Avast! Developers Released Pirated Version of Their Own Game

[Okysho]

They asked money for this game?

I played this game about a year ago on Newgrounds.

Must have been popular. I love their twist on pirating. Must be hilarious.

 

[Revolutionary]

I wish more publishers had this stance on piracy.

 

[Aprilgold]

Hey, this game is out? No-one told me...
I remember playing the demo, it had some pretty funny voice-acting, and things got pretty funny-and/or-confusing (Dinosaur alternate universe FTW!)

So did I, I started laughing when he said "I WAS STUCK DOING MY HAIR IN THE MORNING FOR 2 MINUTES AND THIS IS WHAT I GET, OH GOD!"

 

[minuialear]

Not to defend any big-name studios and some of the crazy things they've done to try and prevent piracy, but just saying: there's a big difference between paying $10 to a small indie studio for a cute joke and paying $35+ to a big-name company for a similar joke. This may work for small studios who in all honesty aren't looking to get massive profits to fund massive groups of employees, but for those whose products are (no offense meant, of course) better polished and more popular, and whose livelihood depends on getting a fairly large margin of profit, this probably wouldn't fly.

(One could argue that big-name studios don't "really" need to earn the money they rake in, but that's debatable. Unless someone's got a budget for a studio in question and can prove that they aren't spending most of their money on things that keep their studio afloat in some manner, that's a hard accusation to defend.)

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Wait, are you sure their sales are going up due to pirates appreciating the joke, and not just the free publicity? Because I had no idea No Time to Explain had come out yet, and now, after this article, I'm going to buy it right fucking now!!!

Either way, it's win-win for Tiny Build.

 

[Sylocat]

I'd do the same thing, except instead of making the changes visible, I'd just slip some spyware into the torrented version and get the pirates' real names and addresses. They choose to pirate the game, all bets are off.

And once word got around in pirate circles that there was a bad copy of the game out there doing that, I imagine that would discourage some of them from torrenting.

Of course, I wouldn't let on that I myself had leaked it...

One thin' that th' anti-sweet trade league seems t' forget be that while thar be Gentleman o' fortunes who be happy t' steal, thar`s a number o' them that be happy t' un-steal, as 't be. Buyin' a copy o' th' game they scuppered simply so they can support swabbies who produce games they like.

Unless 'tis got a voyagely-float-ou' IP or stranglin' DRM, o' course, then 'tis easier fer them t' stick wi' th' scuppered version.

All them lost figures due t' Sweet trade often miss ou' on th' increased figures due t' Gentleman o' fortunes surrenderin' without a swashbuckle.

Yarr!

Sadly, thar be research showin' that the transferrin' rate o' pirates t' legit customers be at 'round not even half o' one percent...

 

[viggih7]

*Clap Clap Clap*

Well played gentlemen, well played

 

[thublihnk]

I'd do the same thing, except instead of making the changes visible, I'd just slip some spyware into the torrented version and get the pirates' real names and addresses. They choose to pirate the game, all bets are off.

And once word got around in pirate circles that there was a bad copy of the game out there doing that, I imagine that would discourage some of them from torrenting.

Of course, I wouldn't let on that I myself had leaked it...

One thin' that th' anti-sweet trade league seems t' forget be that while thar be Gentleman o' fortunes who be happy t' steal, thar`s a number o' them that be happy t' un-steal, as 't be. Buyin' a copy o' th' game they scuppered simply so they can support swabbies who produce games they like.

Unless 'tis got a voyagely-float-ou' IP or stranglin' DRM, o' course, then 'tis easier fer them t' stick wi' th' scuppered version.

All them lost figures due t' Sweet trade often miss ou' on th' increased figures due t' Gentleman o' fortunes surrenderin' without a swashbuckle.

Yarr!

Sadly, thar be research showin' that the transferrin' rate o' pirates t' legit customers be at 'round not even half o' one percent...

Your methodology is (surprise!) 10 times more illegal and unethical than simple copyright infringement.

And your numbers have that tricky flaw of being completely impossible to prove, but you know that don't you?

 

[Tanis]

If pub/dev where SMART they'd torrent/upload broken versions of the game first.

Nothing like putting out a bunch of fake copies of the game to piss/annoy people off to the point of either giving up and/or buying the game.

 

[Sentox6]

I'd just slip some spyware into the torrented version and get the pirates' real names and addresses

Pray tell, what standardised repository for personal information exists on the typical PC?

 

[-Dragmire-]

I hope this catches on, I wanna see a Tali Pirate, a Liara Pirate and a FemShep Pirate...

I'll buy the game of coarse, but I'd love to see those too.

 

[thirion1850]

Wow. These people are brilliant. +1904120394810294 interwebz

 

[SoulSalmon]

I... didn't know "No Time To Explain" was a full game, I only played the flash version (which I suppose would be a demo?)

I didn't like the flash version too much so I doubt I'll buy this, but LOVING the pirate themed twist, probably won't work for many other devs now that a company has done it so obviously, but this kind of thing is rather common and dates back the the Game Boy. It DOES seem to help sales quite a lot though.

The usual story is that the stunt gets publicity, and people pirate it just to see, these people then find they actually enjoy the game, and buy a copy .

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Good will and a cheap price will always go further than a badly thought out DRM scheme that'll get cracked in a matter of days anyway.

 

[Alphakirby]

I'll buy it when I get money,for now (Because I know this) PIRATE HATS YAY!!!
Really,that is fucking neat. Nice to see not all developers have no sense of humor. So yeah,I remember No Time To Explain as a Kickstarter project,but I didn't have any money to donate to it at the time.

I hate being poor. T.T

EDIT: This is just so hilarious,I am so buying this when I get the chance.
Arrggh I will lay ye some gold doubloons for this game when I have the money. I currently have no doubloons,nor bones,sadly at this moment,I can only enjoy ye sense of humor.

P.S.don't suspend me mods...please.

 

[steeple]

so does this mean piracy is ok if I want to play with pirates instead of the normal characters?

 

[Strazdas]

i think the autohr of the article needs to learn what piracy is, because torrent protocol and great MANY of its download is completely legal, non-piracy and acceptable. it is much better file hosting platform than sites like rapdishare due to people who have downloaded are helping you upload it too, when you are offline even.

therefore, the game is not a pirated version. infact illegal file sharing isnt piracy either. pirates are out there in somalia. we have dumb media to thank for the comparison.

people pirate it just to see, these people then find they actually enjoy the game, and buy a copy .

but, the same thing happens for ANY game, so wheres the bonus?

 

[Thamian]

Well played to Tiny Build games, though the idea of spiking the torrents with something else isn't exactly a new one. For example, a german eurodance group called Groove Coverage did it back in 2006 with one of their singles... Admitedly, that didn't quite work out when the song they used to spike filesharers with turned out be very popular in it's own right and wound up on one of their albums...

Perhaps a foreshadowing of what'll happen here perhaps?

 

[Joos]

Well, at first i thought the news was about Avast antivirus software.

I don't think the developers are aware that:

Arrr, the gamers 2 isn't it? Legendary!

 

[TikiShades]

will any other developer be able to pull a similar trick?

Ahahaha, no. I don't know, maybe a few indie developers might try something like this. There definitely won't be a habit of this.