Ubi suing over Ass Creed PC leak

Ubisoft is suing a US disc duplication firm for USD 10m in damages after an early PC version of Assassin's Creed leaked onto the internet.

The French publisher has alleged that North Carolina-based Optical Experts Manufacturing is responsible for the leak, which occurred in late February - some six weeks before the game's release.

According to a report on Gamespot, OEM ignored security protocols which would have prevented the leak, such as not letting an employee take the game home and put it on the internet. Whoops.

Having tracked down the source of the piracy to an OEM employee's house, Ubisoft has predictably gone a bit bonkers. The company described the leak as representing "an extraordinary breach of trust and gross negligence", and reckons OEM is effectively responsible for 700,000 downloads of the game. Clang.

Worse still, the version that leaked wasn't even the finished article, and including a deliberate bug ("for security reasons") which caused the game to crash halfway. With some reviews apparently based on the borked version, the general confusion caused "irreparable harm" to Ubi's reputation.

OEM now faces the full wrath of Ubi's legal muscle, and is being sued for breach of contract, negligence and copyright infringement, with damages and legal fees also sought for the three claims to the tune of USD10 million.

You really wouldn't want to be the person who did the deed.

Ubisoft was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.