Pirates react to their games being pirated

ha. I do not. But I do have multiple reactions to many scenarios.

For example, I don't have a gif of a rabbit with butterfly wings shooting lasers out of it's eyes, but...

I do have a bunny with butterfly wings, a bunny shooting lasers out of its eyes, and a bunny being adorable.

But they haven't put up any evidence of piracy. No one has pirated their game. They put a copy of their own game on a file sharing site, gave it a full description and encouraged people to download it. In other words a version of the game is being freely distributed over the internet by it's developers. At no point did "piracy" occur, no illegally copied the software, no one cracked the DRM. The developers are distributing their own property.

Everything about this is scewed and in no way represents the facts surrounding an actual pirated game. The numbers only show what happens if you put your own software on a file sharing site frequented by pirates. It doesn't in any way show lost revenue.

Noooo.... Let's look at that again.

How can they be both crying wolf and be a wolf at the same time? Do you even understand what crying wolf means? I mean, aside from this:

I like how people are obsessed with the comparison to Game Dev Story while ignoring the actual focus of the topic.

ps What in the hell is he talking about crying wolves and wolves and Sniper Wolf? Did they get together and make a game or something?

Patiently waiting for "Piracy doesn't matter argument"

@extomar: Eh, their publicity stunt isn't particularly interesting either - all that they've proven is that their game is pretty unpopular.

Whether or not the game is any good is independent of the topic. If nothing else I believe the stunt itself is more amusing and interesting that either game.

@extomar: Fair enough. It just seems like it's been done before.

It has been awhile since I played Game Dev Story itself but I don't remember if they had scenarios or factors like piracy. I would even say going forward that such simulators should take into account "fickle internet fans" and "rampant piracy".

Game Dev Story did not simulate piracy.

I would go so far as to say that a good sim would already have those variables :p

While I don't condone Piracy, they brought this on them self if they torrented their own game.

That's like saying "I don't want anyone to steal this watch, so I am going to leave it on this bench here at the park."

This is more a case of a developer feeling really bright about what they did (Hey we made it so pirates who play get pirated, that's so ironic. Everyone will want to know!) and trying to get people to pirate it to see if it drives sales.

This also sounds a lot like another game I've heard of but never played. I think it was called Game Dev story or something like that- although I have to reserve judgement as I don't know if its a direct rip off or actually innovating on that idea.

Anyway, I don't have ill will towards these guys, but let's be realistic here. Why would you torrent your first game release if even to make a point? That seems really stupid. Wait until you've made some money first at least!

Maybe all the talk about this dumb little irony will help them in the long run- because they've already shot themselves in the foot pretty early.

What?

@hailinel: I see your brain only works in the literal fashion... Let me put it this way for you to more easily comprehend, They are upset about pirates right? But they released the "pirate" version of "their" game onto torrent sites and seeded it, a game they copied almost as a whole from Game Dev Story, so they are infact the pirates.

@cornbredx: You did read that the developer uploaded a torrent for a gimped version of the game, right?

That's more like "I don't want people to steal this watch, but I'm curious how many people would steal a watch. I'll leave this semi-broken watch on this park bench with a tracking device."

@gaff: Yes, I got that. As clearly shown by reading my entire post.

There is no statement to be made about pirating games if you condone it by making the copy available to download for free yourself (gimped or not).

This is the indie games version of a publicity stunt.

Ah, wait, you consider the gimped version to be the same as the normal version. Got it.

Wait, then how the fuck are you supposed to find out if pirates are actually hurting your sales if you don't put up your own special version of the game that tracks it? It's not illegal that people downloaded this version of the game. They're already pirates to begin with that happened to download a free gimped version of a game they thought was the real one that they were stealing.

Jokes on them for downloading the free "for asshole pirates" edition. They seem to be really butt hurt about being fooled too.

Or an even more apt comparison: it's as if Rolex produced a low-quality knock-off themselves, implanted it with a tracking chip and then made a big deal about how there are ten knock-off vendors for every real Rolex vendor and complained publicly about their lost sales.

Hmm... maybe that's not right either. Rolex is hella expensive after all. Perhaps it's more like if Casio started giving away free pirated versions of their budget watches and complained about those lost sales? The internet makes metaphors difficult.

The cool thing about language is that words have power because you give them power. What means giberish to one can be emotional to another.

I also do not see how you think emotionally empty duckbilled mammals have to do with jeff and the Myriad Pro font.

You know...they are crying wolf. The game is an elephant. The elephant is a wolf. Get it?

Platitude, not platypus.

If they are not the same then there is no harm done, its like downloading a demo, right?

Even though I don't agree with you, I understood exactly what you meant. It's crazy how many people can't comprehend anything that requires an ounce of abstract thought. HUR DUR HE SAID WULF TWICE HERPY DURPY HURRR

Anti-DRM-style DRM measures are GDLK.

I don't understand the people saying they put out a "pirate" copy on torrents so they condone the piracy. Are you people seriously saying the game wouldn't have been on torrents within hours of release like every game made now and wouldn't have similar numbers? They put out a broken version so the real version would be harder to find, that's just smart.

Also they got a HUGE PR event out of this which benefited them very very well. And I am glad for that.

...what? You didn't put it any way that is more easily comprehended. Are you mad you believe they copied Game Dev Story? Or are you mad they are making an ironic point about a game that simulates the game development process that features rampant piracy scenario?

@nivash: Ya, my metaphor wasn't very good either. I think yours was the best.

@dagbiker: At least someone understands what my point is. I think =P

Yeah, yeah, I know this post is from 7 years ago, but I feel I need to respond to this. So, but why would it "annoy" you for a small indie game developer (or technically any game developer for that matter) to put it out there that 93% of their players have pirated their game? Why is that a bad thing to put the awareness of that out there. And it annoys you because "of course" 93% pirated the game since it's not free, so kinda-sorta indirectly scolding them for the price they chose? I've seen similar games that are $20. $8 for a brand-spankin'-ass new game isn't horrendous at all, and was already on sale for $5 shortly after release, and goes on sale very very often. Now, for the people who are unemployed or teenagers not able to work yet that wanna play the game, yeah it might seem like alot, but that's what jobs and income are for, to participate in your economy, to be able to buy and sell stuff that you want in life.

Now, onto more of the piracy portion of this discussion. Point #1, why should it even matter how the piracy affects the company's bottom line? That shouldn't even matter, because most companies work very very hard on their games, spend alot of time crafting it to their likings, do they really deserve their game to be pirated? It's absolutely unfair to the developers who spent their time and money on creating the game, and how piracy might or might not affect the company should have no bearing on it. I understand why the other side say it does matter because a big conglomerate like Electronic Arts should have no problem with people pirating their games. Even if somebody feels that EA is total scum on the Earth, they still create games and spend their time and money on it. They make games for a reason, to sell their creative works to buyers and to make money. If they knew their games would be free, they wouldn't be doing it in the first place, it's not operating as a charity. BTW, they did offer The Sims 4 completely for free at one point for I think an entire month, and it's en expensive game too, but I digress. So that's just for a huge game developer, but what about the small indie developers? Most of them either barely break even or have a small profit, depending upon the success of their game(s). Esepcially knowing it's a small indie company, why would it annoy you for anti-piracy advocates to stand up for the rights of the developer making game(s)?

The consumer doesn't have free reign and rights when it comes to stealing a product. You don't walk into Walmart and say, "Ohhh, Walmart is such a huge conglomerate, their bottom line won't be affected by me stealing this game off their shelf." It's the same exact thing, except that online piracy feels less wrong because they're doing it on a computer in the privacy and comfort of their homes and not having to worry too much about getting caught by the police. Not only that, but the whole mantra of doing it because "everybody else does it" is kinda convoluted. If 70% of people have shoplifted in a physical store, you wouldn't say oh it's fine to do that cuz most people do it. But the spirit of what they're doing is exactly the same, wanting to circumvent the cost of paying for a product that is on the market for a reason, no matter how you feel about the company selling it, they have a right to sell their product and not have people stealing it whether in-store or online.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that way back when, I downloaded The Sims and think The Sims 2. Well, not the base games but the expansion packs mainly. I admit that, and it was wrong to do. I was younger then, and no excuse for me doing it, but I was o a younger mindset then and wasn't as mature in my thinking when it comes to what it really means to do something like that. Napster was great, I loved it. When KaZaA came out, and eMule, they were great, it's how I got all those Sims games, but again it was wrong on my part. I've since bought The Sims 3 and The Sims 4 online the right way, and I just bought 2 expansion packs for The Sims 4 just the other day (I bought the base game way back in 2016, lol). So sometimes you might have to wait longer to buy a game or an add-on for an existing game you bought, but so what, just do it the right way and stop stealing a company's creation, no matter how badly you want it.

I've had Game Dev Tycoon since 1/1/2015, only like 3 months after my very very first Steam game, Space Engineers. Now I've got 1,400+ Steam gams and all without piracy. Not only this, but I've never held a job making more than $12/hour and half or more of this period I wasn't even working. Steam and several other legitimate websites give such huge discounts on so many games, there's even less of an excuse to complain about high prices to the point where you need to pirate because of it. So anyhow, I had GDT for 5.5 years now, and just found out today the story about Greenheart Games putting out a pirated version of their game themselves, uploading it to file-sharing site and letting it run wild. Totally awesome to know that these thieves would then complain about their virtual games within a game about deveoping games being pirated to the point that it's bankrupting them, or at the very least causing a dip in their profits. It's such huge ironicy it's hilarious. Just imagine if those pirateers were putting out real-life games and saw the exact same thing happen in their company because of piracy, would they maybe then understand a company's position and stance on piracy?

Sure, some companies say they feel it's good to have it pirated, increases awareness and all of that. Now, if they're encouraging it, then by all means don't feel bad about doing it, but you don't find that extremely often. And to know how small Greenheart Games is as a small indie studio and to say that it's annoying when people talk about piracy and desire to know how the piracy is actually affecting their company, as if that should change whether people outright steal a game off an online shelf, that's just ridiculous to me on many levels. Welp, this was a long-enough ranting and raving, hope some of you like reading it. :-)

I really like your thoughts on this matter. How do you think this compares to cancel culture?

Also, dear sir, I have an additional question regarding this matter. In your post you mention how you have 1,400+ Steam games. However, upon investigation into your publicly listed Steam profile, it was revealed that this is NOT the case. In fact, you only have 1,273 games. I have attached a screenshot below for posterity:

Now this raises the moral question of what what lead a man to tell a lie about such a thing. Is it possible that you could be confused, because in fact, you PIRATEDthe rest of the games?

I appreciate your response regarding these allegations.

Warmest Regards,

J

@arabes In all fairness, the pirates didn't know the developers did this, the description didn't say this was uploaded by Greenheart Games. As far as the pirates knew, they were downloading it intending to steal it. It's the spirit of what they were trying to do. Greenheart Games I'm sure will not raise any legal disputes with anybody who downloaded their uploaded version, I think the pirates will have suffered enough with their lose of in-game revenue and probable bankruptcy. Now, if anybody downloaded a cracked version of the game, versions that Greenheart Games didn't upload, yes they should be held liable for stealing those. The developer didn't make any of those pirates download any versions of their games.

Also, how do you even know that nobody pirated their game, like a truly pirated version that had to be cracked and everything in order to even launch it open? You stated that no piracy occured, nobody illegally copied the software. Well, they still could've downloaded other versions and probably did because why wouldn't they, it's a free game that apparently alot of people wanted to play enough that they downloaded it from an illegal site. Also, I might venture so far as to say they were still technically downloading even the company's version illegally, cuz it's not like Greenheart Games said in it's upload description that this is a copy we're uploading from us. So that fact that it's on the site to be downloaded, and Greenheart Games didn't release a statement saying you're free to download it through file-sharing sites, I technically think it was still illegally downloaded even that version, but again I highly doubt that Greenheart Games would bring any legal challenges, but their whole entire point was to bring awareness to the issue of piracy, right to the pirates themselves. Ohhh and I just thought of another anology too. Greenheart spending time and money on a real-life game, while the pirates only spend virtual money making virtual games, they spent their real-life time and energy playing the game only to find out their virtual business was being destroyed or at least undermined due to piracy, just like can happen to a real life company sometimes (not all of them). The irony is just so awesome.

@cornbredx said:

I don't think they felt they were gonna lose any "more" money from them uploading their own version to the file-sharing site. They knew the game was gonna be pirated, virtually every game imaginable ends up being pirated, cuz they're free, so there would've been an actual cracked version that would've been illegally downloaded anyhow, but they wanted to see how many would indeed download it, even minutes after uploading it. And they wanted to raise awareness to the issue of piracy, and doing it in a clever way to bring it right directly to the pirates themselves, making them waste their time and energy playing their game only to discover it's all for naught when they can't generate enough money and probably end up going bankrupt, showing them what it feels like to be stolen from, especially after working very hard on producing your product.

HELLO

POSSIBLY I WAS TOO POLITE IN MY PREVIOUS MESSGAE. I BELIEVE WE ARE ALL CONCERERNED REGARDING THE ELEPHANTS INT THE ROOM HERE.

I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU HAVE INCLUDED NEW POINTS WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. HOWEVER I DONT BBVELIEVE WE CAN PROCEED ANY FUTUERH UNTIL WE ADDRESS THE ORIGINAL QWURESTION.

THANKS

@joshakazam: Forgive me man, I was simply responding to several postings before checking for any responses. I'll get to it.

@joshakazam said:

I really like your thoughts on this matter. How do you think this compares to cancel culture?

Also, dear sir, I have an additional question regarding this matter. In your post you mention how you have 1,400+ Steam games. However, upon investigation into your publicly listed Steam profile, it was revealed that this is NOT the case. In fact, you only have 1,273 games. I have attached a screenshot below for posterity:

Now this raises the moral question of what what lead a man to tell a lie about such a thing. Is it possible that you could be confused, because in fact, you PIRATEDthe rest of the games?

I appreciate your response regarding these allegations.

Warmest Regards,

J

I do sometimes forget that Steam breaks apart some of their titles, like if it has 5 parts to it, it'll list it as 5 different games in your Steam client, but only show as 1 product on a profile's games count. I'll attach where I'm getting my figure from. It turns out the number was actually bigger than I was thinking. The total number is 1,656. Like Back To The Future from Telltale, it had 5 parts to it, which were technically separate games, but for the client they separate them out, while for the profile page they don't separate them.

@joshakazam said:

I really like your thoughts on this matter. How do you think this compares to cancel culture?

Also, dear sir, I have an additional question regarding this matter. In your post you mention how you have 1,400+ Steam games. However, upon investigation into your publicly listed Steam profile, it was revealed that this is NOT the case. In fact, you only have 1,273 games. I have attached a screenshot below for posterity:

Now this raises the moral question of what what lead a man to tell a lie about such a thing. Is it possible that you could be confused, because in fact, you PIRATEDthe rest of the games?

I appreciate your response regarding these allegations.

Warmest Regards,

J

And as far as I know, you can't really pirate Steam games cuz of their strict DRM management, and there's always automatic checks happening, you need a Steam key in order to add it to your library for usage. If there is some special way, I've never heard about it.

@dariusgalaxyz: I'm sorry to derail things, but I am fascinated and I have to know, what compelled you to make an account to post incredibly detailed responses to 7 year old posts about pirating a mobile game?

@dariusgalaxyz said:

@joshakazam said:

I really like your thoughts on this matter. How do you think this compares to cancel culture?

Also, dear sir, I have an additional question regarding this matter. In your post you mention how you have 1,400+ Steam games. However, upon investigation into your publicly listed Steam profile, it was revealed that this is NOT the case. In fact, you only have 1,273 games. I have attached a screenshot below for posterity:

Now this raises the moral question of what what lead a man to tell a lie about such a thing. Is it possible that you could be confused, because in fact, you PIRATEDthe rest of the games?

I appreciate your response regarding these allegations.

Warmest Regards,

J

And as far as I know, you can't really pirate Steam games cuz of their strict DRM management, and there's always automatic checks happening, you need a Steam key in order to add it to your library for usage. If there is some special way, I've never heard about it.

what about the cancel culture

@dariusgalaxyz: I don't know why you are replying to me. The comment says I wrote that 7 years ago. Fuck, I don't even remember where I was living 7 years ago let alone what this thread was about or what was going on at the time in games that formed my opinions or even really why I found it so important to have an opinion on this topic. I'm a pretty big idiot half the time and I say stuff. Then later I regret it and people hate me and the cycle continues. I know a lot of nothing so nothing I say is worth replying to- let alone 7 years later. If you're not careful you'll find something on here I said 10 or so years ago, too. It was probably dumb.

Sorry; I'm not reading your reply really or trying to figure out what this thread is about. I'm not sure why you replied several times to an really really old thread, but I'm sure it was important. I'm declaring everyone a winner.

People seemed just as bored 7 years ago as they are today.