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Ubisoft Sues Disc Replication Company Over Assassin's Creed PC Leak
by Maarten Goldstein, Aug 07, 2008 3:22am PDTGameSpot reports that Ubisoft has filed a lawsuit against Optical Experts Manufacturing, a disc replication firm based out of Charlotte, NC.
Optical Experts Manufacturing had been contracted to manufacture game discs for the PC version of Assassin's Creed, which was released this past April. According to Ubisoft, "an extraordinary breach of trust and gross negligence" led to one of the employees leaving the plant with a copy of the game some six weeks before the retail date.In taking the contract, OEM had to agree to security procedures that would've prevented such a leak. One of these procedures, Ubisoft alleges, is that no copy would ever leave OEM's premises.
NPD indicates that the PC version of Assassin's Creed sold only some 40,000 copies through June, nothing compared to the stellar sales on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. According to Ubisoft the version that ended up early on the internet was downloaded more than 700,000 times.
Making matters worse according to Ubisoft, is that the earlier version of Assassin's Creed contained a bug (for security reasons) that would make the game crash half-way through. Though supposedly this bug was not in the final release, the mix of reviews based on the buggy release as well those based on the retail version "created customer confusion and caused 'irreparable harm' to [Ubisoft's] reputation".All in all, Ubisoft is suing OEM for copyright infringement, breach of contract, negligence. For the breach of contract and negligence, the publisher is looking for at least $10 million in damages.
Comments
And as far as Ubisoft suing the replication company, stupid. Another example of a company that sues another if something doesn't go their way. The same thing could have happened after the title hit the market. It always does, so what?
My feeling about these sue happy companies and the idiots that run them are they must be the nerds that never got their a**kicked in high school. Time that someone teaches them a lesson in the real world. Things don't always go your way; work around and or though it on your own, don't hide behind the cowards lawsuit!
Once people realized there's not much more to it and it's pretty much repeating bore-fest after initial mission - word came out for PC fans to watch out - hence shitty sales ensued :)
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Anyone with half a brain knows that the tired excuse of "oh, I wouldn't have bought it anyway" holds no weight. It's like buying a sandwich, eating half of it and saying you don't want to pay for it because it doesn't taste good.
People who seem to think if the game were better it'd sell better is also not an argument. Better games will still get pirated, and will most probably get pirated even more because it's good. Sure, it will sell more copies, but it does not stop piracy from being the issue it is.
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VERY early pirated copy available.(Even though I saw GTAIV and Soul Caliber 4 on torrent sites a week before actual release. They seemed to sell fine.)
Game was almost publicly proven to be over-hyped, soon after console release. It didn't suck, it was average and kinda boring.
Console release was much earlier and I'm sure the 4 mil or so copies they sold on them saturated the market.
Thing is, If the last two weren't an issue, the piracy wouldn't have mattered. (Even Crysis sold 3 million copies.) I do think they have a valid case, as far as their particular situation with the Disc Replication company. I hope they do recoup, but seriously, how many more would have bought it? I say 2x as many. 40,000 x 2 = 80,000. Just because you see 700k leechers doesn't necessarily mean they all downloaded the entire game and played it. My friend GAVE me AC for 360 and I couldn't get past the first 2 missions due to boredom. I sure as hell ain't buying the PC version.
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Developers need to realize there's no money in releasing a (usually shitty) PC port with ridiculously high system requirements 6+ months after a huge multi-console release and stop blaming the poor sales on piracy. People who can afford such rigs can afford consoles and have already bought and played it. Release it simultaneously or don't bother, especially if it's a non-FPS where a controller is preferred ...why would you wait for the PC release?
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Anyways, pretty valid complaint in my eyes... whether you think piracy is a real concern or not, letting a game get loose that early and in the condition that it says it was in... that had to of been brutal for the word of mouth aspect, at the very least.
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The main topic here is that the company was responsible for a breach in contract that lead to the game and perhaps a bunch of other games and software they were contracted to replicate be leaked out.
This is going to damage the company's reputation and they're probably going into full damage control. Game piracy is an issue and Ubisoft is tackling one that has evidence for and also a common source of leaks during the production cycle aside from sneaky retailers and distributors.
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