Playing early copies?

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Playing early copies?

PostPosted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 4:03 pm

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M.Steiner
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I saw a post last week saying MS were perma banning the accounts of people caught playing early illegally obtained copies of Forza3 & Borderlands, but it also said that anyone who bought a legit early copy was fine. I expect this happens with other games before street date too but my question is are they actually able to tell somehow just who is playing a dodgy copy of a game and who is playing a proper one? Or do they just ban everyone with early activity for games like that and request a picture of your receipt or something? (Which doesn't seem very logical to me...)

Cos of the postal strikes atm my copy of Borderlands was shipped last week to ensure it arrived in time, but it's not actually released until the end of this week over here so I thought i'd wait before either my bro or I played it. Was I worrying about nothing? Tisn't really important but was just curious and thought i'd ask for future reference. :)
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Re: Playing early copies?

PostPosted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 4:26 pm

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Anubis
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From what I understand the console actually sends reports to MS when you play games with regards to the status of the copy of the game it is playing. With early 'chips' for the system this meant that users couldn't play connected to Live ever, as the console would take the first chance it got to tell MS that a backlog of copied games have been played on it. That problem has been overcome with recent methods of chipping though I understand, so in truth I'm not entirely sure how they would check in these circumstances.

If users are playing the game illegally they obviously have their console chipped, which means no reports would be sent to MS. Unless they are targetting those accounts that register having played the game that do NOT have reports attached to them? They must have some way though, I can't see them PMing dozens of Live members asking for photos of their receipts.
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Re: Playing early copies?

PostPosted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:15 pm

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M.Steiner
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Anubis wrote:They must have some way though, I can't see them PMing dozens of Live members asking for photos of their receipts.
Aye that's what I didn't get. From my limited knowledge I always understood it that if you were using one of the newer methods and the disk had been copied correctly then you were pretty much invisible nowadays and you'd only really draw attention to yourself by playing something early, but then that'd be the same for legit copies too. I mean, if they did have a way of knowing then that'd count for all games whether they were played early or not surely, which can't be the case cos lots of people do it. At the same time couldn't really see them banning everyone and asking for receipts as it's not very practical so wasn't sure what to think. Made me a bit reluctant to play the game yet or let my bro either but wasn't sure if I was just being silly heh.
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Re: Playing early copies?

PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 12:11 pm

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If you bought it legally, you have nothing to worry about.
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Re: Playing early copies?

PostPosted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:27 pm

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Fenavian
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To add to what Ed said, MS has stated that if you bought a legal copy from a store that broke street date, you will never be punished for such a thing. This banning thing is only applying to those who have modded X-Boxes, and those folks have typically acquired the game through some nefarious method.
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Re: Playing early copies?

PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:30 pm

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M.Steiner
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aye, I just played the game in the end, same with G11y Tony which was also posted early due to postal strikes. Always keep my receipts until i've completed a game anyway just incase there's something wrong with it. So apart from any inconvenience in doing so, providing pics of that and my game box wouldn't have been a prob if I had needed to really..
I never got a message or anything anyway and I was playing well before street date so they must have a way of telling yeah.

These postal strikes over here have worked quite well for game deliveries I must say, just got an e-mail yesterday to say my bro's copy of MW2 had been dispatched already heh (though annoyingly not mine lol).
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

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