I think that's smart business sense. It could be bad for the game's reputation if a lot of people get a hold of the game illegally and then complain on message boards about bugs that have been fixed in the proper release.
Hotline Miami
Game » consists of 12 releases. Released Oct 23, 2012
- PC
- Mac
- Linux
- PlayStation Network (PS3)
- + 5 more
- PlayStation Network (Vita)
- PlayStation 4
- Xbox One
- Android
- Google Stadia
A top-down shooter game with an 80s aesthetic, a brutal style, and a thoughtful, slightly surreal philosophy underlying the story about the nature of violence.
Devs request that pirates updates their torrents
This is really the only respectable position to take on the issue if you view the game designer as an artist. Real artists create their works to convey a message or enrich culture. They don't do it with the sole purpose of making money or else it's really not art at all. Making money is a shitty motivation and it leads to bland, watered-down works of mere entertainment instead of art. I have no problem charging money for entertainment; Ican understand Activision charging $60 for the newest COD and trying to stamp out piracy of it because there's no message that anyone is trying to convey to the audience, so there's no reason to care about the fact that charging $60 for it will restrict some people from playing it (and before anyone makes an ignorant remark, yes, $60 actually is A LOT of money to a lot of people). People play those sorts of games for the experience of playing them and it's fine to charge money for that since "having a good time" isn't really that important a goal. If you're making art, however, any barrier between the work and the audience is somewhat undesirable, as you're limiting exposure to your message. Most of Hotline Miami's dev's earlier games are available for free on his site, so I think it's safe to say he's not in it for the money; I think the guy just genuinely enjoys making interesting, thought-provoking games and having people play them. The $10 price is fine with me (I mean, I paid it because I'm happy to support this guy), but there are some people who want to consume art without necessarily supporting the artist and, as long as the designer cares more about the actual work than the money (which seems to pretty clearly be the case here), that really ought to be fine, too. Personally, I am not one of those people, but it's not like the pirated copies cost anyone anything, anyway. I don't understand why everyone in this thread is getting pissed off about the pirates on the dev's behalf when it's pretty clear that he doesn't care about the money.
Besides, trying to fight piracy is hella counter-productive, anyway. DRM and taking down torrents only anger the pirates and ensures that they buckle down and have three more up by the next day. Plus, piracy undeniably leads to many more people playing a game who would not ordinarily do so, and I would imagine the number of people who play a pirated copy, enjoy it, and then purchase it is probably a lot more than the number of people who would have bought it but instead pirated it. Note, I'm not advocating for or apologizing for piracy, here, as it can be pretty shitty, but I am advocating against anti-piracy measures because they either don't work, hinder the experience of paying customers, and/or engender a lot of ill will towards specific publishers or developers. And if you're trying to make art, it really shouldn't matter to you anyway. The rampant commoditization of games is, in my opinion, one of the major things holding back the medium and ensuring that the same safe, boring stuff continues to be made long after it becomes tiresome.
Jimbo posted:
If you can't afford some luxury item you are perfectly entitled to not own it. You aren't entitled to expect other people who have made the choice to work harder / smarter / longer than you to subsidise it for you, which is what happens when I pay my share towards development and you choose to steal a copy. Living in the UK, I have enough people with their hand in my pocket as it is - I don't need to hear game devs telling people it's ok to behave like that.
Also, this comes off as almost comically regressive. Maybe if people weren't so lazy and stupid they wouldn't be poor and wouldn't steal your hard earned money, huh? Bootstraps, people!
This is terrible, he should have just gave them a guilt trip but admit that he can do nothing about it. This is just encouraging pirates.
@Sweep said:
I don't pirate games for reasons that I won't go into here (I'd rather avoid that debate), but just reading this instantly earned these guys a lot of respect and made me want to give them some money for their obvious efforts to make their game as accessible as possible.Thoughts?
Avoid what debate? It's wrong and there are no grey areas. There is no debate.
Anyways seems like a case that if there was any chance someone would pirate it and then later buy it, they would more likely be willing to if the game worked.
This is a good move, but the fact thousands of people will still pirate the game is exactly why larger companies push for more intrusive copy protection in their games.
@BlatantNinja23
I dont see a problem pirating an old game that is not even available through any digital distribution or you cant find a hard copy anywhere. Of course its still legally wrong, but not morally imo.
Well obviously there are people who would pirate it regardless. I'm saying that this could turn more people to pirate it rather than buy it legitimately.@Sackmanjones said:
@SackmanjonesSo are they saying they don't care if I pirate the game?I should note I have no intention of pirating the game but when developers do shit like this it is almost a free pass to pirate it. That's fine that you accept your game is gonna get stolen but doing stuff like this almost gives people the go ahead to pirate itPirates and/or people who were going to pirate it anyway don't give two shits about permissions, go aheads or free passes. They(he) are saying no such thing. He is simply ensuring a better and more widespread word of mouth about the game. And for a small release this can equate to more eventual sales.
Your question is ultimately answered in the original post by the quoted tweets.
@Sackmanjones said:
@TennmuertiWell obviously there are people who would pirate it regardless. I'm saying that this could turn more people to pirate it rather than buy it legitimately.@Sackmanjones said:
@SackmanjonesSo are they saying they don't care if I pirate the game?I should note I have no intention of pirating the game but when developers do shit like this it is almost a free pass to pirate it. That's fine that you accept your game is gonna get stolen but doing stuff like this almost gives people the go ahead to pirate itPirates and/or people who were going to pirate it anyway don't give two shits about permissions, go aheads or free passes. They(he) are saying no such thing. He is simply ensuring a better and more widespread word of mouth about the game. And for a small release this can equate to more eventual sales.
Your question is ultimately answered in the original post by the quoted tweets.
Not really, for that to happen you would need a person who was initially going to buy it in the first place, to now switch his mind to pirate the game instead. That is just not a probable psychological scenario in most cases.
But there are going to be people who have never heard of the game who are now going to buy it to because of extra publicity; positive word of mouth from pirates can give additional sales, and even this thread shows the third case who are now going to buy the game simply because of this gesture. That is already 3 scenarios that are all even individually much more likely to happen for such a release then the above.
There is realistically no way for him to lose total number sales in this situation, only to gain them.
@WinterSnowblind said:
This is a good move, but the fact thousands of people will still pirate the game is exactly why larger companies push for more intrusive copy protection in their games.
Which doesn't make the slightest bit of difference to pirates and only gets in the way of legitimate players.
Really you just don't want to raise any tempers. People who feel self-entitled run in crowds of other people who are sort-of on the fence about paying $10 for a Chipotle burrito or a top 5 indie game. Giving people the chance to skip a burrito without figuratively alienating their friends is a good amount of cognitive dissonance.
well, I already bought it, but that's pretty cool of him. that said, most game devs kind of don't have the option to be this nice. game making is a business, after all.
@jabbertrack said:
Really you just don't want to raise any tempers. People who feel self-entitled run in crowds of other people who are sort-of on the fence about paying $10 for a Chipotle burrito or a top 5 indie game. Giving people the chance to skip a burrito without figuratively alienating their friends is a good amount of cognitive dissonance.
To be fair, Chipotle makes a pretty mean burrito.
@WinterSnowblind said:
This is a good move, but the fact thousands of people will still pirate the game is exactly why larger companies push for more intrusive copy protection in their games.
Yeah, because DRM has TOTALLY succeeded in stopping pirates.
The only thing DRM does is fuck over the people who actually buy the game, because it WILL be cracked by the end of the day. It ALWAYS is.
What if he said this to get the internet to think/feel exactly the way that you guys are reacting right now?!
I actually think this is cool of him and already bought the game on steam AND gifted a friend a copy, just wanted to play devil's advocate. >D
I wouldn't call this an act of selflessness and "I just want people to play the game" attitude. It's a fact that people are going to pirate games, and to me, it seems like he's just accepting that fact and trying to play nice to garner respect and/or a few more sales from pirates.
Social engineering at its finest.
You should support a developer because they make good games, not because they take a stance on piracy that isn't legal action. Buying the game on this statement alone is idiocy. If people make shit games but take a stance like this on piracy do all of you just buy the games they make ? I'm all about realistic views on piracy, but just giving someone the money is ludicrous because they share a view that you do as well. Might as well mail people $20 every time they say something you agree with. What utter nonsense.
You should support a developer because they make good games, not because they take a stance on piracy that isn't legal action. Buying the game on this statement alone is idiocy. If people make shit games but take a stance like this on piracy do all of you just buy the games they make ? I'm all about realistic views on piracy, but just giving someone the money is ludicrous because they share a view that you do as well. Might as well mail people $20 every time they say something you agree with. What utter nonsense.
I think the point here is that these devs made a good game and seem to have a novel stance regarding piracy. Also, you're six months late to this thread.
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