What Happens When a Developer Catches You Pirating Its Game

People tend to be less willing to pay for software because the perception is that you are paying for the replication (which is very cheap) of a product. If it costs as much to create a copy of a game as it does to create a new car people would behave differently. Obviously the cost of software development comes during it's development, not replication.

Britain will not actively prosecute online piracy

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=859567

Huh.

Everything "Dan Hibiki" said in this exchange is meaningless if he still hasn't bought the game.

Pirating is the commercial sale of intellectual property that you do not own. Selling fake prada bags on eBay or organized crime bulk duplicating ten thousand DVDs and selling them on the streets. A kid downloading a copy of a game without paying or copying an album from his friend is not piracy, even if the riaa, mpaa, and BSA have fought incredibly hard to change the meaning and usage of the word in the public mind.

@patrickklepek I still remember when you replied to a totally inane email I sent, and texting my friend immediately to say "OH MY GOD Patrick replied to me". I guess taking the time to even reply something as simple as I've read this, it didn't go straight in the trash, or like the guys from Skullgirls did, and have a conversation, can make a massive difference to the individuals involved.

If you're gonna pirate something just do it. There's no sense in you trying to legitimise or rationalize it. You're experiencing something that people worked hard to create without paying for that experience to try and support them. It's also not fair to the people who do pay. If you want to play something save up for it. If you don't want to pay for it fine. Just don't make up excuses for your behavior.

Yeah! Why pay for anything? Just take what you want. Don't give money to anybody for the things they did.

teehee

Yeah, fuck poor people! Let those assholes play with grass.

@gunslingerpanda: I agree it should be discounted, but certainly not free. Getting the PC/360/PS3 versions running isn't just a copy paste job as I'm sure you know. It costs money! I'm also just going to throw this out there, you're also dealing with licensing and other kinds of jazz that prohibit this kind of stuff.

@towolie: You don't get to pick and choose when to break the law.

Hah, that's pretty great.

@wholemeal: thats fair enough, i was mainly talking about him saying that i apparently hate the game industry.

and about pirating itself, its a lossless crime especially if it makes people like me buy the good games afterwards.

so i agree its not a great thing to do, but i also don't really care about that because i feel like i'm supporting who i wanna support.

@towolie: On principle, since you didn't pay for the game (or don't have enough for the game) doesn't mean you can pirate the game. Having no money is not an excuse to steal. Or rather, it shouldn't be. Especially for luxury items like games.

Pirating a game isn't a demo, and shouldn't be seen as 'try before you buy'. Ridiculous, even if you are planning on buying it, when some aren't really going to; they'll pirate and play it so they don't have to spend money, or so they can see if they like it, and if they don't, they just stole without giving. You can say it's nice that the developer didn't freak out, but Dan shouldn't have done it in the first place, making it so this never needed to even occur.

No system is safe from piracy, so that argument holds for maybe half a year until the hardware is hacked, and then it's the same as on the PC. Also Free to Play is a relatively new thing, back in the day there was no such thing, you had demos/shareware, nowdays you don't even get demos but you get 20 offers to pre-order and get special content based on weather you pre-order on Amazon, or Gamestop or Steam, no wonder people pirate the shit, because they want the full experience not miss out on shit just because they bought the game on the wrong retailer.

Also Free to Play hasn't lost anything in this debate, it's like saying Coke is water, no, Coke is Coke and water is water. Dota isn't Sonic Racing, and Sonic Racing isn't Quake Live.

Piracy is here to stay for those who want to take advantage of it. Whilst I agree that the Free to Play games are getting better and better and Dota 2 probably raked in a lot more profit as some other AAA games, simply with microtransaction, so I guess it's something to consider for all developers, especially if the demographic to whom they want to sell primarily isn't really able to support their hobby themselves and that's no excuse it's reality, most are at volition of their parents to give them money.

@gbrading:

what about "pirate's" who also spend around 60-100 euro a month on game's while also pirating games?

and trust me when i say that 60-100 is allot of money to spend in my current situation.

Piracy is and always remains theft. The developer in this instance, all credit to them, had the right to flip out at that guy, and their restraint is commendable. But piracy of games (and of films) not only damages video game developers but the players themselves. It makes publishers like Ubisoft create draconian-DRM systems; it makes their CEO say "93-5% of PC players are probably pirates" and it allows those who want to make closed, controlled systems such as the Xbox One and the PS4 all the more enticing. The "I'm poor" excuse doesn't wash, with the massive amount of free-to-play titles, and regular as clockwork sales where games are routinely sold for the cost of a sandwich.

I might even go so far as to say if you're a pirate, only logical to assume you hate video games, because you are doing absolutely nothing to support them and everything to harm them.

Ah that stuff gets removed with proper cracks. The Batman thing where the game blocked your progress or crashed (can't remember) was "fixed" by a crack one day after it was found to be in the game, same with the Serious Sam scorpion thingy.

I admit, I pirated like a monster in the mid 90s, there was no online downloads ala Steam back then, and the closest store was 20km away and I had no driving license or money what so ever as a teenager, to afford games at the prices, it's not an excuse it's a fact and the truth. Never had any problems with any piracy protection, unrar, load the iso, install, copy the crack - boom, game ran perfectly.

Now, I click "buy" on Steam and I'm done, tho truth be told, I don't have much time for gaming anymore, so they don't get much from me.

@sessh said:

Don't worry, it's still just in the planning phase. He'll get to it I'm sure...

I would assume it was a case of seeing whether his computer could run it or not. Only reason I can think of.

Dude got caught red handed, proceeded to make dumb excuses for pirating, and then tried hard to change the subject. Great example of shooting yourself in the foot with someone else's gun.

Everything about that guy's Twitter page is incredibly pathetic and now he's asking the people who gifted him the game to also buy him the DLC.

At least Skullgirls got some nice publicity from this, that game and the devs don't get as much recognition as they deserve (especially after the whole Konami fiasco).

That was how I felt about it. I wonder if any pirates saw it and, realizing they were being addressed personally and in a lighthearted way, felt enough shame to consider buying it. These sorts of things are like the anti-DRM: we know you pirated it, and we're going to tell you we know, but we're not going to disable anything.

Maybe, maybe not, either way it was cool. Also it got the game in the news, so definitely a marketing win either way.

lol. I pirated a few games back in the day, only because i was broke though. It's much better to just buy stuff on steam, even just wait for a steam sale. Sitting around waiting for cracks, shady download sites, and possible viruses just isn't worth it.

Anyway, i think this is much better than any DRM system to affect piracy, maybe not prevent but at least make it more frustrating for pirates rather than legit buyers.

I first spotted the demo for Torchlight on Steam in late October of 2009, so I torrented it. Then, I ended up visiting the Runic forums.

After getting to know the devs a little (they were pretty active on the forum back then), and reading up on all the stuff that had happened with Flagship I realized that Max Schaefer & his crew were a bunch of good people. It made me realize that I was taking something they were hinging their futures on. Something they had worked hard for.

I don't judge people who download because I know that not everyone who torrents games is a bad person but for me...I felt so guilty. They had welcomed me with open arms, and I went and took their game...so I apologized on their forum. They were gracious, and very forgiving.

I ended up getting to know some of the devs, and helped promote their first game. By the time Torchlight II came along I was a pretty major part of the community. I even have some in game items named after me & my guild. While what I did was inexcusable the fact is that I was going through a lot of bad stuff at the time.

Over the years my friendship with the folks from Runic as well as the friendships I've gained because of Torchlight & Torchlight II have helped me become a much happier person. This is why I suggest folks support developers of games they enjoy as much as they can. If you are gonna download at least do the right thing & buy it at some point or recommend it to friends who will.

@tekzero:

this is the way, and i think its one of the reasons steam is so sucsesfull. steam sales and very easy to use and fast.

i am buying way more games since i discoverd steam and also bought almost all, if not all of the games that i pirated and liked.

I think the idea is that piracy will never really be stopped, and people will pirate things regardless. By doing something that doesn't restrict the game completely, it means that people can still play the game and realise it's worth buying, whilst simultaneously having a message saying "Hey, we know what you're doing, and we're going to make you look bad for not buying it. Have some decency."

If the game just locked up on a pirated version, the only two things that'd happen are:

1 - The kind of pirate who downloads all the latest releases regardless of their interest (which seem to be a lot of them) would say "Well fuck this" and delete it, not play it, and just move on to the next game, without even considering buying it.

2 - If a legitimate customer somehow trips the copy protection, they'd still be able to play the game, and be able to prove to the developers that they bought it, so the developers can find out why it triggered and patch it. The customer would then still be able to play it in the meantime while it gets fixed. It'd also save some hassle in the future when the copy protection becomes outdated, so they wouldn't have to manually remove it. (That's why everyone hates Games for Windows Live after all. No protection lasts forever, and it can screw over players of older games when the protection no longer works, or becomes inaccessible online.)

The problem with 'intentionally screwing over the player' types of copy protection (like Batman not being able to glide, and randomly inserting other weird game-breaking bugs) is that pirates get it, say "This port is buggy as hell!" and then never buy it, whilst telling everyone they know "Yeah, don't get that PC port, it's awful."

I think he just thought it was some weird rare easter egg.

Kinda like how people would see 'Call Apogee and say Aardwolf!' in a ridiculously secret area of Wolf3D and think "Huh, I wonder what this bizarre message is all about? I should contact the company and find out!"

Or maybe all those weird hidden images in the Trials games that would pop up if you did some obtuse trick in an area that nobody would try.

"What is the square root of a fish?" seems weird enough to be a 'Huh, I've found a weird secret thing!' moment, rather than an 'I should contact tech support!' moment.

I just wonder if that guy eventually bought the game. Somehow I doubt it.

what kind of idiot contacts devs for support of a game he didn't even buy... that just seems even more sleazy than simply pirating.

hey guys i'm going to fuck you by not buying it and also help me with my questions for free too. total douche.

Dan seems like he's trying to ass kiss since they called him out.

I hope games are sold in cheap price in asian and african countries. it's sad the prices of games in asia and africa is same as prices in developed nations like US and UK and it's also unfair. the only organization that sell games in cheap prices in asia is EA games.

Great story Patrick! Its the kind of smaller feel good piece i wish we had more of, restores a little bit of faith in humanity. Kudos to the Skullgirls twitter guy/girl, they had a bit of fun with Hibiki and the chances are he will buy the game now. Its a good game, more people should buy it ^_^

Fade worked in a way similar to how some C64 games did it.. where they would have deliberate blank spaces on the disc that would be ignored while copying, but the game could detect if they weren't there. I recommend people read up on old copy protection methods, they're are some really clever ones.

I love the idea of a game having a subtly degraded experience when it's pirated. However didn't that backfire one some dev a few years ago when their game came out and it quickly spread around that it was a buggy mess... they later came out and said that was only on pirated versions but the damage to the public perception of the game was already done.

Also great article Patrick.

Problem with these schemes is they can trigger for the wrong reason. I for example had that Arkham Asylum grapple point issue until they patched the game. Think I had problem with ghostbusters as well. The candlesticks in that hotel would be near impossible to kill. Until I put the game disc into my other optical drive.

More than once I've had securom games like dead space 2 think it is a new machine after updating my graphics drivers.

Again, not a valid reason. Demos can also vary wildly from the actual released product. It is very likely that a demo is some old build of a game the developers made for some convention or preview.

It's a shame I don't really like Skullgirls. I almost want to buy it now, though, because the people over at Lab Zero Games just seem like such good people. On top of that, they seem to have a good sense of humor outside of game as well, and they have an interesting idea about combating piracy.

That is why reviews and YouTube exist. That's not really an excuse.

What? You mean if I just put this Xbox disc into my Nintendo, Gears of War won't just work? :(

Hah! Fun read.

I liked the format of this article; does well for keeping you engaged.

@sjschmidt93: We could, but it would get cracked anyway. So we decided we'd just be weird and put a message in to let people know that we know.

I imagine many other developers would be a good bit less polite about. Those guys must have saint like patience. Good read, thanks Patrick.

I think stopping a good number of amateurs would be better than the hassle that legitimate customers have to deal with. I think the only time DRM is effective is when there is an online component to a game. Single player DRM typically results in annoyance. This article provides a good example of someone who couldn't tell it was the pirated copy delivering that message. If the stolen versions of a game had a defect that was built in well enough (Serious Sam 3) it could dupe thieves for a while.

How can they program in weird things like this but not program the game to just lock up to prevent piracy all together?

I don't get why developers don't just program anti-piracy measures into games like Batman Arkham Asylum or Game Dev Story. Seems like it would be preferred to DRM and might actually get some funny stories and publicity out of it. That and the thieves won't be able to finish the game.

Excellent work as always, Patrick!

It's nice that the developer had a pretty cool head about it.

I agree that it'd be crazy for someone to pirate Alan Wake just for the eye patch. It's so cheap on PC and Remedy goes above and beyond for their PC users. Just look at all the crazy stuff they allow you to do with the engine in game and constantly being vocal, honest and enthusiastic to their fans on their forums.

It is a little silly that it feels like people who purchased it are missing out on something, but are we really? It's just one little customization, though a really funny one at that.

I wonder if this was intentional by Lab Zero Games to reach out to people who pirated the game in a personal, yet reasonable manner to hopefully convince some to purchase it. That would be really clever.