Ubi suing over Ass Creed PC leak

By Kristan Reed Published 7 August, 2008

Wants USD 10m from disc duplicator.

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.

Picture of Kristan.

About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Der_tolle_Emil #1 4 years ago

    Why are they mass producing unfinished versions? Or were those review copies?

  • krudster #2 4 years ago

    Clearly it wasn't the version that they were supposed to produce. It was most likely a test version for reference.

  • booner #3 4 years ago

    "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."

    Surely that is a good thing, the kind people that leaked it only wanted people try the first half of the game...much like a demo to make people buy the full game. Funny thing is, the first half of the game represents the entire game over and over! I got bored halfway!

  • Macross #4 4 years ago

    Booner you just argued yourself in a circle :)

    Still I hope that the culprits get sued to hell and back. For once a suing that doesnt piss me off! The amount of money that piracy costs the industry is staggering. /Me strokes PC consolingly

  • Weezer #5 4 years ago

    Top tip to disc manufacturers: when hiring people, ask them if they're filthy thieving pirates first.

  • asphaltcowboy #6 4 years ago

    The guy will be in the "I've f*cked up at work" thread before the end of the day ;)

  • kangarootoo #7 4 years ago

    "With some reviews apparently based on the borked version, the general confusion caused "irreparable harm" to Ubi's reputation"

    Surely this should also do irreperable harm to the reputation of any review publication that was clearly basing a review on pirated material?

  • mazzl #8 4 years ago

    i would not like to be that employee ....

  • IronCladChicken #9 4 years ago

    @Macross
    PC console??? - nooooo!

  • Goffee #10 4 years ago

    Hopefully all the mags and sites that reviewed the dodgy version get named and shamed too

  • Der_tolle_Emil #11 4 years ago

    I think the review pages are the delicate part in this news. Wasn't there a review embargo on this game anyway? I wonder when the publications actually got their review copies. Must have been rather late if they decided to download it first.

  • slivir #12 4 years ago

    Whoever that dude was, it sounds like he's up shit creek...

  • Ryuken #13 4 years ago

    This is the kind of anti-piracy measure nobody can have an issue with: fixing the leaks, sometimes I get the impression even the devs themselves are leaking their games...

  • andywilkie35 #14 4 years ago

    haha that employee is gonna get fooked, and too right as well

  • paketep #15 4 years ago

    the general confusion caused "irreparable harm" to Ubi's reputation

    Ubi's reputation?. What reputation?.

    Are we talking about the Ubi releasing games full of bugs, some of which (like Rayman Raving Rabbids) can't even start due to the stupid DRM and for which Ubi gave NO support at all?.

    They must be fucking kidding.

    Also, are they admitting that they gave a version with an intentional bug for mass production?.

    Whoa, like I needed any more reasons not to buy anything from Ubi!
    Edited by 1 at 07/08/08 @ 10:39

  • Tomnd #16 4 years ago

    That's terrible though, all you need is one guy to take it home and you ruin the reputation of a multimillion dollar firm, i am sure that other company's will think twice about using them now they know they cannot keep their product safe.

  • UncleLou #17 4 years ago

    Surely that is a good thing, the kind people that leaked it only wanted people try the first half of the game

    That might work, but mind, pirates are stupid. They'll whine on forums how the game crashes and is a buggy piece of shit.

  • TheRealBadabing #18 4 years ago

    About time this sort of thing started happening. It's pretty obvious that pre-release downloads are exclusively fueled by leaks like this, so one or two bad employees can really cock things up for a publisher.

    In fact, it's so obvious, I have to wonder why anyone would ignore this line of investigation for any length of time, if they were serious about combating piracy. So why has it taken so long and why only one publisher?

  • AphoticCosmos #19 4 years ago

    Ass Creed :D

  • hiddenranbir #20 4 years ago

    Bitter much.

  • mkreku #21 4 years ago

    Haha, I love it! Go UBI :)

  • dacicus #22 4 years ago

    Ubi's reputation since when? Rainbow Six: Vegas2 was a mees. GRAW 1 and 2 another buggy mess. Assassin Creed it's another fine mess. Beyond Good And Evil, Rayman Raving Rabbids and Dark Messiah of Might And Magic are some other examples. They've also managed to do the same mess on the XBox 360 consoles(Dark Messiah and Assassin Creed are just two examples).
    And let's not forget the time when one of their employees offered a crack from a known pirating group as a solution for Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Direct 2 Drive versions(patch 1.03, if I recall well). That was funny and a nice start: a developper pirating the pirates:p

  • Silvervein #23 4 years ago

    @dacicus

    +1 Hehe.

  • PotajiTo #24 4 years ago

    Who cares, the game in shit.

  • zozart #25 4 years ago

    Nice! Leaking it from your home Internet connection. That guy deserves whatever wrath he has coming to him. :(

  • Wyrm #26 4 years ago

    And playing that leaked copy confirmed that I would not have any interest in buying the horrible game :)

  • YourMessageHere #27 4 years ago

    Not that I approve of this guy, but it's hardly as if the whole problem is his fault. To me Ubisoft are far more at fault. I especially like the "oh we gave them a copy that only works half way through for security reasons" bit. So they gave the disc manufacturer a broken copy, for some mad reason, and when this game leaked, like every PC game inevitably does and as everyone knows it will, and people looked at it and went "hay guise this not work0rz, gaem ar teh bollox" for all their internets to see, that was 'security' was it? That's some interestingly insane logic right there, like claiming the British army get issued crap rifles on purpose 'for security reasons'.

    Then it's back to the old mythical lost sales argument. If there are any lost sales, they're as much down to Ubisoft for creating a borked copy in the first place. That's without the irreparable self-damage their many other lousy PC ports, as listed elsewhere in this thread, have already done them. But that's all this little scapegoat company's fault. It's not even fixing the leak, it's waiting until the leak's finished and everything's wrecked and then calling the plumber and asking what he's going to do about your soaked house - it may produce money, but it doesn't actually do anything about the damage, much of which money simply can't fix.

    EDIT: "manufaturer"?
    Edited by 1 at 07/08/08 @ 19:25

  • dacicus #28 4 years ago

    May I point towards another company who "lost" a game on the way to the manufacturer and blamed everyone else for their stupid mistake and the total lack of security? THQ's Ironlore Studios with Titan Quest. I didn't forgot how one of THQ directors blamed everyone, from buyers to critics, because IronLore went out of business:
    [link url=http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=93812 ]http://ww w.eurogamer.net/article.php?art...[/link]
    In case you've forgot...
    Just like Ubi, THQ blamed others. So the big companies are pure snow and everytthing besides them is some sort of demonical design meant to bring them down. We all know otherwise. Ubi lost a case when they were using Starforce for protection(a few angry customers sued them and managed to get a nice lump of money from them). Now Ubi is trying to squeeze some money from the company who was printing Assassin Creed. Someone here pointed clearly how flawed is their logic and any sane judge will dismiss this case(provided that the other party will have a good lawyer). Maybe Ubi is about to go in the nice possession of the EA. Ubi lost quite a nice sum of money with the latest disasters. They've also bought the rights for all the Tom Clancy's work(quite a bit of cash). Also let's not forget the attempt of hostile takeover from a couple of years ago. EA was very close to incorporate Ubi in their portofolio. Only the intervention of the French and the Canadian governments stopped Ubi from being taken by EA. Yet, EA managed to get quite a bit of shares from Ubi. Also, EA managed to put a firm foot in the Ubi's board of directors. I'm really curious to see Ubi's financial report this year. I bet that's closing to Atari. I think that what I see now it's close to a desperation scream....

  • saku_luk #29 4 years ago

    Another Atari, they think that weak sells are the result of piracy lol....sorry but the game is weak! its a nice horse riding emulator with views tho....

  • wot4 #30 4 years ago

    "irreparable harm" to Ubisoft!?!? The crap they release is doing the damage to Ubi.