Indie game developer strikes back at pirates

[barackopala]

I just played through a pirated copy of saints row 3. i found it really good but wont buy it. I found it so good that i joined a chat room and recommended it to the people there. i think at least 1 of them will buy it because of this, which he wouldnt have since he didnt even know it.
Also i might buy saints row 4 the day it comes out. i will still pirate all dlcs because i will never support dlcs... but thats it. it isnt always that easy.

This is somewhat twisted, the game was like almost free on the THQ bundle, yet you bought it and you enjoyed it, then support the dev?

[Sevyvia]

Well why not sell games for $20-40 and not for a ridiculously high $60 price. For as long as games remain that expensive WoW will be the only game that i will bother paying for, simple as that.

And for as long as you (And loads of other entitled brats) keep up that attitude, you will deserve all the shitty, "safe" games that get made because the industry is afraid of releasing anything else once it gets to the AAA level.

[Krolikn]

Well why not sell games for $20-40 and not for a ridiculously high $60 price. For as long as games remain that expensive WoW will be the only game that i will bother paying for, simple as that.

If you don't have enough money for games then you dont get to play them. Simple as that. Its time to grow up and be an adult.

[barackopala]

If you don't have enough money for games then you dont get to play them. Simple as that. Its time to grow up and be an adult.

Or just wait patiently for prices to lower, in my case im at college and can't affod a lot of the $60 titles and just wait for steam sales to pick them up in a bulk, sometimes I get a fuck ton of 2010-2009 games (which are considered old games) for like $60, it's not like the game industry has got only high prices, it's extremely flexible to every wallet.

[juzalol]

I think what they have done is awesome. Not only does it send a message to people who pirate games without thinking of the consequences, but it promotes their game, which I have never heard of and probably never would have if not for this.

Promoting the game is the only reason for the article. It's a successful marketing plot to
promote the game without spending any money.

I haven't pirated stuff for quite a few years, but I did pirate Game Dev Tycoon. I mean hell, if the devs put it
out themselves I'm "pirating" it!

Actually I did "pirate" Heroes 6 after purchasing it from steam and not being able to play it for 2 days because
of shitty DRM. It's funny how you throw money at something and still get better service by downloading an illegal
copy of the game. I'm not touching anything from Ubisoft, especially anything related to uPlay ever again.

If your game suffers from high amount of piracy your price point does not reflect the quality and quantity of the
content you provide. If you make a good game for a reasonable price people will buy it.

[crazymack]

my insides hurt

[Mormolyce]

Well why not sell games for $20-40 and not for a ridiculously high $60 price. For as long as games remain that expensive WoW will be the only game that i will bother paying for, simple as that.

Would you be happy paying $20 for a game with 1/3rd the levels, 1/3rd the models, 1/3rd the graphics...

I don't get this complaining anyway considering you can pick up almost any PC game a year later in the $10 bin. So what if you aren't playing every game at release? That's the cost of being a cheapskate.

Hell I remember when I was a kid and games would come out at $100 at release. Damn Australian dollar!

---------- Post added 2013-05-08 at 04:19 AM ----------

Actually I did "pirate" Heroes 6 after purchasing it from steam and not being able to play it for 2 days because
of shitty DRM. It's funny how you throw money at something and still get better service by downloading an illegal
copy of the game.

I'll never forget buying D2 and finding it constantly screwing up in my CD drive because of the crappy old Securom technology designed to stop you burning copies. The solution? Burn a copy, it'll play fine.

[endersblade]

If you don't have enough money for games then you dont get to play them. Simple as that. Its time to grow up and be an adult.

I'm so glad you have such a cut and dry, black and white view of the world. You're going places, yessir.

Games are too fucking expensive for what you get. Remember NES games? I can't tell you how many fucking times I beat Super Mario Bros. Or Contra. Blaster Master. These games last maybe 1-2 hours at MOST. But I kept going through them hundreds of times, because I actually enjoyed it.

Now a days, we get games that report 60, 80, 100+ HOURS of playtime! As in, if you are a completionist and do every minute little thing in the game, you might hit this magic number. Or worse, games lately are really, really slacking in either gameplay, story, or both. Games just don't grab us anymore like they used to. And on top of that, many, many companies have completely stopped listening to their customers. They release games that are 'new and innovative' that do nothing more than agitate their playerbase for not being what people expected. (Dragon Age 2 much?) Companies have stopped following the adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and have started following, "If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is".

Of course, there's the whole EA approach. Take a series that started out amazingly solid, had a huge playerbase, and then just copypasta the game ad naseum with better graphics over and over again and make as much money as you possibly can until the series runs dry. Or similarly, taking advantage of a licensed IP, releasing craptastic games under the title, and rake in the money from the die-hard followers.

Anyone remember (and if you do, my condolences) the latest and greatest Terminator game? Salvation I think it was called? Game lasted about 8 hours. Eight boring, monotonously repetitive hours. And they charged $60 for that shit.

Then there's Skyrim. Is Skyrim a good game? Debatable. I happen to like it. But the game, like most Bethesda games, was more buggy at RELEASE than most games in BETA. There's a growing theory amongst the modding community that Bethesda's stance is, "Meh, the modders will fix it for us." Because that's what happens. A 'good' game riddled with millions of bugs gets released, people pay full price for it, sometimes it doesn't even run right out of the box, and the modders descend on it like a pack of dogs on a three legged cat. They disassemble it, find the bugs, fix the bugs, and release mods so everyone else can have a game with fewer bugs. Basically, gaming companies that rely on their playerbase to make their games playable. Hell, maybe we should start paying the modders instead.

[Prag]

Pirated copies do not equal lost sales.

Hi friend.

$225,000,000,000 was spent online in 2012. That's just what was reported to the Dept of Commerce for the USA and only retail. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with a metric for online services but it's not a small sector by any means with all of the LegalZoom and consulting-type jobs.

If you don't consider digital goods to be tangible product at this point, you're a fucking caveman.

[RickJamesLich]

The whole news, the whole topic revolves around the idea of a developer releasing this "version of the game" which ended up with a lot of counterpoints found in reddit, for example the seeds for the torrent a few hours later was 0, nobody gave a single fuck about the game, the data backed by the dev is not entirely true... The game is a ripoff of an iOS game that is fairly known, but his isn't, in fact, it isn't even in steam but this "issue" made him a fuckton of free publicity.

So another game ripped off of the piracy mechanic? lol, if so, that sucks, otherwise, this dude is a genius. They say the best artist doesn't tell you his message, he makes you *feel* it, I think the guy did his job here.

[Deleted]

Hi friend.

$225,000,000,000 was spent online in 2012. That's just what was reported to the Dept of Commerce for the USA and only retail. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with a metric for online services but it's not a small sector by any means with all of the LegalZoom and consulting-type jobs.

If you don't consider digital goods to be tangible product at this point, you're a fucking caveman.

There's no link between what you quoted and what you said...
Or maybe you quoted the wrong person.

[someotherguy]

This was just a brilliant marketing scheme.
He hardly did any marketing regarding the game, but he went on to distribute "hacked" game for free. Than he wrote a blog on it, and linked to it from several high profile places. Story got picked up by mainstream media (CNN).
This is just a brilliant marketing campaign.

[NotLuto]

So you're okay with pouring all your time and money into making something and then people just take it for free?

Shareware games used to exist.

[Deleted]

And since you aren't a paying customer, your opinion on the games you didn't buy don't mean shit. Congratulations, you listened to a few dozen bitter nerds who write an opinion and call it a review. You didn't even go with the majority since thousands of people just WATCH other people on Twitch play those games. That obviously doesn't even scratch the surface of the people who enjoy them.

But no... Possibly not liking something is totally a legitimate reason to steal it. Lol.

I'm more angry at the nerds who overhyped a shitty game and made me buy it.

I was not trying to give my opinion and feedback about certain games. I was giving an explanation of why I didn't buy them. I am not entitled to games at all. Neither am I an idiot to like getting my wallet sodomized by gaming companies with their filthy lies, and shallow tricks, which happened several times already.

The game doesn't make you obliged to grind to embrace fun in most parts of the game, you could do a dungeon while being underleveld, the dungeon scales you

You missed the point miles away. I don't care there are a few other ways to "level up". First the game is not only about leveling up, second they still didn't kept to their manifesto. Here it is, and don't tell me it isn't bullshit.

There's a growing theory amongst the modding community that Bethesda's stance is, "Meh, the modders will fix it for us."

That's not a theory, it's a fact. You don't even need to be a modder to figure this out, it's crystal clear for any individual.

[Nerraw]

Shareware games used to exist.

Yeah, and those consisted of only parts of the full game. So basically glorified demos. This game confirms that even if developers release a demo (Game Dev Tycoon had one out for a week or two before the full release), people will pirate the crap out of it.

[Sealed]

Would you be happy paying $20 for a game with 1/3rd the levels, 1/3rd the models, 1/3rd the graphics...

I acquired Torchlight, a game whose release retail price was ~$20, about one year ago on Steam. It felt like a bargain and I got great mileage out of it.
Then Runic Games published Torchlight 2, and compared its content with its predecessor's, even making a neat little infographic.
Notice the last line.

There's also the little fact that Torchlight had been according to them heavily pirated, which they were rather relaxed about. Allow me to quote this gem of a statement :

“You’re fighting against an immovable force by complaining and being paranoid about [piracy] and all that. We figure if we’re just nice to our customers, charge a low price for our game to begin with, don’t over-burden them with crazy DRM, and customers will be nice to us too. And so far, they have been.”

“We got a lot of letters from people saying ‘Hey, I pirated your game, but it was really cool, so I bought it.’ Y’know, we’re cool with that, we’re not as concerned about that sort of thing as other companies, especially if it makes our honest players inconvenienced. We assume that everyone is an honest player, and we want to make their experience as cool as possible.”

At this point, I feel almost like I have a duty as a responsible consumer to buy their products and support them so that they can continue to uphold this attitude as a bright example of how you conduct business and earn customers' loyalty. Thankfully, from my experience with their games so far, this seems set to be a pretty enjoyable duty.
I'm actually considering purchasing copies of Torchlight 2 for a few fellow gamers who might not know about it to spread the word.

I would argue about the topic as well, but I would only end up repeating composemail's points, so I'll leave it at that. It's refreshing to read someone that's economically literate for once.

[NotLuto]

Yeah, and those consisted of only parts of the full game. So basically glorified demos. This game confirms that even if developers release a demo (Game Dev Tycoon had one out for a week or two before the full release), people will pirate the crap out of it.

There were plenty of shareware games that were full version.

[Nerraw]

Which ones? The ones I remember were like one episode of some 3-5 episode long games. Especially Apogee had a lot of 3-episode games where the first one was free to try out.

[NotLuto]

Apogee did Commander Keen? Yeah it was episodic but each was the length of a game. I think the first Duke Nukem was shareware. Jill of the Jungle episode one, also as long as normal game. Cosmo. That's just what I remember on my first Windows 3.0 pc.

[Deleted]

I know its not realistic, since far from everyone that pirates actually buys the games for various reasons, and there is also people that pirate because of DRM and always on functions, still was a joke worth sharing

Actually all figures so far have shown that the losses due to piracy are miniscule at most. The vast majority of pirates would've never ever bought the game. What really hurts the industry are parasites such as Gamestop which etablish themselves on the back of the developers and publishers by leeching of their work without contributing in any kind of way.

That being said. This is hilarious and I love the reaction of the guy trying to research DRM. Sadly DRM only ends up hurting the people who actually play the game because pirates/crackers remove it altogether.