2w ago - Ubisoft Community Developer Gabriel Graziani posted up a new video trailer today spotlighting Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag and the golden age of piracy below.

To quote: Every Assassin's Creed game is based in an actual historical setting, with a sense of place and time that provides the backdrop to amazing adventure fraught with peril and political intrigue.

The setting for Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag is no different! Contrary to popular belief, pirates didn't suddenly decide to become a scourge of the seas out of the clear blue sky.

The emergence of piracy was the result of decades of violent and brutal privateering that was not only sanctioned, but also bankrolled by warring naval powers of a size and scope never known before. All of this will have already happened in AC4, so we thought it would be a good idea to bring you up to speed.

The wild, nearly lawless and verdant islands of the West Indies and the towering ships that ruled them present some of the most unique and exciting stories we'd ever encountered, so we couldn't wait to show them to you in AC4.





Behind the tales you've heard, lurking in the shadows of history, the Assassins are always working to ensure that people...

13w ago - Recently a Sony patent was uncovered which may be used to detect pirated software though tracking video game load times.

Below are the details, to quote: "Sony has filed a new patent which may be useful in combating piracy.

The patent was filed by them way back in August 2011, and according to it, if the load times are not within the range they have set, the software could be flagged.

For the tech to be effective, a standard average load time has to be set–specific or range–and if any software that exceeds the time set, it will be easy to block it. This way of blocking games is a little impractical because sometimes drives may not function as expected due to wear and tear.

You can check out the description of the patent below.

For example, if an authentic game title is distributed exclusively on BDs having a total benchmark load time of 45 seconds on a game console BD drive, the acceptable range of load times could be from 40 to 50 seconds. Thus, a total measured title load time of 4 seconds would be outside of the acceptable range of total load times for a legitimate media type.

Seek time: In another example, if an authentic game title is distributed exclusively on flash drives...

65w ago - Today Scott Rhodes of Sony Worldwide Operations was asked in an interview with GamaSutra.com how they are combating piracy on the PS Vita platform, who responded that proprietary PlayStation Vita Game Cards are currently being used.

Below is an excerpt from the interview with the details, to quote: "Sony's been very, very open about the fact that piracy really hurt the PSP, so I was wondering if you could dive into a little bit about the efforts you've put into preventing that this time.

SR: That was front and center in the early specs of this machine. We needed to have something that would combat piracy from day one, and that's why the cards that you can purchase for the games are in their own proprietary format.

And these days, so many people say the word "proprietary" is a bad word, but it's something that we felt was completely necessary to make sure that people could not pirate these games. I mean, it's a custom security solution on each one of these cartridges. That is something that we are confident will protect us from piracy for the long term."

94w ago - Today Egamer.co.za (linked above) reports that South African Police Service's Commercial Crime Unit, acting on behalf of complaints received from the South African Federation Against Copyright Theft (SAFACT), has raided and consequently arrested a PS3 JailBreaker residing in Parktown, Johannesburg, South Africa along with seizing the PlayStation 3 piracy devices used to circumvent Sony's system protection.

Below is the official Press Release, to quote: PS3 JAILBREAK RAID AND ARREST

South Africa, 2ND August 2011, Johannesburg: The first PlayStation 3 jailbreak raid took place earlier today at a residential property in Parktown, Johannesburg. Jailbreak devices are used to circumvent the security features on PS3 consoles to facilitate the playing of pirated PS3 games.

The raid was conducted by the South African Police Service's Commercial Crime Unit, Johannesburg after receiving criminal complaints from the South African Federation Against Copyright Theft (SAFACT). The Police were assisted by the SARS Computer Forensics Lab.

Various state of the art computers, circumvention software packages, jailbreak USB devices, PS3 consoles and hard drives were seized. In addition fake PS2 games, original PS3 games, believed to be used as masters...

115w ago - A few weeks back we reported that Sony was hiring IP investigators as part of forming a PS3 anti-piracy program, and today Dutch site PSX-Sense (linked above) reports that they may also be recruiting PlayStation 3 hackers as well.

According to rumor, Sarah McRae contacted Koushik Dutta regarding a Software Engineer position that is opening at SCEA.

To quote, roughly translated: Something we wouldn't expect from Sony; they are recruiting hackers for a job at SCEA. A hacker named Koush got an e-mail, which is 100% real, from Sarah McRae which works onsite at the Talent Acquisition department.

He had been asked for a job at the R&D Departmen at Sony, we're sure Koushik isn't the only hacker which has been contacted by Sony. As a proof Koush posted a screenshot of the e-mail.