Anodyne Devs Hit It Big With The Pirate Bay Promo

[Andy Chalk]

Anodyne Devs Hit It Big With The Pirate Bay Promo

The developers of Anodyne say that a Pirate Bay Promo for the game was a huge success that cost them almost nothing.

When the indie game Anodyne turned up on The Pirate Bay, the developers tried to turn the situation to their favor by asking downloaders to give the game a vote on Steam Greenlight, and even tossed out a few codes for free copies of the game on Desura for good measure. "Piracy is inevitable so it's better to embrace it," Anodyne co-creator Sean Hogan explained [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122054-Anodyne-Developer-Turns-Piracy-Into-PR]. They then took things a step further with a "Pirate Bay Promo," offering the game for as low as $1 on the Humble Store and accepting payment via BitCoin alongside the usual PayPal and credit cards.

As it turns out, ending up on The Pirate Bay is likely the best thing that could have happened to the game. "Over the 10 days after release before the Promo Bay, I think we accumulated 40k uniques. This resulted in around 800-900 sales between all of our channels, at an average price of I think $8. Over that time, we got a number of reviews and videos to drive traffic!" Hogan wrote.

During the 72 hours of The Pirate Bay promotion, however, sales "far exceeded" that ten day stretch, breaking $12,000, and its position on Steam Greenlight also increased dramatically. The Anodyne site received roughly 240,000 unique views over the promo period, with most coming from The Pirate Bay.

"The Promo Bay far exceeded what our sales cycle would have been if we just went on as normal - sales were dying down around the start of the promo. We made twice as much revenue as we did in the past 10 days (plus the pre-orders), many more visitors, votes, etc." Hogan explained.

"Does the promo work? Yes! I think everything is much better off now - revenue, people playing, fans, etc, than we were before the promo," he continued. "I definitely encourage trying something similar with the Promo Bay if you're able to."

Source: Anodyne Devblog [http://seagaia.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/anodyne-pirate-bay-promo-post-mortem/]


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[Tanis]

It's finally happened...full circle.

 

[Little Gray]

Who needs publishers when you have pirates?

People who make games for a living and not those who do it in their spare time. Yes they got some sales and free advertising but the total amount they have made is still chump change.

 

[Crazie_Guy]

Well, that's just how it works. If you're small, piracy can only help get you out there. By the time piracy can start to hurt your bottom line, that bottom line is so broad it doesn't matter. I guess that makes piracy a modern robin-hoodism.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Who needs publishers when you have pirates?

People who make games for a living and not those who do it in their spare time. Yes they got some sales and free advertising but the total amount they have made is still chump change.

Compared to a AAA release like COD yes it is small change.

But to a Dev team trying to break out onto the market and trying to get more attention this is gold.

 

[razer17]

Pretty sure every thing in this article is a lie, since pirates never pay for anything they can get for free, and every download is a lost sale, therefore the promo bay won't have gained them any money, right?

 

[KeyMaster45]

And now we wait for the slew of white knights to ride in and say this doesn't prove anything, blah, blah, blah.

*looks up at posts above his*

Oh look, they're already here; let me just set up my seat.

 

[cerebus23]

its been the same way for music, all too often the small bands and the like the best way was to put music out on file sharing and whatnot so people would hear it at lest.

small studios tend to get more pluses then minuses from piracy, simply due to the fact that their games get far more exposure than they are going to get out of any marketing they can afford. if a games is good even that drives a small percentage of pirates to buy games.

if devs play it hip like this that only helps get them more articles in the gaming web press that is more exposure for them free of charge compared to ad buys. that boosts some sales there. and heck if all the dev is saying go here vote for us if you like this that takes even the most stingy greedy evil pirate out there all of 30 seconds to visit the page and click like or vote or w/e.

he practically hit this one out of the park.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Who needs publishers when you have pirates?

Better questions is: Who needs pirates when you have publishers?

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Who needs publishers when you have pirates?

Better questions is: Who needs pirates when you have publishers?

And who needs publishers when you have China?

Game, set and match Mr. BSTrD. Well done. Hey, at least China opened a LoL restaurant. Can't hate that, I guess...

 

[Little Gray]

Who needs publishers when you have pirates?

People who make games for a living and not those who do it in their spare time. Yes they got some sales and free advertising but the total amount they have made is still chump change.

Compared to a AAA release like COD yes it is small change.

But to a Dev team trying to break out onto the market and trying to get more attention this is gold.

If you are a single person dev team and are releasing a game every three or four months then sure its fine. Other then that you wont be making enough to live on. From the numbers that he gave that is only around $20,000 before all of the expenses are taken off.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Glad it worked out for them, I don't think I could do that if I were to make a game.

 

[Artemis923]

If your product doesn't suck, people will buy it.

Common sense, no?

 

[Strazdas]

Stop flaming eachother. Stop and learn from this.

 

[chikusho]

Great example of how free content spreading helps a game find an audience.

 

[SoulSalmon]

Pretty sure every thing in this article is a lie, since pirates never pay for anything they can get for free, and every download is a lost sale, therefore the promo bay won't have gained them any money, right?

I've had a long day, so for a few seconds there I thought you were completely serious

But yeah I'm glad this worked out for them, it's almost surprising how generous pirates can get when a company treats them like people instead of gimping the legal copies of the game with obtrusive DRM (Making the pirated version better then the regular version) and then insulting them all.