave us the mouse and keyboard.

The most important thing that is forgotten when publishing a title on the PC is that PC’s are equipped with vastly more powerful graphics than their console counterparts. How about taking advantage of all that power and giving PC players at least a higher-resolution with better textures than the consoles get. Unfortunately, Developers fail to take advantage of this in almost all of the PC ports done today. It does appear, however, that Crysis 2 will be one of the few titles that is the exception to this rule.

Before you place the blame on pirates damaging the PC packaged goods and the PC development community, how about you point the finger at yourself and give players a reason to play the PC version? When you begin take the time and care in creating your PC ports of games, maybe then you will see an increase in sales.

It has been revealed that a “mysterious Crytek employee” was involved in leaking this build online. No word on if that specific employee has been found or if they are still with the company. Since this was an internal leak on a beta build of an unreleased product, one can speculate that EA has done this purposely to get this message out. They have pulled several marketing skits in the past. However, we at CVGames, have no knowledge of this and EA has, for obvious reasons, not responded to this.

For those of you who feel we are some sort of pro-piracy group, let me make this clear: We also do not support or endorse piracy of any kind and suggest if you are one of these gamers who downloaded this leaked build of Crysis 2 to be sure and support the game when it ships in March.