Moore Doesn’t Support Suing File Sharers

EA Sports boss Peter Moore (photo) surprised many game publishers when he declared he doesn’t agree with moving against consumers who have illegally downloaded games. He also gives a simple,short, and prompt reason for it: "It didn't work for the music industry."

After we reported about five major games companies suing 25,000 file-sharers, Moore gave a speech to Eurogamer at the Leipzig Games Convention, saying "I'm not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer. Albeit these people have clearly stolen intellectual property, I think there are better ways of resolving this within our power as developers and publishers."

Although he doesn’t hesitate calling illegal downloading stealing, Moore stresses the need for a solution that would not harm consumers:

"I think there are better solutions than chasing people for money. I'm not sure what they are, other than to build game experiences that make it more difficult for there to be any value in pirating games."

As Moore put it, we all should have learned something by now from what the other industries experienced when faced with the phenomenon. "If we learned anything from the music business, they just don't win any friends by suing their consumers," he pointed out. "Speaking personally, I think our industry does not want to fall foul of what happened with music."

Replying to the question whether EA intends to adopt the same approach as Atari, Codemasters and the other publishers taking the matter to the court, Moore said: "Not as far as I'm aware. Regarding what EA needs to do – I can't comment on that. EA takes piracy very seriously, and people deserve to get paid for content they create.But as far as I'm aware, we have no plans, that I know of, to partner with Atari and Codemasters and chase down consumers," he added.

For the whole interview with Moore, in which he also tackles other subjects like EA, E3 and the console race, go to Eurogamer.net.