Anti-piracy company makes illegal copy of Deus Ex to trick free riding gamers

Vigilant Defender, a young company dedicated to prevent unlawful file sharing of games, has recently launched an interesting experiment. Gamers who downloaded an illegally leaked copy of Deus Ex: Human Revolution ran into a questionnaire of the company. The gamers were asked why they illegally download, which sites they use and how much data they download, according to TorrentFreak.

James Grimshaw, founder of Vigilant Defender, notified TorrentFreak that after the first few levels of the game, gamers were thrown out of the game and were directed to a website with the questionnaire. Between August 22 and September 12, one million gamers downloaded the copy of Deus Ex: HR and 900.000 gamers actually completed the questionnaire, according to figures from Vigilant Defender.

The results of the questionnaire show that gamers are willing to pay for the official version of Deus Ex: HR and they are even willing to pay full price, according to Grimshaw.

Vigilant Defender's action caused quite a reaction. Eidos Montreal, the developer of the game, and Square Enix, publisher of the game, both did not give permission to Vigilant Defender to use the demo. Vigilant Defender cracked a leaked copy of the game and then re-uploaded their ‘own version’ complete with a questionnaire. By using the demo without the copyright holders’ approval, Vigilant Defender itself has infringed copyright.

Infringing copyright was the only option to go through with the experiment, Grimshaw indicates. Game publishers did not agree with the experiment on their game. According to Grimshaw, Eidos Montreal and Square Enix will not be happy with Vigilant Defender’s  action, but they will admit that illegal downloading is worse and with the action the company was just trying to help. The question is whether Eidos Montreal and Square Enix appreciate this experiment.

Reference: TorrentFreak 

By: Karen Groen