Ellie Gibson 14:00 (BST)
21/08/2008

EA Sports boss Peter Moore has said he doesn't support the move to sue consumers for illegal downloading - warning, "It didn't work for the music industry."

Moore was speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at the Leipzig Games Convention, following the announcement that five games companies are taking legal action against 25,000 file-sharing internet users.

"I'm not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer," he said. "Albeit these people have clearly stolen intellectual property, I think there are better ways of resolving this within our power as developers and publishers.

"Yes, we've got to find solutions," Moore continued. "We absolutely should crack down on piracy. People put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into their content and deserve to get paid for it. It's absolutely wrong, it is stealing.

"But at the same time I think there are better solutions than chasing people for money. I'm not sure what they are, other than to build game experiences that make it more difficult for there to be any value in pirating games."

According to Moore, there are lessons to be learned from the experiences of other industries. "If we learned anything from the music business, they just don't win any friends by suing their consumers," he observed. "Speaking personally, I think our industry does not want to fall foul of what happened with music."

When asked whether EA has any plans to go down the same road as Atari, Codemasters and the other publishers launching the legal action, Moore replied, "Not as far as I'm aware. Regarding what EA needs to do - I can't comment on that. EA takes piracy very seriously, and people deserve to get paid for content they create.

"But as far as I'm aware, we have no plans, that I know of, to partner with Atari and Codemasters and chase down consumers," he added.

To read the full interview with Moore, where he discusses EA, E3 and the console race, visit Eurogamer.net.