A St. Louis modder/reseller brazen enough to advertise early copies of Gears of War 2 out in the open on Craigslist just got his ass handed to him in court. Technically, it's a settlement, but looking at the terms, this guy sued for peace with an unconditional surrender to Epic Games.

Roger Altmeyer and the "St. Louis Mod Shop" is barred from selling Gears of War 2 ever again. Furthermore, he'd been advertising modded Xboxes that would play it and other illegal copies of games online. He's out of that business too, for good. He also has to turn over all his remaining mod stock, any parts "capable of circumventing copyright restrictions," assist Epic in identifying others violating copyright restrictions, pay Epic some money and say he's real sorry, in public. My guess is lawyer fees is on top of that prize package too.

Epic spotted the ads and sued Altmeyer on Oct. 31. That means this sucker got resolved at the legal equivalent of warp 9. Epic's lawyer-mans said modders and pirates are increasingly a problem, but difficult to stamp out — unless they all but drive up to Cliffy B's front door and fire off a signal flare, which is about what Altmeyer did. Epic said the ads were "pretty hard to ignore." Another reason word-of-mouth is the best business.