Killzone 3, Crysis 2 Hit Torrent Sites Prior To Official Launch

Illegitimate versions of two major upcoming first-person shooters hit piracy sites over the past week, with one arriving on torrent outlets over a month before its official release. Electronic Arts' and Crytek's Crysis 2 appeared on piracy sites as early as February 11, when the publisher and developer issued a joint statement that said an "early incomplete, unfinished build of Crysis 2 has appeared on torrent sites." The game officially launches on consoles and PC on March 22 in North America. "Crytek and EA are deeply disappointed by the news. We encourage fans to support the game and the development team by waiting and purchasing the final, polished game," the companies added. "...Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market and the PC development community," the statement said. Crytek was outspoken against piracy following the release of 2007's original Crysis, a PC exclusive. The company was previously mainly focused on PC games, but after reported high piracy rates of Crysis, the studio said it would soon abandon PC exclusives. "We seem to lead the charts in piracy by a large margin, a chart leading that is not desirable," said Crytek president Cevat Yerli in 2008. "I believe that’s the core problem of PC gaming, piracy." Also hitting torrent sites recently was Sony and Guerrilla's PlayStation 3 exclusive Killzone 3, due to release on February 22 in North America. File names on torrent sites suggest the download is the European version, weighing in at 41.4GB. Sony Computer Entertainment has been embroiled in a piracy-related lawsuit with PS3 hacker George "Geohot" Hotz, who earlier this year released code that enables PS3 owners to run unofficial software on the console. Hotz has maintained that the PS3 jailbreak was never intended for piracy, and has said that his hack doesn't enable piracy.