Hotline Miami 2 Dev to Australians: "Just Pirate The Game"

[Rozalia1]

Actually, the only reason software piracy is illegal is because it's reproduction of a copyrighted work without the copyright holder's consent.

The copyright holder just gave his consent, therefore "piracy" by Aussies isn't piracy at all. That means the disclaimer isn't really necessary because no one here is advocating an illegal act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotline_Miami_2:_Wrong_Number

They have a publisher you know. A more "sympathetic" than the norm no doubt... but I doubt they've given this "go ahead".

 

[Spushkin]

I don't think there's a "go ahead" that can be discussed here. I can literally see the guy shrugging and saying "well, there's nothing else for you to do, Australian gamers who want this, get it on torrents".

It's not "giving green light" or whatever, there's no legal discussion here. It's just a matter of fact statement.

 

[RaikuFA]

If you're that upset about piracy, you can donate the cost of the game to the devs. There, guilty conscience averted.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

I dunno man, I dunno... I was initially outraged when I heard that the game had been Refused Classification in Australia -why would they give us an R-rating if they're then not going to use it?- until I heard the reason it was RC: a scene where your playable character smashes into a room, viciously murders a bunch of guys, then knocks down and brutally and graphically rapes a woman in the middle of the screen. What the fuck, man? I'm not surprised it was RC and I'm not terribly sympathetic to the developers if they're going to refuse to edit the game and resubmit it for reclassification. There are lines you shouldn't cross. This isn't "artistic integrity", this is childishness. While I'm normally in favour of pirating games you have no legal access to, I feel this guy is just trying to flip off the Australian ratings board. "Oh, you don't like brutal rape scenes? Well fuck you Big Brother, you can't stop your people from brutally raping women if they want to! Censorship! Censorship!"

EDIT: OK, I checked out the updated news article and found out that in context your character is acting in a movie and the director calls 'cut' right after the rape starts. Still strikes me as incredibly, dangerously tasteless.

 

[direkiller]

im wondering that myself, is it illegal if the developer themselves gives people the go ahead to pirate the game..

If the people who made the game say go ahead

One of them, who might not be the owner, or sole owner of the IP. Maybe they work with, or for, other people. Or sold the rights to someone else.

It's published by Devolver Digitial. So the same people who publish Serious Sam ironically
.
I guess the publisher is very hands off when it comes to devs views and handles on piracy. As someone probably would have got told to stop it at some point.

 

[DEAD34345]

Does the developer own the IP? If so, it's not piracy, if not, their opinion isn't that relevant.

Just out of curiosity, do you really consider that important? Not in terms of legality I mean, he probably isn't "sole owner of the IP" and pirating it probably would be technically illegal, but in terms of the morality of it?

 

[zelda2fanboy]

If it were America, the government would go out of its way to track illegal seeding of the game to prosecute people for pirating it. You know, just to prove a point that they can't be defied or some nonsense. Hopefully, the Australian government is backwards enough to not track that, or just doesn't care in this instance. I just hope the ESRB doesn't rate the game AO. Then we're probably getting hit with a delay / publisher censored content.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

I dunno man, I dunno... I was initially outraged when I heard that the game had been Refused Classification in Australia -why would they give us an R-rating if they're then not going to use it?- until I heard the reason it was RC: a scene where your playable character smashes into a room, viciously murders a bunch of guys, then knocks down and brutally and graphically rapes a woman in the middle of the screen. What the fuck, man? I'm not surprised it was RC and I'm not terribly sympathetic to the developers if they're going to refuse to edit the game and resubmit it for reclassification. There are lines you shouldn't cross. This isn't "artistic integrity", this is childishness. While I'm normally in favour of pirating games you have no legal access to, I feel this guy is just trying to flip off the Australian ratings board. "Oh, you don't like brutal rape scenes? Well fuck you Big Brother, you can't stop your people from brutally raping women if they want to! Censorship! Censorship!"

EDIT: OK, I checked out the updated news article and found out that in context your character is acting in a movie and the director calls 'cut' right after the rape starts. Still strikes me as incredibly, dangerously tasteless.

Also, as a note, that scene doesn't happen the way it is described. I know this may seem petty, but the board describes the scene as the player "making thrusting actions" aka showing the rape, whereas in the actual video if I recall correctly he walks over her then the scene fades while the crew call a cut. Or a re-take or whatever.

Still, I find it a high hypocrisy that you feel that was the worst part. Before he does any of this he shoots four men in the head with a pistol. How horrible is that? Except people just don't care about that.

OT:
Awesome Dev is awesome. Still gonna try and find a way to pay for it though.

 

[JazzJack2]

I'm not surprised it was RC and I'm not terribly sympathetic to the developers if they're going to refuse to edit the game and resubmit it for reclassification.

Why the should they have to edit their game? because moralizing arseholes have decided they can restrict what adults can or can't enjoy without giving any real justification?

There are lines you shouldn't cross.

Oh and why is that? saying art shouldn't depict certain things because it may or may not be tasteless is absurb.

 

[Warachia]

As a small legal note: while games that are refused classification are illegal to sell in Australia, they are not actually illegal to own if you manage to get your hands on them some way. However, we at The Escapist do not approve of software piracy in any shape or form, as it is still an illegal act.

It's not an illegal act if the owner of the copyright gives it the okay though, as in this case it won't be illegal for people in Australia to pirate the game, so it's okay to tell them to do it.

 

[Warachia]

EDIT: OK, I checked out the updated news article and found out that in context your character is acting in a movie and the director calls 'cut' right after the rape starts. Still strikes me as incredibly, dangerously tasteless.

According to the creator that's a main plot point to the game, and apparently has the female character talking about and dealing with that scene in the movie they were making. It sure is easy to make something look horrible when you take it out of context isn't it?

 

[NiPah]

im wondering that myself, is it illegal if the developer themselves gives people the go ahead to pirate the game..

If the people who made the game say go ahead

One of them, who might not be the owner, or sole owner of the IP. Maybe they work with, or for, other people. Or sold the rights to someone else.

He's part of the two man team which owns the company, and the project manager from Devolver digital didn't criticize Jonatan when he gave advice to people who torrented the game during an interview with Eurogamer.

Going off the website Dennaton Games owns the copyright to Hotline Miami, so it wasn't sold to other people.

 

[Rozalia1]

I know you see the world in black and white (which is IMHO a VERY dangerous way of thinking), but why does this rustle your jimmies so much ??

You see, what they did here had the opposite effect with me. I was no interested in the game, but now I am. They probably got a sale now. And dare I say, they probably lost very few sales and gained more with this move.

The publisher was the same for Hotline Miami too. So I guess Devolver is with the developers on this one.
Also, what alternative way do you recommend for Australians? I honestly dont know, we dont have anything resembling censorship on games here.

Because people want any excuse to excuse their rule breaking and this only emboldens them.

Could you quantify that for me? No that isn't possible, but I very much doubt this "goodwill" if you can call it that has made that many more people buy the game.

Australia isn't region locked on Steam is it? No don't think so but if a problem than GOG exists for example.
If that doesn't work than get it on console and use a European/American account to buy it and download it to your console.

 

[TristanBelmont]

What a fucking badass. WOOOOOO HOTLINE MIAMI 2 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 

[Thaluikhain]

Does the developer own the IP? If so, it's not piracy, if not, their opinion isn't that relevant.

Just out of curiosity, do you really consider that important? Not in terms of legality I mean, he probably isn't "sole owner of the IP" and pirating it probably would be technically illegal, but in terms of the morality of it?

Well, going by the logic that piracy is theft, if he's not the sole owner, then he's talking about giving away, or allowing to be stolen, something which isn't just his to give.

 

[DEAD34345]

Does the developer own the IP? If so, it's not piracy, if not, their opinion isn't that relevant.

Just out of curiosity, do you really consider that important? Not in terms of legality I mean, he probably isn't "sole owner of the IP" and pirating it probably would be technically illegal, but in terms of the morality of it?

Well, going by the logic that piracy is theft, if he's not the sole owner, then he's talking about giving away, or allowing to be stolen, something which isn't just his to give.

I suppose, but that kind of seems to be missing the main point to me. If you go by the logic that any kind of piracy is theft, and by the logic that anything defined as theft is automatically immoral, then pirating this in this case would be immoral by definition. But do you really think any kind of piracy is theft, or that theft is always immoral, even in cases like this?

And if so, why? Do you consider breaking the law to be automatically wrong to begin with? I just don't really understand the angle you're coming from to take issue with this.

 

[Rozalia1]

I dont see it that way. If they wanted to break the rules they would have/would do it anyway. I dont see how this makes it easier, I really do not.

Like most things that cant be enforced, it depends on good will. Nothing has changed.

I cant quantify anything, this is not technology where I can make objective statements. I just honestly think that this move may have actually gotten a few more sales that would not happen otherwise.

I have no idea about Australia and steam and GoG. If possible, it would be good to get it from there. Getting it from consoles however... yeah...

There are folk out there who just need the little push in regards to such things. There is the matter of being a "gateway" but I'm not going to go into that as you can argue it all day.

Ah yes it slipped my mind. Pirating stuff on PC is better recommended than buying legally on console, sorry about that.
Bloody hell come on now. You're perfectly fine with people pirating this game but find getting it legally on console distasteful... yeah justify yourself how you like on that.

Well whatever the case I've demonstrated that people are more than capable of legally purchasing the game... doesn't matter though does it? Some people were always going to justify themselves with it "not being made available", but this only adds to that.

 

[Rozalia1]

I live in a country filled with pirates. A lot more then where you live
There is a very simple divide. People that will buy it and those that wont. The second one also includes the pirates. What the developers did here may have actually made the number of the second group smaller and the number of the first a tad bigger.

*And of coarse you are always the correct one for all matters ever and we can argue all day but your opinion is morally just and sound ... *

On to the second point... It is never quite as simple as that. And I did not say pirating is superior to getting it on consoles. Where did I say that?

Australia's classification board is the one to blame here.

Is not often (and often aggressively) that not all pirates pirate everything? Would this not make them go "I would have brought it but they've now told me to go ahead, cool"? They'll still be ways as I've listed but they'll either not know or just ignore it.

That was not what I said. What I said is the issue of something being a gateway especially something like this can be fruitlessly argued either way to no conclusion. We could argue it for several pages or just conclude that there is no actual answer that can be found there.

Nowhere, but I did not say that you said it was "superior", though I suppose it'd not be a stretch to say you did. Word I used was "distasteful". Your response treated it as it was some sort of dishonour... some sort of shame getting it legally on console over illegally. Perhaps my words are too strong, but something definitely was off in what you said.
Anyway you'll be able to get it legally on PC too, I mentioned consoles as you told me to give you some ways around it which that was one.

And yet instead of giving the information that would tell people how to legally obtain the game regardless of the classification board... they tell people to pirate it. Doesn't exactly promote good things.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Does the developer own the IP? If so, it's not piracy, if not, their opinion isn't that relevant.

Just out of curiosity, do you really consider that important? Not in terms of legality I mean, he probably isn't "sole owner of the IP" and pirating it probably would be technically illegal, but in terms of the morality of it?

Well, going by the logic that piracy is theft, if he's not the sole owner, then he's talking about giving away, or allowing to be stolen, something which isn't just his to give.

I suppose, but that kind of seems to be missing the main point to me. If you go by the logic that any kind of piracy is theft, and by the logic that anything defined as theft is automatically immoral, then pirating this in this case would be immoral by definition. But do you really think any kind of piracy is theft, or that theft is always immoral, even in cases like this?

And if so, why? Do you consider breaking the law to be automatically wrong to begin with? I just don't really understand the angle you're coming from to take issue with this.

If it belongs to him, then he can give it away. If it doesn't belong (solely) to him, then he can't give it away.