Permabans for Those Who Play Forza 3 and Borderlands When They Shouldn't

Forza 3 and Borderlands haven't been officially launched yet, but that doesn't mean the games can't be found somewhere. If we look back at the X Men: Origins movie, it became available as a pirated version, as an unfinished work-print, way before the film was in theaters. So as long as the will exists, there will always be a way. With that being said, apparently somewhere out there there are working copies of Forza 3 and Borderlands. Especially since Microsoft announced that they would permanently ban those who played these games before they were officially released.

Stephen Toulouse, Xbox Live director of policy and enforcement, explained this very well. "You know, when you play a pre-release title on LIVE when I know you shouldn't have it, it's not hard for me to figure out," he posted as a tweeter message. And he would be right; it doesn't take a genius to figure out this little loophole in the piracy scheme. Still, even if this seems like a great idea to combat piracy, it only does so on the first glance. If you actually take a step back and look at the whole thing you'll see just how limited it is in its practicality.

This doesn't mean you can't still get a pirated copy of the game, wait and play it as soon as it hits the shelves, but it kind of defeats the purpose. After all, to go to all the trouble of finding a pre-release pirated version of the game and go through endless routine of checking to see if it carries any malevolent viruses and then not play it seems a little bit pointless and cruel. There's no logic really in desperately chasing through the dessert for a sip of water if you're only gonna save it for when you've reached the oasis.

So, in the end, the anti-piracy idea is short-lived. First, you can still play the game as a pre-release if you have a receipt, since Toulouse explained that "in general, if you got a receipt, play away. These are illegit copies we're hitting." So with a little bit of charisma maybe you can talk your way out of it and say that you are a game editor for an online publication and that you got the game from the developers themselves for a preview. And second, you can just wait until the game is released and then play your pirated copy.