Duckmouth says "Say NO to Piracy!".

7.9 gigs? Good job compressing this thing, Rockstar.

Piracy is bad, Mm'kay

Confirmed.

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| __ _ __ __ __ __ _ |/
_ Xl' `X `XX. Grand Theft Auto IV (c) Rockstar .XX' X' /_
| X: ` `X. .X' ' |
| X' ` ' . |
| l Region : USA/NTSC Genre : Action/Adventure . |
| : Company : Rockstar Size : 79 * 100Mb : |
| . Platform : Xbox 360 Rel. Date : April 29, 2008 X |
| _..xXX |
|___________ ___ __ _ . _ __ ___ ___________|
/__\/ R e | e a s e //__/
________ _\/__/ | n f o r m a t i o n _ __//_ ________
| |
: What does the American Dream mean today? For Niko Bellic, fresh off :
. the boat from Europe, it is the hope he can escape his past. For .
his cousin, Roman, it is the vision that together they can find
fortune in Liberty City, gateway to the land of opportunity. As they
slip into debt and are dragged into a criminal underworld by a series
of shysters, thieves and sociopaths, they discover that the reality
. is very different from the dream in a city that worships money and .
. status, and is heaven for those who have them and a living nightmare .
: for those who don't. :
|___________ ___ __ _ . _ __ ___ ___________|
/__\) / o d a y ' s (//__/
________ _\/__/ / e c t u r e _ __//_ ________
| |
: We weren't sure that anyone was waiting for this one, so we took our :
. time with it. Hope you don't mind! Still, five days early ain't bad .
is it? Enjoy.

Tested this on our Xbox 360 and it worked fine (burned). Stealth, of
course. We advise you don't try to play this game online, especially
Rockstar claimed to be monitoring it; if they're full of sh*t we don't
know, but not worth the risk.

Buy this game. It rocks, and is worth every penny. Seriously.

This is pretty much a one time deal, so don't be expecting much more
from us old retired sceners. Perhaps for the next huge game release...

And forget "Bush Lovers." Vote Obama.

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' o n e z e r o o n e /
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_ _|_ _ _______( 2 o o 8 )/_______ _ /_|_ _
: _ _ / :
/ Greets to ELEGANCE '04-'05 /

Doesn't matter. Will be the best selling game for quite awhile. You can't stop the hype machine.

@duckmouth: And Niko likes to say bye to pirates with a bullet to the their faces

There's beautiful humor in the pirates writing "(C) Rockstar"

I think more people are playing GTA4 early thanks to kotaku reminding them.

No doubt rockstar don't want to comment because they don't want to confirm it to be real.

Is Kotaku a warez site now? No? But why do they advertise GTA IV warez like that then?

20,000 people have hacked 360s capable of playing this? I'm surprised.

That's what you get when you make games for xbox360.
Just kidding.

The code looks like an exploding house. Or crock pot.
And that's my deep comment on this awful piracy. What about you?

i hate to say this but blu-ray might e answer to piracy...

just not worth downloading 50GB dual layer blu-ray games unless the pirates find a way to compress movies and audio....

not to mention initial cost of blu-ray burner and blank discs...

in the future, all games should be 4 layer blu-ray disc with 100gb worth of information just to make it that much harder for piracy...

@DigiMish: Why is the PAL version smaller?
@Casual_Hardcore: It's news that the game has been pirated, even if it was obvious that it would happen.
@MattB: I'm sure some of those people don't realize they need a modded Xbox to play.

at least I can do three things that they can't.
Wait.
Purchase.
Play Online

@Bugged?: Maybe is a bad idea to post the NFO itself, because could contain instructions about how to break the law. Notice that Kotaku itself is not posting the NFO, but the header only, and as a image. No that people can enter any substring on google and locate himself the NFO :I

@icepick314: Hey, welcome to the world of thought when CD's and DVD's where released. Burners get cheaper, Disc's get cheaper, technology gets better.

Heh since when did pirates get all political?

@Casual_Hardcore: At what point is this advertising it? They are merely noting a news story that many of us will find interesting seeing as though the game isn't out yet and the PAL version came on yesterday. If there was a guy outside flinging shit at people and your buddy comes in and says "hey guys there's a guy outside flinging shit at people" yeah you might run to a window to see, I would, but I wouldn't want to join in with the whole situation. Same here, it's no advertising par se just letting people know what's happened

I'm dead against games piracy (don't buy into that "oh if I like I promise I'll buy it" bullshit), but especially with a game like this. Surely half the fun is going to be getting it the same time as your mates and all doing the missions in different ways and stuff? If I wasn't crushed under university work I'd get it at launch and then play the single player while chatting to one of my mates over live.

Meh, I'll stick to buying the game. Safer and more satisfying. No, really.

@Erwin: Practically all games get pirated, where's the news value in that?

@Bugged?: Confirmed or not, you didn't have to post all that ASCII crap here.

People who download the game would have waited for a cracked release whether it came out 5 days early or 1 month after. I don't even consider it lost sales, they wouldn't have bought the game anyway.

@icepick314: You underestimate pirates. They have all the time in the world. If your ISP doesn't throttle your connection 50GBs can be gotten in what, 20hrs with a constant 400-500kbps download?

Quick, call Commissioner Gordon! He needs to light the Lars Ulrich-signal!

@icepick314: If Blu-ray becomes the media of choice then increased demand for blank media will cause prices to drop. Using a higher priced new format to ward off pirates is a temporary solution at best. For all intents and purposes stopping piracy is a lost cause. At best they can make it a pain as Microsoft has largely managed to do with Xbox Live.

I think the solution is just as the guys from Stardock say. Ignore the pirates. They'll do their thing anyway and will work around whatever protection is put on there so why bother spending money trying to thwart them excessively?

@Rickster: They can play online now, but it's not recommended since Microsoft can permanently disable the 360's from going online. Next week, they'll all be online, and it's impossible to tell whos playing real or pirated.

@Tei: His post didn't reveal that much info. It doesn't include the groupname or the filenames involved. Not like googling Grand Theft Auto IV won't find it anyways. There are two fakes out there though. I won't name any of them here because that would help people

@Dannon: A lot of games are being pirated before actual release dates, that's no news. Posting 2(!) separate items about GTA IV being available for PAL as well as NTSC is advertising warez, imho. A story about the game being available prior to release date does not require seperate mentioning for PAL and NTSC versions.

Maybe I'm just lazy, but it seems like way too much effort to mod the 360, skirt the inevitable account ban that goes along with playing leaked games, etc just to have access a few days before the street date. - I mean, it's just a couple of days difference.

Oh and just to add, yeah probably people who don't even have a modded 360 are downloading it. Heck, I've seen people ask on torrents that are clearly marked as PS2/Xbox. etc isos if the game works on PC. However, it is incredibly easy to hack a 360. Details I'll leave out.

Where have all the Seeders gone?

Well since GTAIV is street dated, that means i should be getting my copy sometime before sunday...

Its almost like these pirates think there the shit for doing this kind of stuff....

@icepick314: if blu ray becomes recordable and such it will eventually become "cheap" compared to what it is now, the high demand will bring more companies trying to make it cheaper and bring it to a larger audience than there is now and it, in time, will be no different than the way people rip copy and play HD DVD games

Piracy is not awful, and has little-to-no effect on highly anticipated games such as these. San Andreas leaked just as early, and it sold like hotcakes. Halo 3 was leaked 5-6 days early and still had several people lined up for over 24 hours outside waiting to buy it. Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Bioshock...

These games laugh in the face of piracy. For most pirates, I assume downloading GTA IV is more a case of playing it early than playing it for free.

@TheExiledLeader:
I gotta start reading ALL the comments before I reply [MattB]

Whats even more sad is the fact that I'm sure each copy of GTA 4 has a sticker seal on it that says DO NOT SELL BEFORE 4/29/08.

Either most people who run game stores are illiterate or people who work there think "O well if I just take the game and play it at home, then illegally distribute across the web, its not really breaking the rules. "

@LongDarkBlues: I think you're forgetting the main points - getting FREE 360 games. As many as you want.

Piracy makes EastX a sad Bomberman. :(

@TheExiledLeader:
Uh...
[gizmodo.com]
[www.liteonit.eu]

@Poisonous Taoist: Yup, the pirates go right out and buy the game a week after they get it for free. Keep telling yourself that.

@Casual_Hardcore: How many of the people who look at this site are going to run off and start downloading this? C'mon show your hands...

That's none, no one here will do it, it's not that kind of place and yes, I find this mildly interesting, I find it interesting that the PAL version was leaked before the NTSC one, I don't know why but I do and I'm sure other people find at least a mild bit of interest in this to make it worthy of a short news post

Business as usual. Nearly every game gets a scene-release prior to the street date. This time it's GTA IV, who cares? The 12-year old idiots who have a modded 360 wouldn't have bought the game anyway.
I am looking forward to grab the game from my mailbox nest Tuesday and nervously open the envelope... a feeling no pirate can ever understand!

@Poisonous Taoist: I agree. I think the effect of piracy is overstated on games like this. What bothers me is that in the case of some games like Bioshock the pirates are getting a superior version that actually works properly. I switched my order to the 360 version specifically because of all the issues those buying the PC version ran into.

I have to say, I hate when people jump on the 'death to all pirates!' bandwagon. It really isn't such a bad thing. There are as many arguments for it as there are against it.

Of course, it is unlawful in most countries.

it doesn't matter if the game is leaked on the PS3. There are tons of blu-ray rips out there if you know where to look.

The problem is that the PLAYSTATION 3 hasn't been hacked yet, and is therefore unable to boot up blu-ray images or homebrew.

@DigiMish: Maybe I'm not only lazy, but too lazy to play games? - I think I actually to buy, I guess, 3 games a year new? After the main 10 releases a year, it's all shovelware anyway - maybe others have a more driving need to play something new all the time?

@eastx: My roommate happens to be one of those pirates. He already preordered the collector's edition of GTA IV.

In fact, he's done that for every single one of the games I listed earlier.

@eastx: I do know some people who have done this very thing. Not my cup of tea personally, but I appreciated their reasoning that if they really enjoyed it they want to support the people/companies that made it.

@MattB: Right. I personally buy all of my games, but I'm not above trying it out on my roommate's box beforehand.

@Dannon: I am tempted let me tell you. I've had my copy paid off for a few months now, but still it would be nice to have it sooner.

Yes, I know a few people do it. I refuse to believe it's half or more of all software pirates though.

@Poisonous Taoist: You're just as bad then ^_^ Yar'

@MattB: I'd guesstimate there are at least 150,000 modded xbox 360s. That's a conservative estimate.

[img181.imageshack.us]

@eastx:I already paid off my copy of GTAIV, and I would still download this if I had a modded 360. Is there really something wrong with getting a game I already paid for a few days early?