A few days after announcing that a British woman has to pay £16,000 in restitution to TopWare Interactive for illegally uploading a copy of a 3D pinball game, Atari, Reality Pump, Techland and Codemasters will also help bring the fight against game sharers.
The five companies have recruited commercial law firm Davenport Lyons to help them get file sharers to pay a £300 fine to settle out of court. People who refuse to pay out of court risk the chance of going to court where the end result could be a fine much higher than the out of court settlement the game publishers are requesting.
"Our clients were incensed by the level of illegal downloading. In the first 14 days since Topware Interactive released Dream Pinball 3D it sold 800 legitimate copies but was illegally downloaded 12,000 times. Hopefully people will think twice if they risk being taken to court," Davenport Lyons partner Roget Billens told the Times Online.
The law firm has already successfully acquired the home addresses of 5,000 suspected file sharers, and wants to acquire at least 25,000 more addresses.
The music and movie trade groups are both engaged in a long-term war against file sharers, but this marks one of the first times video game publishers have shown interest in bringing down people who illegally share video games.
But some within the video game industry have not supported such a move to stop online file sharing of video games. For example, EA Sports president Peter Moore said that suing file sharers has not worked for the music industry, and could further alienate gamers. Moore and executives with the same mindset believe the companies have a right to protect themselves, but need to internally create anti-piracy measures that are not intrusive to gamers and don't involve filing lawsuits in an attempt to get gamers to pay out of court settlements.
