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Cracked Game Released To Get Back At Pirates
John Wagger writes "When Greenheart Games released their very first game, Game Dev Tycoon (for Mac, Windows and Linux) yesterday, they did something unusual and as far as I know unique. They released a cracked version of the game, minutes after opening their Store. The pirated copy was completely same as the real copy, except that after a few hours into the game, players started noticing widespread piracy of their games in the game development simulator."
You really need to read the article.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
They paid the most because their market is undeserved for high end games.
It really is down due to traffic. And cloudflare really is playing medical insurance company again. If you're not familiar, it's where you pay and pay and pay for their protection and then that one time when you critically need them, they're useless and refuse to properly do their one single job that they had (they claim there's allegedly no cached version of the page for them to serve up off their servers).
Annnd by this logic Xplane pirated MS Flight simulator. Halo pirated Wolfenstien 3d. etc.
It isn't piracy. If the gameplay is exactly the same (such as some clones that ONLY change the graphics) you might have something. If the game plays differently, adds features, etc, it's just another entry in the genre.
I put on my robe and wizard hat..
Ah, the invincible pink scorpion. It appeared fairly early in the game, which was probably a good idea. If they'd put it in too late then pirates might have been put off (more so) from buying the game, but since it was so early it gave pirates a chance to get a feel for the game but not have to replay too much if they decided to buy it.
False Dichotomy. Assuming competence (which I realize is an unsafe assumption) they could have made the savegame from the warez version work on the official version, and the players would not have to replay anything. Just don't load the pink scorpion.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They paid the most because their market is undeserved for high end games.
I'm hoping that you meant "underserved".
The fact that you will LOSE because of that is not obvious from TFS. TFA is /.ed anyway.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I haven't played this game yet, but if I downloaded the "pirated" version knowing it was a demo of sorts, by reading this /. article or having a short "you've downloaded the torrent demo. It's the full game, but blah blah blah" and I liked the "pirated" version, I'd buy the full game. If I downloaded the "pirated" version and there was no disclaimer, I'd assume the game was broken. No way I'd give up money for that.
This from someone who's kicked in a lot of money for beta's and less than stellar Linux releases (Minecraft, Humblebundles, Steam, extra donations to kickstarter's to be on beta tester list). If the game is available and I try it and like it, I will buy it. If the game is crap, "pirated" or not, it's off my list. There are many other things to spend money on before wasting it on crap games.
Kudos to these guys for trying something "new", but I think they, as with all developers, need to lighten up on the "piracy is killing our business". If you're not making money because piracy is hurting your bottom line so much, don't make games. It's obviously not a viable industry. Instead we constantly read about awesome new game selling millions of copies and turning huge profits and then hear the developer screaming about how piracy is running their business. I'm inclined to believe it's a bunch of horse shit. It also makes me believe when a developer of a less than awesome game starts screaming piracy, they're full of it too and are just on the "We'd make so much more money if it wasn't for piracy" bandwagon despite the fact that their game was just crap.
And what % of the 3130 people that pirated it actually would have bought a legit copy?
Why is this meaningful? If I sneak into a movie theater and watch a movie without paying, it doesn't make it OK just because I would never have paid to see it. Sure my watching it doesn't "cost" the theater anything - I'm not really lost revenue for them - but that still doesn't legitimize my doing something for free that other people are paying for and in effect subsidizing.
You can persuasively argue that piracy by people who wouldn't pay for a product doesn't translate to lost revenue. You can't persuasively argue that it's "the right thing" to do, though.
"95% of all Slashdot
6. Because many Windows people already bought the game at full price and don't feel the need to rebuy.
Windows has a pretty vibrant game market, and has good digital distribution. Many of the non-cheapskate Windows users already bought the games prior to the humble bundle happening. For example I remember when the first one came out and Linux users were spraining their arms patting themselves on the backs for paying $14 for the bundle, or about $3 per game. All I could think was that the two games I wanted from it, I already owned and had paid full price for. $20 for World of Goo and $10 for Gish. I was happy with that too, felt I got my money's worth.
So I didn't buy the bundle, there was no need. I didn't want the other games.
What you have to appreciate about the slightly higher average Linux numbers is it is still highly cheapskate. Paying a couple bucks for a game is not much at all. One game at regular price can be a good bit more than that.
I think that is no small part of it. I've only ever bought one humble bundle, and that one I didn't pay much for because again, I owned many of the games. I bought the Introversion bundle because I wanted to try Darwinia. I already owned Defcon, Uplink, and Dungeons of Dreadmor. I spend quite a bit on games, but I do it outside of the humble bundle. I think you'll find many of the non-cheapskate Windows gamers are the same.