2D Boy's World of Goo (PC, Wii) is being pirated at the rate of "about 90%," according to co-creator Ron Carmel.

The statement came from Carmel in the form of a user comment on a RockPaperShotgun story about the game's pending European release. 2D Boy cohort Kyle Gabler explained in another comment that the figure was established by looking at the number of unique Internet addresses connecting to the game's leaderboard server.

In the face of staggering piracy, Carmel is keeping his chin up. "We're getting good sales through WiiWare, Steam, and our website. Not going bankrupt just yet!" wrote the upstart developer to Joystiq.

Carmel wrote that a few players had illegally downloaded the game and then decided to make a purchase, but added that those buyers formed a "very small percentage."

2D Boy won the 2008 Independent Games Festival for World of Goo. The physics-based puzzler has quickly risen to popularity among indie game fans on Nintendo's WiiWare service as well as Valve's Steam.

Randy Stude, the outspoken president of the PC Gaming Alliance, has arrived at some conclusions about game piracy after turning his attention to the issue in October.

"I don't think it's getting worse, as much as it's getting easier," said the consortium head to Ars Technica. He offered file-sharing trail-blazer Napster as an example to show that pirates strike all forms of media and are not unique to the games industry.

While Stude represents a collective of hardware makers and game publishers, he surprisingly took the side of enraged gamers who took to the Internet with complaints about Spore's DRM limitations. "I think gamers wanted to make their voices known; it was the equivalent of the Boston tea party," he remarked.

Stude asserted his understanding that PC gamers are a unique and diverse bunch, and as such don't do well with limitations. [PC gamers] don't buy one machine, stick it in the corner, hook it up to the TV, and play it forever. We play on multitudes of machines, and we want the same rights an Xbox 360 purchaser has, to... Read more

PC Gaming Alliance president Randy Stude has decided to turn his industry consortium's attention toward piracy after months of DRM controversy and PC release delays getting attributed to gamers getting their fix by way of a digital five-finger discount.

"At some point next year, we expect to be able to quantify the potential impact of piracy on the industry," promised Stude to Gamasutra, echoing detractors in the piracy debate who warn that most piracy-related statistics available today are inaccurate.

Stude was pushed into the issue by his constituency--a collection of hardware makers, PC vendors and game publishers including Microsoft, Dell, Activision, and Epic Games. "There's a far more urgent imperative [game companies] want to see discussion and debate going on around, which is piracy," he said.

The Alliance president reiterated the most frequently mentioned solutions to the piracy problem, such as digital distribution and taking games online, but he also had a novel idea for what to do before the day that markets go entirely digital.

"Let's monetize every one of those pirates, and let's advertise the hell out of them," Stude asserted. "Serving, for example, six times the number of in-game ads on unauthenticated game versions would be a piracy deterrent that also provides revenues to the developer," wrote Gamasutra of Stude's idea.

The Entertainment Software Association today praised Congress and President Bush for signing the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008 (PRO-IP) into United States law.

The ESA is particularly thrilled that PRO-IP will "enhance the ability of U.S. law enforcement to address serious intellectual crimes," such as piracy, by creating a new position in the presidential cabinet for an intellectual property enforcement coordinator.

"Piracy is an enormously profitable undertaking for criminal organizations. Disabling those organizations requires a coordinated and cross-border approach to enforcement, which this legislation clearly promotes," stated ESA CEO Michael Gallagher.

"Effective enforcement of IP laws helps protect this engine of economic growth," he added. "More legitimate game sales mean more game-related jobs up and down the value chain."

But while PRO-IP has been praised by the ESA, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, not everyone is happy with it, including the American Library Association, Public Knowledge and Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"It would've been nice to have something to benefit the public and artists instead of big media companies," Public Knowledge communications director Art Brodsky told CNET, as noticed by Gamasutra.

New screenshots of GRIN's Bionic Commando (PC, PS3, 360) accompany today's Tokyo Game Show festivities, showing off more of the swinging-focused action game.

Bionic Commando is slated to hit by next spring, with the developer telling Kotaku that the console versions should be expected in "very early 2009."

Meanwhile, the PC version arrive a bit later because of piracy and extra polish.

"The PC is always a slippery slope because of piracy, stuff like sorting out DRM, making sure we don't have too little or too much," explained GRIN employee Ulf Andersson.

"But also because we want to make sure it doesn't feel like a port, so we can add a little extra polish to the PC version," Andersson added.

Following up on yesterday's report that a PC release of Tom Clancy's EndWar is likely, creative director Michael de Plater has now revealed that piracy is to blame for the delayed PC version of the Ubisoft Shanhai-developed voice-controlled RTS game.

"To be honest, if PC wasn't pirated to hell and back, there'd probably be a PC version coming out the same day as the other two," Plater told VG247. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 editions of EndWar arrive November 7.

"The level of piracy that you get with the PC just cannibalizes the others, because people just steal that version," he elaborated. "Piracy's basically killing PC."

In addition to Ubisoft, publisher Electronic Arts is also known to delay PC versions until after a game hits consoles, though it has not explicitly cited piracy as the cause.

For example, EA Redwood Shores' Dead Space hits PS3 and Xbox 360 on October 14, with the PC version coming the next week. And DICE's Mirror's Edge, once slated to ship simultaneously on consoles and PC, will now hit PS3 and Xbox 360 on November 11 while the PC version is targeted for a vague "winter" release window.

Piracy is said to be public enemy number one in the games industry, if certain game studios are to be believed. It's been declared responsible for bad reviews, poor sales of PC ports of popular console games, and even shifts in business models. However, one strong voice of dissent has emerged.

"Rampant piracy is no longer the catch-all excuse it's often employed as," rebuts Penumbra (PC) game writer Tom Jubert in a blog for Edge.

Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crysis developer Crytek (PC), recently intensified the spotlight on the issue by claiming there were 20 pirated copies of Crysis for every one legitimate player.

The actual ratio, Jubert argues, is no worse than 1:5 in the Western world. To back up this claim, Jubert cites figures from GameShadow Metrics--a online service that automatically patches games and can detect altered .exe files--which show 1 pirated copy of Crysis for every 5 legitimate copies in the US and a 3:7 ratio in the UK.

"Of course, that's not to say that Yerli is wrong," concedes Jubert, "[it's] only that 1:15 is a potentially misleading statistic." He adds that it's difficult to measure the actual number of high-end gaming PCs in use, so claims like "consoles sell factors of 4-5 more" are equally unfounded.

While some argue that piracy can increase game sales by letting players take a "try before you buy" approach, Crytek business manager Harald Seeley isn't one of them.

Based on downloads of the last Crysis patch, he argues, there were "a lot more active [Crysis] players than there were unit sales."

And since those pirates are still playing the game months after release, Seeley reasons that "then they were a sale that didn't happen but probably would have had it not been possible to obtain the game illegally."

Crytek, the studio that created the hardware intensive Far Cry and Crysis games exclusively for PC, has repeatedly stated that the upcoming Crysis Warhead will be its last PC-only game due to the abundant piracy of PC games.

But just because Crytek is no longer developing PC exclusives, that doesn't mean the company will abandon the platform. "We want to continue to provide our... Read more

The Entertainment Software Association--the industry organization assisting game makers in legal and governmental matters and organizes the annual E3 event-- today applauded the recent jail sentences of two American game pirates in a press release.

Kevin Fuchs of West Amherst, NY, and Kifah Maswadi of Oakland, FL, were sentenced to eight and 15 months in prison, respectively, this summer. Fuchs will follow that up with eight months of house arrest and another 16 months of court supervised release. Maswadi also received three years of court supervision, 50 hours of community service, and an order to pay $415,900 in restitution.

"These decisions illustrate, once again, that game piracy will not be tolerated and the extent at which these criminals will be prosecuted. The ESA and its members will continue to support law enforcement's efforts to protect the intellectual property of our industry," said Michael Gallagher, CEO of the ESA. The sentencing follows a recent United Kingdom ruling which established a legal precedent in their courts.

The news comes at a time when piracy has had increasing influence... Read more

Following the announcement that several game companies are filing suit against PC video game pirates, former Microsoft VP and current EA Sports head Peter Moore said that he expects the measures to be ineffective toward thwarting further file sharing.

"It didn't work for the music industry," said Moore to Eurogamer. "I'm not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer."

Atari, Codemasters, Reality Pump, Topware Interactive and Techland have hired law firm Davenport Lyons to file suit against 25,000 file sharers on their behalf. The lawsuits demand the pirates pay GBP 300 (US $557), or face trial.

While Moore recognizes that constructive solutions to piracy are scarce, he would rather the industry look for some than run to the courts.

"Albeit these people have clearly stolen intellectual property," he continued, "I think there are better ways of resolving this within our power as developers and publishers."

Several EA Sports games, including Madden 2009, did not see PC releases this year, with Moore citing "serious business challenges" as the reason. Moore has said that the franchises will return to the platform next year, but bolstered with "meaningful" online connectivity.

"I think there are better solutions than chasing people for money," added Moore. "I'm not sure what they are, other than to build game experiences that make it more difficult for there to be any value in pirating games."

While acclaimed studios such as Doom creator id, Unreal Tournament developer Epic and Crysis veterans Crytek have cited widespread piracy of PC games as the impetus to pursue console development, id CEO Todd Hollenshead has accused PC makers of viewing piracy as a "hidden benefit" for consumers.

"I think they are [secretly happy about PC piracy]," he explained to GamesIndustry. "The size of the [PC game] pirate market actually is larger than the legitimate-goods market in many cases."

"I think that there's been this dirty little secret among hardware manufacturers, which is that the perception of free content--even if you're supposed to pay for it on PCs--is some sort hidden benefit that you get when you buy a PC, like a right to download music for free or a right to download pirated movies and games."

Though Hollenshead was confident that there is no conspiracy... Read more

London's Patents County Court has ordered an unidentified woman to pay nearly $30,000 in fines to Topware Interactive for illegally sharing one of the studio's games online, according to a Telegraph report spotted by MCV.

The woman, who is among the first to be sued for copyright violation in the United Kingdom by a game company, was fined damages of £6086.56 ($11,325) and costs and disbursements of £10,000 ($18,607) for distributing Topware's Dream Pinball 3D.

The ruling establishes a strong precedent for further action against copyright violators. London law firm Davenport Lyons, which represents Topware Interactive, is also pursuing civil proceedings against 100 people suspected of illegally uploading copyrighted software.

"Illegal file-sharing is a very serious issue resulting in millions of pounds of losses to copyright owners," said Davenport Lyons senior partner David Gore. "As downloading speeds and internet penetration increase, this continues to be a ... Read more

Capcom corporate officer Christian Svensson revealed that the PC edition of the company's demon-slaying action title Devil May Cry 4 (PC, PS3, 360) saw poor sales since it debuted early last month, owing in some part to rampant piracy of the game.

"It's not doing as well as I would like in the US at retail," Svensson wrote on Capcom's official blog. "It's such a good version and it really deserves better sales. I know it's getting pirated to hell and back (it was up on torrents literally the day it shipped)."

The executive added that he had pushed for more prolific digital distribution of Devil May Cry 4's PC incarnation, but was stonewalled by Capcom Japan. Despite the frustration, Svennson reiterated his commitment to bringing more Capcom titles to... Read more

Nintendo and 54 developers and publishers have filed suit in the Tokyo District Court to block the marketing, sales and importation of DS flash cart devices, which allow users to easily load pirated DS software onto flash media for play in Nintendo's handheld.

The devices—such as the R4 Revolution for DS and CycloDS Evolution, among others—are similar in form to standard Nintendo DS cartridges, while featuring a small slot for MicroSD cards which can be loaded with pirated DS games, homebrew software, utilities and other data.

In a statement reproduced by Kotaku, Nintendo said that the devices are "causing severe damage to our company and software makers, and this is something that we cannot possibly overlook."

The company added that the devices cause harm to the growth of the game industry as a whole, and that steps must be taken regarding the legality of flash cartridges. Other companies participating in the suit include Capcom, Square Enix, SNK, and Sega.

Though the suit carries legal weight only in Japan, it seems likely that Nintendo may eventually pursue a similar action in North America—such devices have... Read more

A series of anti-piracy proposals in consideration by the European Union could result in internet users being permanently banned from the web if suspected of sharing copyrighted materials, the BBC reports.

The amendments also call for a Europe-wide "three strikes" law, which would ban users from the web after three warnings that they are suspected of sharing copyrighted materials on file-sharing networks. The laws also allow governments to decide what software can "lawfully" be used on the internet.

Digital rights campaigners claim that anti-piracy lobbyists have hijacked the proposals and worked in amendments that amount to an assault on the freedoms of web users.

"Tomorrow, popular software applications like Skype or even Firefox might be declared illegal in Europe if they are not certified by an administrative authority," said Foundation for a Free Internet Infrastructure representative Benjamin Henrion, who added that the proposals would create a "Soviet internet."

Piracy has become a grave concern for many developers worldwide, prompting studios such as Crytek, Infinity Ward, and several others to publicly voice their... Read more

Crytek chief executive Cevat Yerli offered an assessment of piracy within the PC gaming industry, describing the market as "the most intensely pirated market ever."

"It's crazy how the ratio between sales to piracy is probably 1 to 15 to 1 to 20 right now," Yerli told IGN. "For one sale there are 15 to 20 pirates and pirate versions, and that's a big shame for the PC industry."

Yerli added that he hoped to see some change with the release of Crytek's upcoming shooter follow-up Crysis Warhead. When asked if the game would include anti-piracy measures similar to Electronic Arts' activation protocols in the PC edition of BioWare's Mass Effect, the CEO didn't directly specify but hinted at some new ideas.

"Effectively, if the game isn't an online game or multiplayer game—there are challenges regardless of what you do—the game can be cracked. The effort is to... Read more

Update: Gamer.nl staffer Erwin Bergervoet has informed Shacknews that Atari also asked the Dutch gaming site to pull its 5/10 review of Alone in the Dark posted Thursday, a day before the game's official European street date.

"Within an hour [after posting], Atari called to have the review pulled off, claiming there was an embargo till Friday," Bergervoet said in a comment to Shacknews. "Our review copy was sent directly to us by Atari and [was] not a pirated copy. They explicitly told [Gamer.nl] that they only let high scoring reviews break the post-release embargo date."

Original Story: Atari has filed suit against German gaming website 4Players for publishing a negative pre-release review of Alone in the Dark, alleging that it was written based on an illegally obtained copy of the game.

According to a 4Players editorial spotted by Game|Life, Atari's lawsuit claims that the publication date of the review—which scored Xbox 360 version of the game at 68%—implies that it was written based upon a pirated or preview... Read more

PC Gaming Alliance president and Intel gaming program director Randy Stude offered commentary on the health of the PC gaming industry, expressing amusement at sales tracking firm NPD's recent move to track MMO subscription sales.

"I chuckle when I read through the articles or opinion that say that PC gaming is in a decline and they continue to quote NPD's North American retail sales figures as the reason why they believe they're in decline," Stude told Crave.

He added, "NPD decided in the first quarter of 2008 to attempt to quantify North American MMO subscription revenues. And lo and behold, after just a quarter of research, they found—under a rock that they hadn't looked at before—a billion dollars."

The director elaborated upon the goals of the PCGA, a consortium aimed at providing a forum for developers to collaborate on the marketing, production, and ... Read more

At yesterday's Wedbush Morgan Securities conference, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell claimed that a stealth encryption chip will "absolutely stop piracy of [PC] gameplay."

"There is a stealth encryption chip called a TPM that is going on the motherboards of most of the computers that are coming out now," explained Bushnell, according to a GamesIndustry report.

"What that says is that in the games business we will be able to encrypt with an absolutely verifiable private key in the encryption world--which is uncrackable by people on the internet and by giving away passwords--which will allow for a huge market to develop in some of the areas where piracy has been a real problem."

Piracy has been a hot-button issue in the PC gaming industry for some time now, with renowned PC developers such as Crytek, id, and Epic claiming that the high rate of pirated PC software forced them to put games on other platforms.

"I've seen studios close as the result of it, I've seen people lose their... Read more

BioWare producer Derek French recently caused an uproar after announcing that copy protection on the PC editions of Mass Effect and Spore would require online validation every 10 days in order for the games to continue functioning.

In the face of increasing pressure, BioWare and publisher Electronic Arts today relented, updating the official Mass Effect PC FAQ to note that validation will now only be required when the player downloads new game content.

Q: If the game isn't going to require an authentication every 10 days, will it ever require re-authentication?

A: Only if the player chooses to download new game content.

Electronic Arts also released a statement mentioning that Spore's copy protection will be similarly changed to allow for offline play, only requiring validation on a patch or game content update.

The publisher further noted that the protection will still only allow users to authenticate each game on up to three computers. Approval of further authorizations... Read more