Xbox Addict

Spoil Gears of War 3 and Feel the Wrath of Epic

An early, unfinished copy of Gears of War 3 was leaked onto the Internet more than a month ago. This led to countless, spoiler-filled videos ending up on YouTube. Besides trying to get these videos pulled as they go up and investigating the leak, Epic has also plans to punish those who are going around, spoiling the game for series fans.
 Gears executive producer Rod Fergusson reiterated in an interview with Edge earlier this month that what was leaked is an early, pre-beta version of Gears 3. He noted that it’s fortunate Gears is a 360 game because, unlike leaked PC games, where there is no real restriction to playing a pre-release game, the number of people with a capable 360 is much smaller.
 
In addition to calling it "frustrating," he said, "So we’re extremely diligent about getting that stuff taken down and issued a call to the fans to not perpetuate it because it’s not helping anybody to perpetuate that. And just keeping track of those who do. I don’t think everybody’s always aware of the potential repercussions of those types of actions so it’s just a matter of being diligent."
 
Following up on that vague threat, Fergusson told Eurogamer, "We have a banning system built into our stuff so we can go in and identify certain people. Some people aren’t smart about what they do. They’ll be disappointed on 20th September when they can’t get in and can’t play. They may be banned."
 
That would be quite the punishment for those who spoiled the game, especially if they were prevented from playing through the single-player campaign.
 
Fergusson recalled one especially maddening scenario where he was doing a video chat with fans when "somebody went into the chat room and tried to yell all caps spoilers throughout the chat room to try to ruin the experience for the thousand people who were watching me. It’s that kind of stuff that just drives me crazy.
 
"If you don’t value this community, you don’t value this experience, then we don’t value you. I’d rather pick that one bad apple out of the pool so everybody else can have a better time."
 
The leaked game included Achievements, single-player, co-op, and system link multiplayer support. It reportedly was missing certain levels towards the end, not to mention that the game simply wasn’t done, so playing it merely robs the the player of experiencing the game for the first time as intended.
 
Gears 3 is scheduled to come out on September 20.