Developers artificially boosting their games’ stats on review websites? That’s really nothing new. But a company actually downloading an illegal torrent of its own soundtrack to include with the game’s digital special edition? That’s a little bizarre.
Yet that’s what Ubisoft are now being accused of. A user on web aggregator Reddit who pre-ordered the PC version of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, scheduled to release later this week, got access to the digital goodies included with the game and discovered something a little bizarre: the soundtrack files included with the Digital Deluxe Edition include references to “arsa13” in the metadata – a user who uploaded a torrent of the soundtrack in FLAC format last year following its release alongside the console game.
That means not only did Ubisoft accidentally release a pirated version of the soundtrack, they actually converted it to MP3 first. Classy.
It’s not the first time Ubisoft have done this sort of thing either. Back in 2008, they released a patch for Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 to allow play without the disk in the drive, which later turned out to just be a “NoCD” crack released by piracy group “Reloaded”.
The Reddit user in question notes that it could be just the unnamed digital storefront he used, but it makes sense that such files would be compiled together by Ubisoft and then sent out to each retailer. Does this make Ubisoft guilty of pirating its own soundtrack?
gideon1451
Haha, that’s just ridiculous! Perhaps it shows how hard hitting the recession is, although that is a bit of a tangent.
Uhyve
Heh, it’s really hitting hard if Ubisoft can’t afford to get some guy to shove a copy of the soundtrack in a CD tray, then click rip.
Aquastyle
Haha, brought a smile to my face this, nice going Ubi! :P
scavenga
Hahah, I think that’s awesome! “Where are the soundtrack files? Argh, can’t be bothered. Go check if the FLAC files are still up on Pirate Bay”
Luvvit.
Sympozium
The cheaper alternative?
StevenHibs
That’s crazy!
shields_t
Could the meta data not simply have been edited?
jayjay119
Considering they’re the owners of the soundtrack, can this even be considered as pirating? If a file(s) is yours then surely it doesn’t matter how you come to get it.
bajere
exactly what i was going to type. its fine.
the real issue is why they lost the file to begin with, so they needed a pirate version?!?!
TSBonyman
Hardly piracy if they own it. Filesharing isn’t just used for illegal purposes. Possibly the person just clicked the wrong link instead of their own original file link. Still seems a bit sloppy though.
MadBoJangles
Bizarre! :P
BIGAL-1992
What the hell is going on today?
Harinero
Their official reply to this will be that pretty much everyone does it, and they’re quite sure president Obama pirated his own soundtrack too.