Another anti pirate thread. Bethesda speaks.

[kiwi_2005]

"Bethesda: "50% of tech support inquiries are from those with pirated copies."

http://tinyurl.com/6yqebj

Bethesda Softworks, in the form of product manager Pete Hines, has joined in the mass of developers trying to put the boot into the PC games industry.

Speaking to MTV Multiplayer, Hines said his studio spent half of its customer support time dealing with people who had pirated copies of the game.

"The amount of money we spend supporting people who didn’t pay us for the game in the first place … it’s f**king ludicrous. We talk to other developers, guys who are [like] ‘Yeah, it’s a third, it’s 50 per cent of our [customer] support,'" Hines told MTV Multiplayer.

Fallout 3 will, like Oblivion, only be shipping with mild forms of copy protection, the kind that people don't go onto the internet and complain about (there won't be any Spore-esque flame wars with Fallout 3).

Interestingly, Fallout 3 has already leaked onto some torrent sites, much to Bethesda's dismay. However, the leaked version is actually for the Xbox 360, proving that piracy isn't just a problem the home computer market.

BioWare has recently come out with a sensible idea for combating PC piracy, namely the ability to obtain downloadable content and multiplayer modes that pirates simply can't get around.

Look at games like Team Fortress 2 and, we assume, Left 4 Dead. You'll find very few pirates there, because it is virtually, if not totally impossible to get into a multiplayer game on Steam using a dodgy copy.

Lessons like this need to be learned.