What happens when pirates play a game dev sim and go bankrupt because of piracy?
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http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/
Really rediculous how many people pirated the game vs played it. Especially since its an indie game without any DRM, it has a working demo and runs on PC/Linux/Mac.
Free demo of the game: http://www.greenheartgames.com/game-dev-tycoon-downloads/
Buy the game: http://sites.fastspring.com/greenheartgames/product/gamedevtycoon
When we released our very first game, Game Dev Tycoon (for Mac, Windows and Linux) yesterday, we did something unusual and as far as I know unique. We released a cracked version of the game ourselves, minutes after opening our Store.
I uploaded the torrent to the number one torrent sharing site, gave it a description imitating the scene and asked a few friends to help seed it.
The cracked version is nearly identical to the real thing except for one detail… Initially we thought about telling them their copy is an illegal copy, but instead we didn’t want to pass up the unique opportunity of holding a mirror in front of them and showing them what piracy can do to game developers. So, as players spend a few hours playing and growing their own game dev company, they will start to see the following message, styled like any other in-game message:
Really rediculous how many people pirated the game vs played it. Especially since its an indie game without any DRM, it has a working demo and runs on PC/Linux/Mac.
Free demo of the game: http://www.greenheartgames.com/game-dev-tycoon-downloads/
Buy the game: http://sites.fastspring.com/greenheartgames/product/gamedevtycoon
Replies
Also the game hasn't had much marketing or hype until this story broke. Many people were worried this would be a clone of Game Dev Story, which doesn't seem to be the case.
Yeah that's pretty much what I was thinking when I first read the story.
if anything its a great publicity stunt.
The logic behind this, rather theory, is three fold. 1) According to an article on gamasutra awhile back, they found that pirates often will turn out to be some of the best consumers if they appreciate you. 2) Let them pay what they think its worth via donations...I believe World of Goo did this once and ended up bringing in more revenue than via legit sales and 3) Would rather more people play the game and get the name ID out, knowing full well not everyone can afford much less have access to games.
Heck, I bet even mindcraft can owe much of its success to piracy.
Anyways, just some thoughts on the subject.
And yes I pirate games and often buy them, pirated faster than light, bought it within the hour, pirated my favriote movie as well I would have never watched otherwise, and I bought 3 different editions, and 3 other films the same director made lol.
anyone who thinks piracy relates to actual sales is kidding themselves, you may as well say "if all the people who played the demo bought it id be rich".
at the end of the day if its good enough it will attract a fan and purchase base, if it has good enough multiplayer features alone, it will attract a purchase base.
PC gamers as a whole spend the most on their systems, the way the indie platform and steam is booming I find it hard to believe piracy is gutting the industry so, but sure enough you will hear that rhetoric when their game failed because it sucked, or when they just want to lay you off while they run off with all the money.
Don't forget that Linux gamers tend to pay even more since they're so under-served.
I hadn't heard about it at all until this.