Pirating Game Dev Tycoon Dooms Players to be Ruined By Piracy

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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This looks suspiciously like Game Dev Story to me. If it's as close as it looks, there's a certain amusement in people who rip off others' titles making statements against piracy.

doggie015 said:
(Which is why piracy is even a thing to begin with! People like to try before they buy!)
I'd like to see your official numbers on this.

CriticalMiss said:
This is a great way to not only promote anti-piracy, but to let everyone know who the pirates are and laugh at them. More games should have these kinds of things instead of systems that fuck everyone over.
The big problem is it only exposes them for a little while. Well, the bulk of them.

Voltano said:
While this could be a funny way of deterring pirates and teaching them a lesson, there are serious consequences the developers will have to contend with while doing stunts like these. "Titan's Quest" was a pretty good action RPG similar to "Diablo" at the time, and it had DRM that triggered a series of bugs in the game when it detected it was pirated.

The results turned out bad as several pirates reported the game was buggy and not as good, which discouraged legitimate customers from purchasing the game. Just as the Anodyne developers used piracy as a way to promote positive word-of-mouth feedback for their game, the developers for "Titan's Quest" accidentally made negative word-of-mouth feedback on their game due to DRM like this.
This doesn't look buggy, though, it looks like a strategy issue. Unless it gets negative reviews for being "too hard," it's probably safe on that front.
 

LiquidGrape

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Sep 10, 2008
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What this demonstrates perfectly, in my view, is that while pirates will inevitably acquire software in whatever way they like, they have no rights as a customer once they go down that route.

Deliciously ironic idea.
 

Yopaz

Sarcastic overlord
Jun 3, 2009
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marurder said:
Though I totally agree with the method and consequence of his actions by announcing it he screws it up. Wait a few days, the 'bugged' crack would have been analysed fixed and a new torrent will be available for download. The Dev should have kept his mouth shut on this one..
That probably would have happened regardless of his announcement.

Now people wont complain about how the game is ruthless because it makes you go bankrupt due to piracy which would have been what 93.4% of the players would have said about it. Now some of those might actually buy the game because they want to play without that thing. Others who haven't heard about the game will think about how clever this is and might buy it because they liked what the developer did.

Not announcing it would have been the bigger mistake here.
 

Fayathon

Professional Lurker
Nov 18, 2009
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I am wholly amused by this. I don't think I've ever approved of any shenanigans quite as much as this.
 

shrekfan246

Not actually a Japanese pop star
May 26, 2011
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There are three things I'd like to mention:

1) Piracy isn't always so black&white as "I don't want to pay for this" like everyone thinks it is. Yes, a large margin of it probably is that, but it's still disingenuous to completely hand-wave the people who do buy things they've pirated. It's like saying people listen to music they haven't bought yet on Youtube simply because they don't want to spend money on it.

2) "Cracked" and "pirated" are not mutually exclusive, and people really should start making that distinction. "Cracking" is just the removal of DRM, which I believe should very well be legal if you've bought the thing in question. If you bought a game, you should be able to own it and not have to submit to the whims of some publisher or developer who wants to deign how you play the game.

3) It's a slippery slope of the worst kind to say "Piracy is killing creative games!" At least, I assume that's what he's saying with that "years down the track" line. I suppose he could mean not-always-online games, since Diablo III remains one of the only games ever released to not be fully cracked (blah blah server emulator blah blah, it's not going to be anything like the actual game and they don't get any of the updates Blizzard makes). But that's still a slippery slope, as we've seen with EA and SimCity.

I won't disagree that piracy is harmful, and nobody who is in a position to be able to purchase a game should pirate it instead (especially if there's a demo). But it's a bit heavy-handed to have some no-name developer who's made precisely zero games before drum up attention by saying "Piracy is going to kill us!"

Still, kudos to them for another silly and unique way of inconveniencing pirates instead (hopefully) of legitimate paying customers.
 

Fdzzaigl

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Mar 31, 2010
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Haha, that's pretty original!

However, all these hooks that they put in will get fixed by the pirates as well.
 

Voltano

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Dec 11, 2008
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Zachary Amaranth said:
Voltano said:
While this could be a funny way of deterring pirates and teaching them a lesson, there are serious consequences the developers will have to contend with while doing stunts like these. "Titan's Quest" was a pretty good action RPG similar to "Diablo" at the time, and it had DRM that triggered a series of bugs in the game when it detected it was pirated.

The results turned out bad as several pirates reported the game was buggy and not as good, which discouraged legitimate customers from purchasing the game. Just as the Anodyne developers used piracy as a way to promote positive word-of-mouth feedback for their game, the developers for "Titan's Quest" accidentally made negative word-of-mouth feedback on their game due to DRM like this.
This doesn't look buggy, though, it looks like a strategy issue. Unless it gets negative reviews for being "too hard," it's probably safe on that front.
True, the game is intentionally screwing the player over when it detects it was pirated, but so did "Titan's Quest".

Let's say I sold cupcakes at a store. If someone stole it from me only to realize the insides of his cupcake has live maggots in it, it would repulse him. But if I turned around and said that I had made special cupcakes that were intended to be stolen with maggots in them to teach thieves a lesson, that still isn't going to help my public appearance. I'm a crazy person that puts maggots in cupcakes! Who would want to buy my kind of cupcakes when I state this?

What's even worse is that detecting what is a stolen cupcake from a legit cupcake is difficult. What if I sold a maggot-cupcake by 'accident' to a legit customer? The same could happen here in this game that their "DRM" could trigger via a bug on legal customers. Bugs like these are bound to appear in any kind of software, so its a very risky PR move for doing something like this.
 

Moonlight Butterfly

Be the Leaf
Mar 16, 2011
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That's hilarious, I love the fact they complained xD. I think this is a better way of doing it rather than always online stuff.
 

lacktheknack

Je suis joined jewels.
Jan 19, 2009
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JazzJack2 said:
But piracy doesn't make developers lose money, in fact it does the opposite, devs gain money from piracy.
I'm going to believe the dev who:

-releases a demo
-releases the game DRM free
-only had 6.4% of the day one purchases actually be legitimate

...over you, a faceless dude with an axe to grind.

Repeating "devs gain money" doesn't make it true. Give me a non-theoretical reason to believe you, or I'll just continue to smack "6.4%" in your face.
 

bartholen_v1legacy

A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
Jan 24, 2009
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This is quite amusing. I think devs should start making more stuff like this. Imagine that in Skyrim (pirated version) you'd play like for an hour, and then a pirate captain flying on a dragon pops out of fucking nowhere and kicks your ass from Falkreath to Dawnstar, all while screaming "Yar har har me mateys!" And then the "game over" screen displays a laughing skull flag.
JazzJack2 said:
But piracy doesn't make developers lose money, in fact it does the opposite, devs gain money from piracy.
Mind explaining how the fuck that happens?
 

lacktheknack

Je suis joined jewels.
Jan 19, 2009
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Voltano said:
Zachary Amaranth said:
Voltano said:
While this could be a funny way of deterring pirates and teaching them a lesson, there are serious consequences the developers will have to contend with while doing stunts like these. "Titan's Quest" was a pretty good action RPG similar to "Diablo" at the time, and it had DRM that triggered a series of bugs in the game when it detected it was pirated.

The results turned out bad as several pirates reported the game was buggy and not as good, which discouraged legitimate customers from purchasing the game. Just as the Anodyne developers used piracy as a way to promote positive word-of-mouth feedback for their game, the developers for "Titan's Quest" accidentally made negative word-of-mouth feedback on their game due to DRM like this.
This doesn't look buggy, though, it looks like a strategy issue. Unless it gets negative reviews for being "too hard," it's probably safe on that front.
True, the game is intentionally screwing the player over when it detects it was pirated, but so did "Titan's Quest".

Let's say I sold cupcakes at a store. If someone stole it from me only to realize the insides of his cupcake has live maggots in it, it would repulse him. But if I turned around and said that I had made special cupcakes that were intended to be stolen with maggots in them to teach thieves a lesson, that still isn't going to help my public appearance. I'm a crazy person that puts maggots in cupcakes! Who would want to buy my kind of cupcakes when I state this?

What's even worse is that detecting what is a stolen cupcake from a legit cupcake is difficult. What if I sold a maggot-cupcake by 'accident' to a legit customer? The same could happen here in this game that their "DRM" could trigger via a bug on legal customers. Bugs like these are bound to appear in any kind of software, so its a very risky PR move for doing something like this.
The "Too Many Pirates" version is a separate version uploaded to the various torrent sites.

Legitimate customers have no reason to get close to it.
 

Mid Boss

Senior Member
Aug 20, 2012
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Ahhh I love the piracy defense attempts on subjects like this.

Think I'll go pirate a car. Wasn't going to buy it so it's not a lost sale! People seeing me driving it will want one themselves. I'm sure the police will understand perfectly that I didn't actually steal the car I stole and, in fact, did it to promote the model!

Gotta love how the completely self serving "logic" breaks down into utterly baffling stupidity when applied to anything but video games.
 

Doom972

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Dec 25, 2008
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Very creative and entertaining. I hope that they actually got some people to see it their way.
No wonder it's being pirated so much, though - it's not on Steam. I'll probably be among the first who buy it if and when it gets there.
 

JazzJack2

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Feb 10, 2013
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lacktheknack said:
JazzJack2 said:
But piracy doesn't make developers lose money, in fact it does the opposite, devs gain money from piracy.
I'm going to believe the dev who:

-releases a demo
-releases the game DRM free
-only had 6.4% of the day one purchases actually be legitimate

...over you, a faceless dude with an axe to grind.

Repeating "devs gain money" doesn't make it true. Give me a non-theoretical reason to believe you, or I'll just continue to smack "6.4%" in your face.
Your figure of 6.4% has no relevance at all, it gives no indication of lost sales (or if there where any at all). And should be noted I did say piracy only helps games that are good, and since this is just a shitty knock off of other games I am not surprised people wont give money to this talentless whiny hack.
 

Space Jawa

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Feb 2, 2010
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A-D. said:
You know (this is generally speaking, not to the person quoted alone), cause most people have morals and tend to pirate cause they cant indulge in their favourite pasttime to make ends meet, you know, rent, food etc. And if you want to bring up "Well then they shouldnt play at all." i will reply simply with this.

If you arent capable of any kind of empathy, or critical and logical thought, please turn in your brain, evidently you have no need for it. If you dont have enough money for rent, should you then "not have a home"? If you do not have enough money for food, should you then "not eat at all"? Note here, eating is necessary, a home is not. Before anyone brings up the argument of necessity vs luxury.
A home goes along with "Shelter", which typically is one of the items listed as a need. And they have homeless shelters and food programs for people who can't afford rent or food. So it still remains stupid to try to argue that digital bootleggers are justified in stealing copies of the games they want to play because "they can't afford it!". Because there is no real comparison between a luxury good like frikken video games and shelter. Your life won't be negatively affected if you don't get your daily fill of the latest AAA title you want to play.

So yeah, if they can't afford to buy all the games they want to play, then yes, they shouldn't play those games unless they can get them legally another way. Borrow them from a friend, or stick to free games.
 

lacktheknack

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JazzJack2 said:
lacktheknack said:
JazzJack2 said:
But piracy doesn't make developers lose money, in fact it does the opposite, devs gain money from piracy.
I'm going to believe the dev who:

-releases a demo
-releases the game DRM free
-only had 6.4% of the day one purchases actually be legitimate

...over you, a faceless dude with an axe to grind.

Repeating "devs gain money" doesn't make it true. Give me a non-theoretical reason to believe you, or I'll just continue to smack "6.4%" in your face.
Your figure of 6.4% has no relevance at all, it gives no indication of lost sales (or if there where any at all). And should be noted I did say piracy only helps games that are good, and since this is just a shitty knock off of other games I am not surprised people wont give money to this talentless whiny hack.
You can't claim talentless hack, because you haven't played the game (I'm 99.9% sure of this, given your disinterest in your first post).

And you call him "whiny" because... he nicely and amusingly puts his point across? Golly gee, I hope YOU haven't ever disagreed on something, or that would make YOU the whiniest whiner to ever whine! (Seriously, how did you think that was a smart thing to type?)

Also, you're right, it doesn't give indication of lost sales. So therefore, it's EXACTLY as valid as your claims that piracy is helpful. Except for one thing: At least I have a NUMBER. That's better than anything YOU can give me.
 

Bocaj2000

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Sep 10, 2008
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Tara Callie said:
At the end of the day, game design is not a charity. It costs a lot of money to make games and these people need to be able to put food on the table, no matter if it's a tiny indie studio run by two guys, or a monolithic company like EA or Valve.

Piracy is not a service issue, or an issue of customer satisfaction. Most piracy is the result of wanting something for nothing. If you are the kind of person who is going to pirate a game, nobody is inclined to listen to you when you talk about a company's business practices or whatever other garbage you are going to spew. You are not a customer at this point, your opinion is null and void. Companies do not listen to pirates, they have no reason to. Why would a company even bother trying to convince people not to pirate their game? They're going to do it anyway, because they want free stuff.
There is a major misconception here. Pirates aren't people who "want free stuff". I don't even think you know what kind of people pirate. They tend to come in two varieties: students and the poor; the people who pirate are those who cannot afford the $5 steam sales that go on every day or the $10 games off of Good Old Games. Do you want to know why piracy rates are through the roof? Because most gamers are students, between the ages of 5 to 25, and most of which don't have jobs. The 13 year old pirates because there's no other way he will get the game, not because he's a free loader.

Secondly, every intelligent opinion is valid. If a thief steals from Walmart and complains about the poor quality of the product, it is a valid complaint.

Thirdly, as someone who has pirated throughout middle and high school, now that I have money, I have bought every game that I have pirated via steam sales, including games that I would have never bought otherwise. The amount of games I own in steam broke 70 last year. There are more people like me than you think.
 

JazzJack2

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Feb 10, 2013
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lacktheknack said:
Also, you're right, it doesn't give indication of lost sales. So therefore, it's EXACTLY as valid as your claims that piracy is helpful. Except for one thing: At least I have a NUMBER. That's better than anything YOU can give me.
You have a figure that is meaningless, I have provided examples of where piracy has helped a game, I.E Minecraft. Give me one example where piracy has significantly damaged a game.