If you posted a video of the leaked Gears of War 3 single-player campaign, you might not be allowed to play the real thing when it comes out.
After a pre-release version of Gears of War 3 was leaked in July, Epic’s Rod Fergusson said that he was saddened by the fact that his game was already appearing on torrent sites and YouTube. The copy that leaked was apparently an early build, and aside from failing to showcase the game’s final quality, it also spoiled crucial moments of the story best left for an official play-through. Fergusson might be sad about what’s happened, but he and his team aren’t just going to curl up in a Snuggie with some tissues and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. According to Epic, those who shared the torrents and videos in question might want to be ready for a gooey slice of vengeance pie when the game hits shelves on September 20th.
While Epic has spent the last few months policing the tubes for leaked videos of its upcoming Gears campaign, they’ve been keeping the names of those involved with perpetuating the leak on an internal list for what they originally described only as “potential repercussions.” Now, in a recent interview with Eurogamer, Fergusson has explained exactly what he meant by that.
“We have a banning system built into our stuff so we can go in and identify certain people,” he said. “Some people aren’t smart about what they do. They’ll be disappointed on 20th September when they can’t get in and can’t play. They may be banned.”
With over a million pre-orders already, there’s clearly no shortage of gamers interested in Gears 3. Why some of them would want to spoil the experience by watching a twelve-year-old run through an unfinished version of the story mode is beyond me. Personally, this is one of those situations where I say hooray for the technology allowing Epic’s ban hammer to dole out some well-deserved justice. I’m sure many of the hits on those videos came from people looking for legitimate footage or trailers, and it’s unfair to them if they accidentally stumbled onto something that might ruin the experience they’ll be paying for come September. Fergusson himself put it best when he said later in the same interview, “If you don’t value this community, you don’t value this experience, then we don’t value you. I’d rather pick that one bad apple out of the pool so everybody else can have a better time.”
Source: Eurogamer
