Yes, this is one of the posts where the title says it all, because yes, some amazingly intelligent life form spent almost $2000 for an illegal copy of Modern Warfare 3, which was acquired from eBay. There are a number of things to address about the abject stupidity on display for such impatience, but first and foremost, the game comes out in about three days, which is the amount of time it will take for the item to be shipped to the buyer.
This means the person was smart enough to acquire almost two grand worth of disposable money, but they weren’t smart enough to do simple math in regards to shipping dates and the game’s official release date, which is November 8th.
Unfortunately, the eBay auction in question is can no longer be viewed, but Destructoid was kind enough to take a screenshot:
So, not only was the math ignored, the person who made the purchase overpaid for an item that could very well get them kicked off of Xbox Live, especially if they try to play it online.
As a Destructoid comment pointed out, someone should give kudos to the seller for making such a nice sum for a game that will be available on Tuesday morning for around $60. Now, it’s true the buyer could’ve duped the seller by bailing out on the sale, but if it actually went through as a legitimate purchase, the person who paid that much for a game that comes out after the weekend deserves all the scorn in the world.
Something else that occurred to me concerning the purchase of a copy of a game that hasn’t been made publicly available yet, if the PROTECT-IP act goes through, would eBay be liable for facilitating the acquisition of an illegal copy of what’s almost guaranteed to be a huge-selling video game? If illegal streaming sites are punishable for having the content, what about the largest online auction house in the world?
Hopefully, that little allegory shows just how misguided the PROTECT-IP act is, especially when you have non-tech savvy politicians trying to regulate a technology they clearly don’t understand.