Goat Simulator Hits Number Two On The Pirate Bay's Top Ten List

[Andy Chalk]

Goat Simulator Hits Number Two On The Pirate Bay's Top Ten List

Coffee Stain Studios says the runaway piracy of Goat Simulator is a "hilarious" achievement that may actually be good for the game in the long run.

The number-one title on The Pirate Bay's list of most popular video game torrents is Minecraft; number two, ahead of Dark Souls II, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Bound By Flame and everything else floating around out there, is Goat Simulator. And that's okay with Coffee Stain boss and programmer Anton Westbergh, who described the situation as "really hilarious."

"I think it's kind of an achievement," he told PCGamesN. "My first reaction was 'Hooray! We're top on Pirate Bay. From the launch up till last week we've been in the top. I don't know how many copies that is but [it's a] heck of a lot of copies definitely."

Westbergh said he doesn't want to encourage people to pirate Goat Simulator since the goal is to actually sell the thing, but he views the high TPB ranking as a measure of interest and said that people who torrent the game probably weren't going to buy it anyway - at least not at first.

"What we try to do with our games is maintain them with lots of updates," he said. "We hope that if people really like our games they're going to convert into paying customers. If you get it from The Pirate Bay you won't have all the latest updates. I don't know if you can use the workshop but there's lots of things that you can only access if you have the real product." To that end, he added that an update is coming later this month that will implement split-screen co-op play and "other cool stuff."

And in spite of its popularity among people who don't want to pay for it, Goat Simulator has apparently been a real success story for the studio. Prior to its release, Coffee Stain was under some pressure to wrap up its next project in less than a year, but "it's pretty safe to say we have a bit more than a year now," Westbergh said. "It's really nice."

Source: PCGamesN [http://www.pcgamesn.com/indie/goat-simulator-dev-piracy-my-first-reaction-was-hooray-we-re-top-pirate-bay]


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[lacktheknack]

Considering that they said "Please don't buy this at full price, please wait for a $2 sale. ", it's really not surprising that this happened.

 

[CriticalMiss]

The number-one title on The Pirate Bay's list of most popular video game torrents is Minecraft

So not only is Minecraft one of the best selling games, it's also the best not-selling game? Someone stop this monster!

Considering that they said "Please don't buy this at full price, please wait for a $2 sale. ", it's really not surprising that this happened.

Why did they say that? Couldn't they just change the price to $2?

 

[Alterego-X]

A great example of how the piracy justification that "I'm only pirating the ones that I wouldn't buy anyways", applies to games on a far wider level than a micro-level example of being physically unable to afford a game.

Goat Simulator is exactly a type of game, that millions have a mild motive to try for a short amusement, yet very few would blindly throw money at it. People haven't freeloaded on not having to pay for the game so they could buy an extra pizza, it's more like that if not for piracy's existence, they would have bought that pizza anyways, but the game wouldn't have gone viral.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Considering that they said "Please don't buy this at full price, please wait for a $2 sale. ", it's really not surprising that this happened.

Yeah, but thing about piraters are that even if it was $1 they would still pirate it.

 

[lacktheknack]

Considering that they said "Please don't buy this at full price, please wait for a $2 sale. ", it's really not surprising that this happened.

Why did they say that? Couldn't they just change the price to $2?

For the same reason this:

To be completely honest, it would be best if you'd spend your $10 on a hula hoop, a pile of bricks, or maybe a real-life goat.

...is pasted on the front page of the game's website.

Considering that they said "Please don't buy this at full price, please wait for a $2 sale. ", it's really not surprising that this happened.

Yeah, but thing about piraters are that even if it was $1 they would still pirate it.

Ah well. It doesn't match my ethics, so I don't. It matches theirs (or their lack thereof), so they do. Life goes on and Goat Simulator keeps selling. Somehow.

 

[lacktheknack]

A great example of how the piracy justification that "I'm only pirating the ones that I wouldn't buy anyways", applies to games on a far wider level than a micro-level example of being physically unable to afford a game.

Goat Simulator is exactly a type of game, that millions have a mild motive to try for a short amusement, yet very few would blindly throw money at it. People haven't freeloaded on not having to pay for the game so they could buy an extra pizza, it's more like that if not for piracy's existence, they would have bought that pizza anyways, but the game wouldn't have gone viral.

I wouldn't go that far. The game had a frankly staggering and baffling (especially to the creators) amount of hype even before it was released. Pretty much everyone on this site couldn't agree on whether the April 1st release date meant the whole endeavour was a massive troll or not.

...and now that the game has been released, we still aren't sure. And neither of the devs. It's quite beautiful, really.

 

[dyre]

Judging from the screenshots I've seen of the game, I'm beginning to suspect that Goat Simulator may not depict an entirely accurate portrayal of being a goat.

 

[A-D.]

Considering that they said "Please don't buy this at full price, please wait for a $2 sale. ", it's really not surprising that this happened.

Yeah, but thing about piraters are that even if it was $1 they would still pirate it.

Not really, well some would but you cant really round them all up into an one-size-fits-all category. There are pirates who pirate because of lack of funds, or for "testing purposes" in the sense of checking first if the game is good enough to throw money at it.

The number of "free is best"-pirates is actually rather small compared to any other reason people actually resort to piracy in the first place. I mean consider that the game is just dumb, broken, fun in essence. It has no goal, no plot, nothing but an insane goat doing wierd shit, would you actually pirate that if you werent at least somewhat interested in seeing whats so good about it that people keep losing their shit over it?

 

[Skeleon]

I'll get it once it's part of some indie bundle I want. My backlog is too large as it is and this is really, really not high up on my list of things to play. I'm betting a lot of the people who pirated it just wanted to try out the novelty once and didn't invest much time. From what I saw of the gameplay, there isn't much of it.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Considering that they said "Please don't buy this at full price, please wait for a $2 sale. ", it's really not surprising that this happened.

Yeah, but thing about piraters are that even if it was $1 they would still pirate it.

Not really, well some would but you cant really round them all up into an one-size-fits-all category. There are pirates who pirate because of lack of funds, or for "testing purposes" in the sense of checking first if the game is good enough to throw money at it.

The number of "free is best"-pirates is actually rather small compared to any other reason people actually resort to piracy in the first place. I mean consider that the game is just dumb, broken, fun in essence. It has no goal, no plot, nothing but an insane goat doing wierd shit, would you actually pirate that if you werent at least somewhat interested in seeing whats so good about it that people keep losing their shit over it?

Have no money or testing really isnt a reason, could say i cant afford a car so might as well steal it. Anyway, not getting into that here though as those threads go mental. lol. But i do agree it is a really bizarre little game that isnt easily pigeon holed. With games like Cod you know what your getting but with Goat Simulator it does have that certain charisma as you dont really know what your getting. Atleast the developers are taking it all in a good mood. I guess it got more success and attention than they ever expected. Not looked up what other games they have made, but it is funny if the game they made as a joke got more attention and sales than a game they made seriously.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Considering that they said "Please don't buy this at full price, please wait for a $2 sale. ", it's really not surprising that this happened.

Yeah, but thing about piraters are that even if it was $1 they would still pirate it.

Now that's just a gross generalization and misunderstanding of a massive and diverse group of people.

Have no money or testing really isnt a reason, could say i cant afford a car so might as well steal it. Anyway, not getting into that here though as those threads go mental.

It was already going there. All you did was help it along its path.

OT:
I love this dev because of how he handles this stuff. Rather than bitching and moaning about the trillions of dollars he supposedly lost, he takes it as a sign of popularity.

 

[Jumwa]

I know how he feels, every time I find out my books are being pirated somewhere I can't help but grin a little. I'm making a living off it, and everything beyond that's just a pleasing milestone/achievement.

And I think most people like to know something they created is reaching out to large numbers of people.

 

[james.sponge]

Judging from the screenshots I've seen of the game, I'm beginning to suspect that Goat Simulator may not depict an entirely accurate portrayal of being a goat.

It may be exaggerated here and there I think to make it more enjoyable but otherwise it stays really close to real-life experience

 

[Grabehn]

It doesn't surprise me really, since there's nothing about this game, at least at plain sight, that would make me buy it, but I've had that feel of "maybe I could try it" a handful of times, although I don't think I'd have as much fun as watching it instead.

Have no money or testing really isnt a reason, could say i cant afford a car so might as well steal it.

Except that between a piece of random "entertainment" as games or movies and a car, that's a ton of money for something most people take as an "investment" (or luxury for others), and unless you're a multimillionaire you won't be changing cars every 2 weeks, but games won't usually last you a week.

The thing with pirates is that like in any other thing out there, there's different people, and the amount of times that the "no money" or to some, "no way to get is" is vastly superior to that of the "I won't pay for anything ever". I myself used to try those "copies" for a while, and after some time, if the game was actually worth it, I'd buy it.

And on that matter, having the "$1" games helps a lot more.

 

[Darxide]

Despite how ridiculously fun and entertaining this game is, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a one-hit-wonder for the creators. This particular kind of success is impossible to plan for and almost as hard to replicate.

 

[Gvaz]

Goat simulator isn't a game I'd pay money for, but is a game I'd proabably pay money to see people play.

 

[ShirowShirow]

I'm honestly just happy Coffee Stain is catching a break. I'm a huge fan of Sanctum, and want to see their next project done right.

 

[Strazdas]

Considering that they said "Please don't buy this at full price, please wait for a $2 sale. ", it's really not surprising that this happened.

Yeah, but thing about piraters are that even if it was $1 they would still pirate it.

just like they pirate all the humble bundle games and steam sales. oh, wait, no they dont.

Have no money or testing really isnt a reason, could say i cant afford a car so might as well steal it. Anyway, not getting into that here though as those threads go mental. lol. But i do agree it is a really bizarre little game that isnt easily pigeon holed. With games like Cod you know what your getting but with Goat Simulator it does have that certain charisma as you dont really know what your getting. Atleast the developers are taking it all in a good mood. I guess it got more success and attention than they ever expected. Not looked up what other games they have made, but it is funny if the game they made as a joke got more attention and sales than a game they made seriously.

so you make false claims and then go "but i dont want to talk about it". sorry, thats not how it works.
piracy is not stealing. The two concepts are different legla concepts and are different crimes. and yes, if i could copy a car without destroying the old one and could not afford it i would copy it. most people would. we may see this to be true with 3D printers eventually.

 

[gridsleep]

Good for them! That's the right god damned attitude. If there were only a way to extract a serum of that and inject it into the stuck up assholes who run the major game companies, everything would be peaches and cream.

There's that friggin' dance music again! Where the hell is it coming from? When I go to edit the post to put this in, that piece of music is cut off, but now another one has started up on this edit page. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHERE THAT DANCE MUSIC IS COMING FROM AND WHAT THE HELL IT'S FOR? PLEASE? This is driving me nuts. Now it just cut out by itself. WTF, man. Seriously. Just stop it.