How do you like Gears of War: Judgment? Pretty cool, eh? Did you get to the part – oh wait, you're still waiting for the legit version to drop at your local retailer? Oh, fail. The current tradition for Xbox 360 games has been to leak them a month ahead of launch. Gears of War: Judgment is no exception to the rule.
Microsoft recently let loose a new multiplayer trailer for the game, but what they failed to curtail was a leak of the full game onto torrent sites.
To their credit, Microsoft isn't standing by idly. The game is constantly being re-uploaded to peer-to-peer portals, which means that Microsoft is probably hitting the torrent search engines hard with DMCA notices.
At present, the game can be downloaded in its entirety at 8.3GB. There's a few thousand leechers and several hundred seeders, but there's no telling how many copies of the game have already spread since the leak over the weekend (and most times these games leak over the weekend because the uploaders have plenty of time off from working as Chip 'N Dales bus boys and can upload illegal copies of games to torrent sites).
Eurogamer has received word that Microsoft isn't going to play softball with the pirates, with a spokesperson noting...
"We are aware of isolated cases in which Gears of War: Judgment content has been propped on the web and are working closely with our security teams and law enforcement to address the situation immediately,"..."Consumers should be aware that piracy is illegal and we take vigorous action against illegal activity related to our products and services."
Oh yeah, you don't want to get a banhammer from Microsoft, when they drop it they drop it hard and fast, sort of like George Michaels dropping his pants in public places.
This is nothing new. Microsoft went Inspector Tequila on pirates back in late 2012 when Halo 4 was prematurely released to the public via torrents. Heck, Microsoft even had their cronies take some us eager reporters and beat the digital crap out of us in a “back channel” alley to get the pre-release videos and media content removed. After a legal beatdown from the lawyer version of Bruce Lee, all us lowly bloggers, posters and enthusiasts complied.
This time, however, Microsoft is making it known that they aren't playing softball, and most sites haven't bothered taking the risks of showcasing anything from the game a month before it drops at retailers, exclusively for Xbox 360.
All the piracy happening on the Xbox 360 (which almost rivals that of PC software) has prompted rumors that Microsoft may go through with an always-on DRM console that also bans used games. Let's hope that's not true.
Gears of War: Judgment is set for release on March 20th next month. If you don't want to drop a dime to play the game, you can do so, but don't come crying at the doorstep of justice when Microsoft unleashes punishment with their punitive “Banhammer of the Righteous Judiciary”. That's actually a legendary weapon, just in case you were wondering.
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