Halo: Reach Stolen from Xbox Live, Leaked Online

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insider3

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$1,250 or 99,999 points to play a game 3 weeks early? That's what Microsoft gets for trying to be greedy, as if it weren't going to be pirated anyways.
 

DJ-of-E

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You do have to realize game reviews, especially high profile titles, are big in terms of business revenue. Being first to review comes with more viewers, google search, and net traffic that can lead to more ad revenue. It's not as simple as "click my banner here."
 

tapnick

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$1,250 or 99,999 points to play a game 3 weeks early? That's what Microsoft gets for trying to be greedy, as if it weren't going to be pirated anyways.

They were making it available for companies who review games at that price. If your a game marketing company thats more then a reasonable price to get your hands on the game and crank out some good reviews. Don't be so quick to point the evil finger at MS, this is industry standard stuff.
 

2real

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[citation][nom]burnley14[/nom]So jealous. Man I wish I had high-profile access and lots of cash to blow. Is that asking too much?[/citation]
go work for a company then that is what this release was intended for
 

hellwig

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Ok, so the game isn't going to be released for a couple weeks, but they'll let you pay (a lot) to review it today? If the game were ready to play, it would be released today. Nothing like paying to review a pre-release version of a product.

Besides, this seems to go against normal review policy? Don't most companies wait until they get a free copy to review something? I'm pretty sure that's the only reason we haven't seen a Starcraft II review here at Tom's (because I don't think Blizzard can legally keep Tom's from just purchasing a retail copy and playing it).

That's why agencies like Consumer Reports are the only ones with any real integrity. They don't accept free products for review, nor would they pay for early access like this. They purchase retail products from retail stores and test those, to make sure what they review is what the public gets.

 

Prince_Porter

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[citation][nom]hellwig[/nom]Ok, so the game isn't going to be released for a couple weeks, but they'll let you pay (a lot) to review it today? If the game were ready to play, it would be released today. Nothing like paying to review a pre-release version of a product.[/citation]

It takes quite some time to get the game into it's final form. Once this happens, they send it off to production to make millions of copies of the game. This takes a very long time since they need to create the disks, packaging, and get it all ready for stores. The game is 100% done at this point, it's just not done production of all it's physical copies. Beyond that, it may even be done that, but they're waiting on the release date for marketing purposes.
 

rooket

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these ads that cover the ENTIRE article are rather annoying and I don't even read them. looks like it has changed now but I guess I won't ever buy anything from HP again lol.

It was bad enough when it was a mouse over one that filled 1/2 of the page. this is pretty bad, tom's..
 

rooket

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at any rate, halo reach? bargain bin. isn't the last halo game that came out like $11 now? lol. why do they bother making more, but I guess I could say the same for crysis...probably would get a whipping on here for that though ;)
 

eklipz330

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[citation][nom]Trueno07[/nom]Hahaha console Piracy, how cute![/citation]
wait YA DIDN'T HEAR THE BIG NEWS?!

CONSOLE GAMING IS DYING!! =O
 

mikem_90

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[citation][nom]hellwig[/nom]Ok, so the game isn't going to be released for a couple weeks, but they'll let you pay (a lot) to review it today? If the game were ready to play, it would be released today. Nothing like paying to review a pre-release version of a product.Besides, this seems to go against normal review policy? Don't most companies wait until they get a free copy to review something? I'm pretty sure that's the only reason we haven't seen a Starcraft II review here at Tom's (because I don't think Blizzard can legally keep Tom's from just purchasing a retail copy and playing it).That's why agencies like Consumer Reports are the only ones with any real integrity. They don't accept free products for review, nor would they pay for early access like this. They purchase retail products from retail stores and test those, to make sure what they review is what the public gets.[/citation]

Having such a high price kind of sidelines all the not so serious reviews, leaving it to larger media outlets. It also limits access some. Like Prince_Porter said, they have to come up with a few release candidate versions, and once its good, time is running out, they code freeze it and send to manufacturing.

As for reviews, a company can ask that no one review it before its release with NDAs, or ask only certain aspects released.

Afterwards, it would be silly to restrict. I don't think Toms is not reviewing it because of anything blizzard says, just that toms doesn't have a history of reviewing too many games that I recall. Mostly hardware. (Hence: Toms HARDWARE).

Even if a company asked for no one to review it afterwards, you could violate that all you want, but don't expect to be invited to any "Pre-Release Sneak Peek" events in the future.
 

N.Broekhuijsen

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[citation][nom]eklipz330[/nom]wait YA DIDN'T HEAR THE BIG NEWS?!CONSOLE GAMING IS DYING!! =O[/citation]
oh dear god

PLEASE!!!! PLEASE DIE DIE DIE !!!!!!

just hoping that is not too much to ask for...
 

Supertrek32

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[citation][nom]hellwig[/nom]Ok, so the game isn't going to be released for a couple weeks, but they'll let you pay (a lot) to review it today? If the game were ready to play, it would be released today. Nothing like paying to review a pre-release version of a product.[/citation]
It's gone gold, which means all the content is final. The only way anything will change is if the game fails to pass MS certification - which I'm sure it did since MS is now releasing it for review. Even if it didn't, differences would be minor.

[citation]Besides, this seems to go against normal review policy? Don't most companies wait until they get a free copy to review something? I'm pretty sure that's the only reason we haven't seen a Starcraft II review here at Tom's (because I don't think Blizzard can legally keep Tom's from just purchasing a retail copy and playing it).[/citation]
This is only true for small-scale reviews. Tom's isn't a game reviewing site, so there's no emphasis to do something like this. On the otherhand, a site like IGN would view this as a great opportunity. They high price will easily be offset by the ad revenue they'll make off the increased traffic.

The high price isn't due to greed, it's to prevent everyone and their brother from dishing out a little extra to get a copy of the game early. They're insuring 99% of people who buy it early are doing it to make money - which means reviewing it.
 

f-14

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"...it was being made available to certain people... "

translation: it shouldn't be hard to look at whose playing it on their xbox service, match accounts to authorized IP's and ban the other IP's.
 

mikem_90

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[citation][nom]f-14[/nom]"...it was being made available to certain people... "translation: it shouldn't be hard to look at whose playing it on their xbox service, match accounts to authorized IP's and ban the other IP's.[/citation]

Not if a review magazine gives the game to its reviewers to take home and play on the weekend. if you're Salary (and sometimes if not!), you might just get homework to do something like that.
 
G

Guest

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It was an incomplete, beta/debug/review version of the game. Many filters and bug fixes are missing, and spotting this version online would be quite easy for MS on multiple levels (ever seen a debug mode in action online?). People also seem to misunderstand the price point. Reviewers don't pay for the games they review! The 99,999 ms points price was to "deter" ordinary people from attempting to purchase it, should they stumble across it. Even if they did spend the $1250 on ms points (people actually did!), there was a 25 digit unlock code, given only to the media. Without the code, no game. In short, these yuks could have waited 30 days and paid $60 for the full, awesome, finished version rather than tedious days of compiling for an unfinished, bug laden version not meant for release. I only hope these exploits don't open the door to the type of modding/hacking we saw in the console release of Modern Warfare 2. Effectively ruined that game for everyone. THAT is my concern...
 
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