Thread: “I Leaked Black Ops” – Confessions of an Xbox 360 Pirate

Last month, with the gaming community waiting eagerly for the release of Black Ops, the latest instalment in the Call of Duty series, news broke that that developer Treyarch was feverishly trying to contain a potential leak of the game. While partially successful, Black Ops still leaked a week before its due date. This is the story of how.

In mid-October it was reported that Xbox 360 retail versions of the much-awaited Black Ops game had been stolen from an Alabama pressing plant and that Treyarch’s community manager, Josh Olin, had been desperately trying to contain the problem. Here’s the inside story of that leak, how it was contained and how the pirates won in the end.

Apparently someone who had acquired a copy of Black Ops had offered one of the copies to an Internet user known as ‘Ungodly Leaker’, someone who was also allegedly involved in the earlier leak of Halo:Reach. In order to raise funds to buy the game (the seller wanted around $450 for it), Ungodly Leaker started gathering donations on an Internet forum, which for the purposes of this article shall remain nameless.

Funds gathered, and it was time to get hold of the game. The seller wasn’t within driving distance of the small group involved with the purchase, so someone who they barely knew but had gained some trust was given half of the donated funds as an advance and given the task of physically collecting the disc.

But there was a problem. Someone who appeared to be Treyarch’s Josh Olin was watching the whole deal going down. Sources with access to privileged information told TorrentFreak that after IP address checks, it was confirmed to be really him.

Olin went on to warn a handful of members of the forum about not leaking the game – somehow he had managed to find out their personal telephone numbers. It was agreed with Olin that the copy of the game would be collected by Treyarch and taken back into safe care.

Although Treyarch were successful this time, other sources for Black Ops were on the loose.



“A week or so later I start to get some real good leads, some of my usual contacts/sources were notifying me that they would be getting the game within the next few days and would sell it to me for a decent price,” a key figure in the eventual leak of the Xbox 360 version of Black Ops told TorrentFreak.

“Obviously I kept pretty quiet about it, it’s always the best thing to do with something like this. You never know what could happen.”

By October 30th, T.P as he is known, had two separate people who said they were willing to supply the game. But the 30th was a Saturday which meant that the game would delivered by 2nd November at the earliest – not nearly quick enough for someone used to the efficiency of digital transfers.

Unexpectedly, however, another source appeared – one that had not only got the game but had already and conveniently ripped it to an ISO. Confirmed as legitimate, the deal was on. For $50.

Source: “I Leaked Black Ops” – Confessions of an Xbox 360 Pirate | TorrentFreak

interesting read