BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Gameloft Competition Winner Leaks Modern Combat 5 Online

Following
This article is more than 9 years old.

Last week, Gameloft held a contest for its fans, offering the winners a free, full copy of Modern Combat 5: Blackout, due for release this Thursday.

It's now regretting that decision. One of the winners, it seems, pirated the game, the latest instalment in the developer's mobile first-person shooter series. It was made available for download on several torrent sites, and already thousands of people have played it online. Gameplay videos have even appeared on YouTube, although they were quickly taken down.

"As you can imagine I am really pissed off," writes Gameloft community manager Florian Weber on the company's Facebook group. "To anybody who got MC5 already, shame on you! We are making games for you and all you can do is pirate them? Anybody which is talking to me and shows in some way that he already has MC5 will get an instant ban." He added: "Seriously, this is why we can't have nice things."

Gameloft offices, Manhattan (Photo credit: blakespot)

The piracy hasn't even done the gamers any good. The Facebook competition gave the promo code to only three winners, meaning it might well be pretty easy to discover the culprit. And while YouTube videos remain online detailing how to use a jailbroken phone to access the game, the company says it has now turned on anti-piracy systems and disabled illicit copies. It does, though, say that these unauthorized users will be allowed to buy and play a legal copy on Thursday.

What's a real shame is that Modern Combat 5 is one of the decreasing number of games not to involve in-app purchases, and one of only a few that Gameloft produces. At $6.99, it's hardly going to break the bank. But there's always somebody that spoils the fun for everyone else: and the free-to-play model (already tried and tested for the company) must now be looking like a much safer bet. This sort of behavior really could mean the end of "nice things".

In a survey of its members last year, British games developer trade assoication Tiga found that 57 percent of its members said piracy was a problem, but only ten percent thought the answer was a legal crack-down. Almost all the rest preferred a shift to new free-to-play models, supported by in-app purchases or ads.

All well and good - indeed, most gamers seem to prefer free-to-play - but it would be a shame if paid premium games disappeared altogether. In-app purchases don't generally net developers a fortune - research suggests that only 2.2 percent of players ever spend anything. And surely, surely, there are enough ads on everything already?