14 DAY TRIAL // Given how extremely important the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops game is for its publisher, Activision, the company has already begun cracking down on pirates who got their hands on early copies of the game before its release date on November 9.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is the followup to the massively successful Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which managed to sell over 20 million copies worldwide since it was launched last year.
As such, Activision, the publisher of the Call of Duty franchise, is taking serious measures to prevent people from getting their hands on the game before the release date in next month.
That hasn't stopped some people from coming into possession of early copies of the game, specifically versions for the Xbox 360 console.
As such, Activision has employed several private detectives and specialty firms across the USA to crack down on the pirates and get back the early copies.
Don't go thinking Activision unleashed violence, as early reports say that the detectives are quite polite and don't want to punish those that bought early copies of the game, even though what they did was illegal.
"The investigators are... approaching the pirates and telling them to please stop selling illegal copies of the game," says a report from VentureBeat.
According to that same article, Activision has employed IP Cybercrime, a company specialized in tracking down counterfeiters, pirates and shutting down their physical operations.
According to the boss of the company, Rob Holmes, the first copies of Call of Duty: Black Ops appeared around college campuses, and then spread like wildfire to locations from Mississippi to Alabama or Georgia.
"One way they can identify pirates is by seeing them play the game online on the Xbox Live online gaming service," revealed VentureBeat. "Microsoft can easily spot those playing a game before its release. It turns over the identification of those players to Activision Blizzard, which hands it to its investigators. Those investigators can take the data and track down a real person."
"We know that a couple of leaks start and then it can spread like crazy," said Holmes.
The company's investigators met with the pirates in several locations and asked them to stop sharing or selling the copies of Black Ops, and asked where they got them in the first place.
According to the report, most pirates were cooperative, but when they weren't, the investigators teamed up with the FBI.
Call of Duty: Black Ops will arrive on November 9 across the world on the PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.
If you want to play it early, then expect Activision's enforcers to come knocking at your door.