It’s no secret that piracy is rampant in the games industry, particularly when it comes to PC titles. While it’s impossible to pin down the exact amount of revenue lost due to the practice, some publishers would have you believe that millions in sales are lost every year due to nefarious types who download their games or buy bootlegged copies as opposed to purchasing legal retail copies.

The latest response by the industry has been to serve up lawsuits for anyone caught pirating a game, with five different companies announcing that they are suing a collective 25,000 gamers for their roles in taking something which doesn’t belong to them.

While there is a lot of support for the action, EA Sports boss Peter Moore thinks that suing consumers is a horrible mistake, one which will only lead to more problems down the line. He likens it to the RIAA and the music industry, who have unsuccessfully attempted to litigate their problems away, and as a result have alienated a lot of fans and caused a whole heap of ill-will on both sides. Said Moore:

"I’m not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer. 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. 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."

Moore has a good point, as the record industry lawsuits have done little to stem the tide of people downloading free music from services like LimeWire, and most lawsuits have either been thrown out or so muddied up in court that the record execs have pretty much given up on going after consumers. Perhaps the best solution of all is just to steal all the pirates’ limes, then they’ll die from scurvy.