Pirates Get A Taste Of Their Own Medicine

Heck, I don't even play video games, and I want buy a copy just because the guy made a Digital Jackass Skit on people who thought they were stealing an $8 game.

Funny stuff. :D
 
I love the fact they did this. They knew they would be pirated so they seeded the "pirate" copy themselves to slap pirates in the face. Brilliant idea and pure marketing genius. We know piracy hurts developers especially indie devs. Does piracy hurt something like Assassin's Creed or Mass Effect? No. They're huge money makers but that doesn't make it right.

So kudos to these guys for slapping the pirates around and not including DRM. DRM does nothing but hurt the paying consumer. I for one can't play my Avengers DVD on my Linux machine easily due to the stupid DRM. VLC - no disc menus - title 35 please. /facepalm
 
MikeTrike said:
It could be worse...

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So what, is that a mirror that you held up to that game developer? I would have laughed as he screamed and jumped out the window after he saw what he became.

"I'm a monster!"
 
I love how the piracy in-game paints an unrealistic, developer-sided picture.

You want to get a message across? Try to keep it realistically grounded. This also shows an underdeveloped comprehension of the digital market.
 
Digital Market:

Spend $1000 on dyno rental, and up to 100 hours labor to develop a racing tune and track test it.

Have idiots who stole copies call you up for tech support or request changes to the tune.

That's how dumb a typical "pirate" is.

People said I was dumb for not "locking" the ECM. But that would stop you from making adjustments at the track, or compensating for different parts. Hence defeating the purpose of tuning.

There is TONS of open source free software. Pirates aren't interested in it. It's no good if you aren't stealing. No fun there.
 
PS - I tuned for fun, and promote racing. I'm not butthurt that my files were illegally copied. I'm butthurt when I hear people justifying it. There is no reason to steal. Not necessary.

Just learn how to write content, spend the time and learn something.
 
So, does that "piracy" message actually impact game sales within the simulator? or is it nothing more than a nagging bit of information (ironically mirroring reality).

I'm so sick of hearing game devs whine about piracy, while still being more profitable than the average restaurant. Maybe we should ban home cooking too, so we aren't "stealing" business from the restaurants.
 
sir-gold said:
So, does that "piracy" message actually impact game sales within the simulator? or is it nothing more than a nagging bit of information (ironically mirroring reality).

I'm so sick of hearing game devs whine about piracy, while still being more profitable than the average restaurant. Maybe we should ban home cooking too, so we aren't "stealing" business from the restaurants.
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If I read correctly in the "pirate" version of the game, your game gets pirated to the point where you don't make any money because everybody just pirates it.
 
I bought this game yesterday. It's quite a bit of fun, although I had a series of hits that boosted my cash to the point where I can just pump out games without caring about cost or quality. I have $500 million in the bank and 2 employees. Once you get that sort of money, it's practically impossible to lose.
 
Kalabalana said:
I love how the piracy in-game paints an unrealistic, developer-sided picture.

You want to get a message across? Try to keep it realistically grounded. This also shows an underdeveloped comprehension of the digital market.
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No, it's quite realistic. There are small game companies that go under all the time because their games get pirated rather than sold. You just don't hear about it because they're small companies and not worthy of making the news. I know of at least a dozen in the last three years.
 
One thing I did find interesting about this article was the pie chart showing percentages of games sold vs pirated.

Piracy does hurt publishers and developers. However, the game in this article didn't have a nice way to compensate for piracy like the real world does. In the real world, developers charge $60 for a new game. $60 freaking dollars! I have never spent $60 on a game and I don't pirate. I just wait for the game to get cheaper, usually about a year for it to get down to the ~$25 range. However, if developers would release games at a price of ~$35-50, I would get a ton more games on release day.

There are also lots of games that after a year and the price goes down, the buzz is all gone and the servers are all dead, so I just never get them at all. There are often newer better games that smart developers have decided to release at a reasonable price, so I get those instead.

So yeah, piracy hurts the industry, but right now they are hurting themselves a lot more by charging too much, punishing DRM, free-to-play pay-to-win games, and thoughtless DLC. All of it is short term thinking that is hurting their reputation and odds of succeeding in the long run.
 
delsydsoftware said:
I bought this game yesterday. It's quite a bit of fun, although I had a series of hits that boosted my cash to the point where I can just pump out games without caring about cost or quality. I have $500 million in the bank and 2 employees. Once you get that sort of money, it's practically impossible to lose.
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Are you sure you're not talking about EA?
 
GAAAAHHHHHH I can't stand reading about companies complaining about piracy. They speak that every pirated copy is money out of their pocket. Do they have a crystal ball or something that tells them that if it wasn't possible to pirate that game, every single one of those pirates would have purchased the game and they would be sitting under a money waterfall in their office??
 
You know whats sad is that I played more illegal games way back in the days of CDRom games than I do now. I actually dont download any games illegally. I pirated MANY more games 10-15 years ago.

However, I am in a much better position financially now than when I was a kid.
 
what's amazing to me is there's no one pirating the game with the insight to figure out what was going on. would have at least expected someone to post "got me guys, was totally pirating your game. lol."
 
You're not "pirating" the "game" if it directly came from the developers. And in this instance, the so-called "cracked" version is not even the same as the original in terms of gameplay...so how can you say that getting "cracked" version is pirating the "game", when the "cracked" version is quite different from the "original" version?
 
entropy13 said:
You're not "pirating" the "game" if it directly came from the developers. And in this instance, the so-called "cracked" version is not even the same as the original in terms of gameplay...so how can you say that getting "cracked" version is pirating the "game", when the "cracked" version is quite different from the "original" version?
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I'm dumfounded how some people are still not grasping the concept. Those who downloaded the game did not not know it was being seeded by the developer. Who the hell thinks that torrented games are free and legal? They all had the opportunity to buy it and instead chose to download it.

As far as it being different from the bought version, again, why does that even matter? No one knew it was different.

God, I can't even type any more. This is just too much.
 
didn't C&C do this back in the dos days? if it detected a pirated version a couple minutes into the game all your buildings and units would just explode
 
If the games good people will buy it. Thats what it comes down to. If a games sales are crappy then it was a crappy game. Look at any game that hit the big time and you could see even when copy protection was low that people bought the games that were good. Millions pirated the old games in the past but it didn't stop any one from buying the games if they were good.

Can't force people to buy junk either. People download also to see if its really worth the money. If we all know a game is going to be really good from the betas and trials then of course people are going to shell out the cash. Common sense, most developers lack that.
 
I absolutely hate piracy/copyright laws and how they are abused in the court system.

That said, this is a rather novel idea given the game medium. I also fully understand the anonymous data gathering (if you are disappointed by this, prepare to be disappointed the rest of your life) and how they determined who pirated the game. I'm also fascinated by the people disregarding this here based on the fact they gave it away. Did you people fail in science classes? The method used is practically the definition of a scientific control. I'm just glad he didn't decide to prosecute 93% of those people :p

What I wish he would have done though is waited to publish the results data though. I'd be curious to know if those numbers start to skew to purchasers WITHOUT him saying anything. I'd say 2-3 months would be a good wait time. The next day is always a bad idea, unless it's a AAA title with tons of advertising. I'd love to know if piracy becomes marketing and the game would get a wider user base scattered across a far larger marketbase. I'd also love to know if the pirates would convert to purchasers over time, or at least the interplay of those numbers.
 
I think part of the problem these days is noone provides a quality demo of the games. I remember when you used to get a GOOD demo of games that you could try before you buy. Hell, with the original Starcraft, you could play with a friend as a "guest" as long as you both played in the same game online.
 
Correct me if wrong, but the original SC was not online, it was LAN party. Or aim I thinking Warcraft? (one of the first network games ever, if not the first).
 
Qinsp said:
Correct me if wrong, but the original SC was not online, it was LAN party. Or aim I thinking Warcraft? (one of the first network games ever, if not the first).
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Warcraft not starcraft.
 
Xee said:
I'm dumfounded how some people are still not grasping the concept. Those who downloaded the game did not not know it was being seeded by the developer.
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That does not matter for the downloader, but for the developer's side they essentially aren't engaging in "piracy" of the game, regardless of whether the downloader is informed of it or not.

Xee said:
Who the hell thinks that torrented games are free and legal? They all had the opportunity to buy it and instead chose to download it.
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The 'free' point is contentious indeed yes, but in the legal part, heck I can't even buy the games I want to buy legally. Football Manager isn't legally sold here in retail stores for example, unless around 2 years have passed (Football Manager 2011 is still sold at its launch price!!! Because there's only one chain of stores in the whole country...). "How about Steam?" you ask...Does Steam accept cash, the only form of monetary denomination I have?

Xee said:
As far as it being different from the bought version, again, why does that even matter? No one knew it was different.
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Just because 'no one knew it was different' it's suddenly "it's not different"?

Anyway, they're claiming that their "game" was being "pirated", yet the bought version is different from the one they made available as a "pirated" version, which #1 invalidates their "pirated" claim outright for being different, or if you want to follow the MPAA belief system, #2 makes it impossible for the game to have been "stolen", considering they are similar...but not an exact copy. Might as well say someone driving a blue Ford Focus with white 'racing stripes' through your street at night stole your white Ford Focus with blue 'racing stripes' at the very same night he passed through that particular street.
 
Man. I cant create a game that can save my life. Magazine reviews are tough, Contract work cant get me out of red and Nintendo 80k license fee means I never going to expand my market :(
 
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