Leaked Copies of Gears of War Judgment Appear Online

According to Eurogamer, last night leaked copies of the forthcoming Xbox 360 exclusive Gears of War: Judgment began appearing online, a month before its March 19 release date. The seemingly complete version of the game started showing up on torrent sites, and Microsoft was quick to issue a dire warning to those who download and play the game on their consoles. Here’s the statement they gave to Eurogamer:

“We are aware of isolated cases in which Gears of War: Judgment content has been propped on the web and are working closely with our security teams and law enforcement to address the situation immediately. Consumers should be aware that piracy is lillegal and we take vigorous action against illegal activity related to our products and services.

Playing pirated games, such as Gears of War: Judgment, is a violation of the Xbox Live Terms of Use and will result in enforcement action, such as account and console bans.”

The post notes that similar situations arose with the release of Halo 4 late last year, as well as with the release of Gears of War 3. In short, this seems to happen a lot—so much, in fact, that Microsoft was mistakenly banning players who had early copies of Halo 4 along with those who’d gotten the game early illegally.

There are a number of aspects to this story that aren’t surprising: people want to play the newest game as early as possible, and Microsoft doesn’t want people to do that, so the company’s banning their consoles for life. All of that makes sense.

But then, how the heck are Microsoft’s big, exclusive games getting leaked left and right? Gears 3, Halo 4, now Gears Judgment—why does this keep occurring? Anyone have any theories as to how this keeps happening? Is Steve Ballmer just messing with his underlings? Does he like to watch them scramble, and then just fire people who can’t contain the mess?

Via Eurogamer