Oh dear... we'll be hearing about this for years to come.

I would certainly hope so. I'm not that big of an antipiracy advocate, but this is truly disgusting.

I suppose it would be an excuse to delay the game and try to put some more content in/fix the DRM system so people have a reason besides pity to buy it. Probably won't happen though.

Please pile on some more fear. For one thing, unless someone hacked into Crytek, or broke into their office physically, this has nothing to do with pirates.

Second of all, piracy is just as rampant on the consoles as it is on the PC. Haven't you been paying attention to Sony's on-going war on piracy? And when was the last leak you've heard of on the PC? My bet would be Half-life 2 which happened a hell of a long time ago.

The thing that is attractive about a closed, static platform like the PS3 or Wii, is that developers have a far easier time developing knowing that the hardware and software configuration will essentially remain constant. This is why large developers such as Rockstar develop primarily for consoles.

It's still not exactly good for your employees to leak things like this to the public. They probably violated their contract doing that.

I didn't say say a word about DRM (that's an entirely different argument all together). I wasn't talking to or about publishers/developers and their vocabulary usage. I'm stating that this specific event, has little to do with actual pirates - you know, the people who buy a game, and then proceed to upload it online with cracks, etc.

I'll admit I did it as well when I was saying that piracy is just as rampant on consoles but, give me some stats. Don't just state an opinion as fact. An article on (some) leaked console games: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/111/1115272p1.html

The game wasn't re-written... but that aside I was bringing up HL2 because that is the last time that I can recall, that a PC game was leaked. Your original post made it sound like this was a common occurrence. One leak over the past 6 or so years doesn't spell the end for PC gaming. Indie and smaller more original companies are proving this (200,000+ sales of Magicka in 17 days, over 1,000,000+ sales of Minecraft, etc).

Consoles cost less (in the short run) and are more common, so sure, there is a wide market for games produced for consoles. But developing a console game does not automatically equal great sales. And your example with Dead Space is terribly flawed: the game was released on multiple systems. So ignoring the fact that many PC gamers also own consoles, you're also taking the sales stats (or lack of cited sales stats) from two platforms and comparing them to a single platform.

DC Universe online?  Final Fantasy XI?  Two successful MMOs right there.  (not exclusives, but you didn't say just exclusives)

Also, for console release date piracy, a game capcom expects to sell 2 mil on, Marvel vs Capcom 3, many people I know are playing pirated copies right now.  A few have legit copies on a broken street date, but it's mostly piracy.   The game isn't supposed to be out for another few days.

As for RTS- that's a limitation of the controls more then anything else.  How many non-Blizzard RTS's do well these days anyways?  It's a genre about as aged as fighting games.

Halo 3 and Halo Reach were both leaked months early. The actual games. Not betas. The 360 must be in its death throes if their blockbuster title is leaked, since the beta of an decent FPS on the PC leaked is a mighty deathblow! There are actually a lot of console games leaked early.

PC gaming deterioration has much more to do with the attitude of the up and coming gamers, and the types of games they buy, regardless of their quality, than with any amount of piracy. Game development is also limited to the outdated console hardware. There are fewer of us than there are of them, and game development is not a charity.

Granted, pirating on the consoles is just slightly more intensive than pirating for the PC. If you were so inclined to try, to not fail requires that you're not an idiot, and have friends who also are incompetent enough to not know how to use google or craigslist.

I still LOL hard when publishers blame PC gamers for all the software piracy.  Because the 360, Wii, PSP, and DS haven't been modable for years and there wasn't just a huge stink that the PS3 was finally broken.  Who exactly are they fooling at this point?  Shareholders who know nothing about technology?

Anyway, it's just smoke and mirrors at this point to bring in heavier DRM that they were going to roll out regardless.  Anyone who believes otherwise is in denial.

On a side note, I fail to see why they bemoan piracy when their OWN EMPLOYEES are the ones leaking it.

I don't see why folks are calling it piracy.  It's not piracy.  This is more akin to Industrial Espionage.  A current employee leaks a copyrighted engine and game system.  The thing is, why does this individual hope to gain?  Is there any thing foreign competitors can use it for or other companies?  More to the point, the person whome leaked it must know there will be consequences, possibly even lawsuits.  What would be the pay off to make them do this?