Rodney Gray can now and forever be placed into the category of the one world's dumbest criminals. The Technicolor employee from Memphis, Tennessee, stole not only 807 DVDs from the packaging, warehousing, and distribution company he worked for but also over 100 copies of the Xbox 360 exclusives Gears of War 2 and Fable 2 to sell on the street.
According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, police were alerted when a security guard for Technicolor reported the theft of the different media discs. After staking out Gray at his hotel, police pulled him over last Thursday for outstanding driving offenses and found 31 copies of the games in a bag he had on his person. Upon entering his hotel room, they found 97 copies of the games along with the 807 unreleased DVDs. Police are unsure how many had already been sold on the street, but they are estimating the total worth of the merchandise at over $100,000, and they are currently investigating an unnamed companion in the theft.
These leaked games will hurt the possibility of Technicolor acquiring future contracts with developers and movie studios, but the theft also hurts the consumer and gaming companies as well. It puts the game out on the street and probably onto torrent sites, which will not only account for lost income for the gaming developers and publishers due to piracy but will also negatively affect the reputation of gamers.
Fable 2 is expected to be released today, so hopefully the theft will not affect Lionhead much, but Gears of War 2 is not hitting shelves until November 7. One can only imagine how that will compromise Epic's highly-anticipated title. I do not know if Gray is a gamer or not, but any gamer purchasing a stolen game off the street should know better.