Video Game Piracy Taken Literally

What better way to round off a day of arguing about gaming piracy than with some perspective. Real, rather frightening gaming piracy. From an article in the Washington Post:

Apparently pirates in the vicinity of Somalia have been stepping up attacks on [videogame carrying] trade ships beyond the Horn of Africa into the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, imperiling access to the Suez Canal. Those attacks are up from one every few weeks to four in a single day, according to Sam Dawson of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), speaking to Reuters. "This is not just guys in little fishing boats anymore," says Dawson. "We know there are three probably ex-Soviet trawlers acting as mother ships."

It seems these gun-carrying pirates could force a change to the trade routes, adding three weeks onto deliveries of games and gaming systems to Europe, which could be an issue for Christmas. And a slightly more immediate issue for the crews of those trade ships. The International Transport Workers' Federation's Sam Dawson told Reuters,

"Despite all the publicity over piracy it will really hit home when consumers in the West find they haven't got their Nintendo gifts this Christmas."

It's not clear what other video games might be affected, but you've got to assume this will include much in the way of PC tech, if not PC games.

My plan for dealing with this? Send out false boats carrying only demos of games.

Via GamePolitics, and the link from Larington in the comments thread below.