Pirates complain about piracy in a game.

Karuji

Sauce

So the lovely devs of Green Heart Games made Game Dev Tycoon.

So the players play as game devs. Now they released a 'cracked' version where after a certain point in the game the player's games will be pirated, and if you read the article you shall seem some of the most ironic responses I have seen in my life.

dislekcia

I don't understand why they didn't have a buy button on the 10th "you have no money due to piracy" screen.

wogan

Didn't see this post when I made my own - the board's been behaving badly for me tonight :/

I think it's brilliant - give the pirates a taste of their own medicine. They've already taken the torrent down due to complaints, no doubt about it being a broken game, but still - fantastic case study on the subject :)

I'm mostly impressed by the fact that it took less than a minute for Patrick to get downloaders - did those people even know what they were torrenting? Do they just torrent anything new that pops up? o_o

Gingetsuryuu

I'm still on the fence about piracy. Is it good or is it bad? I've seen quite a bit on how piracy is good for books. Brief googling also shows some articles where it holds ture for music and possibly even movies. But I got nothing on game piracy.

What I do have is an interesting video on honesty. Taking the data we can assume out of a 30 000 sample group, 12 people pirate everything, while 18 000 people will only pirate "small" game or games they don't really like that much. Also according to the video, it's the little cheaters that hurt the economy the most. But it does have some interesting notes on the psychology behind it.

TheFuntastic

I don't like wording of their messaging, specifically the notion of"stealing". Pirates don't consider it stealing. An appeal to those sensibilities and guilt tripping is never going to work in my opinion. But it is an interesting experiment none the less.

Rigormortis

@TheFuntastic, I understand what you are saying but I have to ask, do you(as a developer) not consider it stealing?

TheFuntastic

Of course that raises the question of "what is a good sensibility to appeal to?" Well certainly "Well done, you did the right thing" will only appeal to a limited subset of people.

Could it be more like the music biz model: "Steal the album, become a fan, and we'll charge the earth when you come see us in concert". What are game dev equivalents of concerts? Official badges in forums? Extra DLC? Unlock weapons? Basically the person needs to feel awesome in return for spending their money, not just the absence of guilt.

TheFuntastic

@Rigormortis Interesting question. I used see it as stealing, but I still did it anyway. Now I'm not so sure. We live in a culture of disposable commodity.

My purchasing habits of games has changed dramatically since I've started developing games. I don't pirate any indie games as a rule ( though I might wait for bundle sale ), and I mostly wait for AAA games to come on sale before I buy them. The reason my habits have changed is because I can now relate to those people creating those things. I would say most people do not.

When I started working in the music industry, I made a point of buying the albums I truly loved. Again because I could empathize with their creators. Some friends however laughed at me and almost wore it as a badge of honour that they don't pay for anything.

I know I've never considered piracy "right", but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened before. Psychology says the ability to self rationalize is FAR greater than one's ability to feel empathy for someone you've never, or likely never will meet.