Piracy is, and always has been a threat to creative industry, and the gaming industry is no exception. However, a survey conducted by TIGA, a regional trade body, suggests that while the majority developers in the UK see piracy as a problem, only a small percentage believe it to be a huge problem.

60 percent of developers surveyed viewed software piracy as a "constant and growing" concern, but out of those respondents, only 10 percent felt that the threat piracy posed by piracy to their survival was "high." 20 percent pegged the threat level as "medium," and 10 percent opted for "low." (The last 10 percent had no opinion). Regarding DRM, half of developers thought it to be "an irrelevance," and twenty percent considering it "part of the problem."

Opinions were split, however, on an issue that's been popping up relatively recently, namely the government-mandated punishment of users' broadband supplies as a method for combating pirates.

That last point is particularly important, considering that secret talks are underway for the global Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, one designed to address a number of IP and copyright issues. Some have been calling portions of ACTA "a Patriot Act for the Internet," as it seems to introduce a variety of changes that make the infamous DMCA look tame by comparison.

Activision is not messing around when it comes to Modern Warfare 2, and has demonstrated that it will literally hunt down anybody engaging in shenanigans involving its massive FPS title. When one cheeky thief was discovered offering a Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 bundle on Craigslist, the evil publisher hired a private investigator to track down and apprehend the suspect.

IPCyberCrime was brought in and managed to track down the seller, discovering that he worked at a retailer and had conspired with friends to steal bundles from the store and sell them on. The employee was given over to the retailer's loss prevention department. As if that wasn't enough, a prospective buyer for the bundle was also followed up on, since he was claiming he would take the game, rip it, and then leak it online for pirating purposes.

Christian Del Amo, the would-be pirate, got off less likely than the seller, since he's now dealing with the Miami-Dade Police Department. So yeah, ripping Modern Warfare 2 off might sound great if you're a PC gamer who feels that Infinity Ward deserves it, but remember -- Activision is a jealous God, and it will smite you.

Those crazy cats at RedLynx did what? Yep, they put their PC game Trials up on torrent Web sites. But before you start calling the closest mental institution, hear the plan out.

"Piracy is here, so how can we take advantage of that? What we did actually, on day one, we put that game immediately on all the torrent networks ourselves," said RedLynx CEO Tero Virtala during Develop Liverpool.

"That game relies really heavily on the server side -- the leaderboards are the soul of the game. I don't know if it's helped, I'd assume so because even though the version that we put on the torrent networks wasn't the full version, it's the version of the game without the actual soul, without the leaderboards to play against other players."

So, by beating everyone to the punch with a version of Trials that wasn't complete, yet didn't have the sort of problems that can crop up in pirated games, RedLynx hoped to get the Trials name out there and possibly pick up a few new customers along the way.

Considering the three-year-old game has sold nearly 150,000 copies, and RedLynx has gone on to create a popular follow-up with Trials HD, I'd say the mission was a success.

Microsoft has come down hard on some pirates this Halloween. No, not the slutty girls in short skirts and low cut pirate blouses or the guys dressed up like Johnny Depp, silly. Gosh, why would you think that unless you constantly think in really bad puns, in which case you lead a terrible life. No, for the past week Microsoft has been banning "a small percentage" of Xbox Live users that had systems that were modded to play pirated games. IGN uncovered the deed after seeing a bit of complaining going on in the Xbox Live forums.

After being contacted, Microsoft had this to say on the rash of complaints, "We have taken action against a small percentage of consoles that have been modified to play pirated game discs. In line with our commitment to combat piracy and support safer and more secure gameplay for the more than 20 million members of our Xbox LIVE community, we are suspending these modded consoles from Xbox LIVE."

I mean, good for Microsoft. Don't steal games. Lesson learned. Anyone here banned for their dubious activities?

[Via Hot Blooded Gaming]

If Q-Games’ Dylan Cuthbert was sincere in a recent string of blue tweets (spotted by VG247), there’s a chance we might not see another PixelJunk videogame on the PSP. The president of the PJ studio recently commented on piracy of his game, openly questioning the fate of the series on the handheld if sales don’t hold up because of theft.

And you thought the reason would be tied to the irrational fear of sliding faceplates (slidoffaceophobia), right?

“I don’t think we’ll port anything else to the PSP,” he tweeted, “we have to see how PMJD [PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe] does as there’s a lot of piracy.”

Later in another tweet, Cuthbert remarked that it was a “shock” to hear people talk openly in a chatroom about pirating his studio’s game. “Yep,” he said, “it was a shock to login to a PJMD chat room and hear them talking about how they were all playing ripped versions … “

Let’s hope the piracy isn’t as rampant as Cuthbert seems to expect. The PSP needs more solid titles like a Pixel Junk, especially from the golden loins of a great developer like Q-Games.

The R4 has been a pirate's dream for many years, allowing gamers to essentially rip off the DS' entire library and carry it around on one little cart. Sure, many people claim to buy an R4 to "back up" their existing game collection, but we all know what the things are really used for. Well, Nintendo's sick of it, and has rallied fifty-three publishers to try and stop the things being sold.

Capcom recently announced it was backing Nintendo on new legal action, where four known sellers of the R4 Revolution will be tried under the Japanese Unfair Competition Prevention Act. Nintendo pushed to make the sale of R4s illegal back in February, but nobody cared, and sales of the device continued. Now Nintendo's going after the sellers themselves. 

We predict yet another mini-victory for publishers in a war that they will never win.

Of course he does. "That's my joint right there."

Not only does rapper Lil' Wayne's Xbox have "every game ever created," but it also has "every porno," which makes it, as one off-screen commentator jokes, a real X Box. Ha. Yeah.

There you have it, piracy police. Gamertag Radio has it on camera. Hear his mumbly voice for yourselves. He even says that he has pong. He's deep into piracy to have that on the Xbox. 

Come on, man. You've got fu*king gold teeth. You can afford to shell out some cash for some Xbox games. 

[via Joystiq]

Not bad, China. When you rip off something, you usually do a crap job. This? This looks like a PSPgo at first glace. Maybe even second glance. But it misses the mark on closer examination.

What you're seeing here is the PXP-2000. That's right. They seriously went with the name PXP. This is the latest in the long line of pachimono (the term for knock-offs). This one slides open, just like the PSPgo. But when you start playing, you'll notice a difference -- this does not play PSP games. Instead, you can run emulators to play NES, Gameboy, Super Nintendo and Genesis games. It also plays multimedia, has an FM tuner, sports 2GB of built-in storage, and can take more memory via an SD slot.

Wait, this sounds better than the PSPgo! I kid, Sony. Mostly.

Japanese page ITmedia says that this knock-off is supposed to sell for $149. Right.

Remember Don't Copy That Floppy? A modern day sequel was made. Yeah.

Breaking: PSPgo dismemberment reveals battery placement chicanery!

You remember when Sony said that the PSPgo battery would be untouchable in an effort to curb piracy? Well, it turns out that the battery can be removed, but that Sony thought it could simply slap a warranty-voiding sticker over the thing to try and dissuade people, rather than employ some sort of competent security.

That's about the only reason I can think of for Sony doing this, effectively ending the warranty of anybody who feels the need to replace their PSPgo battery. The battery itself is not soldered in place, which makes this sticker a rather lazy (and likely ineffective) way of discouraging homebrewers from screwing with the machine's innards. Not to mention the fact that iFixit believes patient pirates will be able to slip the battery out while leaving the sticker intact. 

In other news, the PSPgo has no metal framework whatsoever, meaning that its entire structural integrity is provided by a thin plastic shell. The original PSP never exactly felt durable, but you can expect this one to require as much care as a baby with brittle bone disease. One wonders how much this $250 device actually costs to make. 

Still, that battery thing is hilarious. Just whacking a sticker on the thing? Come on, Sony -- even the constant, irritating firmware updating is a better idea than this, and that idea was sh*t.

[Thanks, electro lemon]

Piracy is a hot topic for any PC developer, so when I went to check out Dragon Age: Origins in Edmonton, I took the opportunity to ask BioWare whether a loyal fanbase makes piracy less of a problem and, if not, how the studio deals with it.

"Piracy is always a problem, for all media," answers Mike Laidlaw. "Certainly offering people editions of the game that include bonus items do help encourage them to purchase the title rather than pirate it, as do options like additional content that check for valid copies of the game, these measures help because they don’t penalize the legitimate users of the game by adding additional steps to install or launch, for instance.

"Instead, they offer an incentive to the player who is running a legitimate copy of the game. This is certainly a paradigm shift away from the harsher copy protection we’ve seen in the past, and I think it’s not only working, but appreciated. It creates a friendlier environment for everyone."

Electronic Arts won itself no fans with its continued and insistant use of SecuROM in all of its products. Hopefully BioWare's commitment to treating paying customers with a little more respect will be rewarded. Knowing what pirates are like though, it's a little doubtful.

Tectoy in Brazil has this beast of a game system put together for your last last gen gaming needs. Mega Drive Guitar Idol is what they call it, though the name sounds closer to a sequel to a guitar game than a console. It comes with two six-button fighting pad controllers and this sweet-assed white five-button guitar controller. Wicked.

Inside, you'll find 87 in-memory games, including Sonic 3, Golden Axe, and even Altered Beast, all with Sega's blessing, I'm sure. Flicky, even. The main attraction is the included Guitar Idol, which contains 50 songs to play. Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, and Red Hot Chili Peppers were listed among the included bands, all with each band's blessing, I'm sure.

You can find a full list of included games and Guitar Idol songs here.

Titan Studios has dropped a rather big tease on its official blog, consisting of the above image and the simple battle cry: "Avast!" From the looks of things, pirates are coming to Fat Princess, and while I don't know quite how that would offend feminists, I'm sure they'll find a way to be upset by it.

What does this seriously mean, though? Could it be a whole new character class? Alternate costumes? Considering hats are the way classes are selected in Fat Princess, it would suggest that pirates could be a brand new unit in the game. However, it's also possible that Titan is just screwing with us, and this image means abolutely nothing. 

We'll have to sit tight and see. YARRRR!

Just last week we reported on Nintendo's new Japanese firmware update, which managed to sneak in some flash cart blockery along with Facebook functionality. Several Destructoid readers shrugged off the block, stating with confidence that it would be cracked in no time.

They were right. Today, Kotaku has a video that clearly shows that DSi firmware 1.4J has been defeated. An R4 is plugged in and a game is booted in this video where the maker goes out of his way to show that it really works. And then the guy slams his DSi shut, for some odd reason.

Of course, this isn't to say that the other flash carts work, but if they don't, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they do. And speaking of a matter of time, be on the lookout for firmware 1.5, so we can do this all over again.