Indie Game Developer Shares Free Keys on The Pirate Bay (torrentfreak.com)

Jacob Janerka, developer of the popular indie adventure game 'Paradigm,' recently spotted a cracked copy of his title on The Pirate Bay. But, instead of being filled with anger and rage while running to the nearest anti-piracy outfit, Janerka decided to reach out to the pirates. Not to school or scold them, but to offer a few free keys. From a report: "Hey everyone, I'm Jacob, the creator of Paradigm. I know some of you legitimately can't afford the game and I'm glad you get to still play it :D," Janerka's comment on TPB reads. Having downloaded many pirated games himself in the past, Janerka knows that some people simply don't have the means to buy all the games they want to play. So he's certainly not going to condemn others for doing the same now, although it would be nice if some bought it later. "If you like the game, please tell your friends and maybe even consider buying it later," he added.

Comments

Best of luck, buddy

[TimothyHollins]

Nothing insightful to contribute, just wanted to say that I hope it works out for him. People like this are the ones that make the world a more amicable, and slightly better, place.

If you're wondering what the opposite of a DMCA-wielding media conglomerate looks like - this guy is it.

Re:Best of luck, buddy

[gweihir]

There are a lot of artists and entertainers that survive on the goodwill of their audience. It happens to be the traditional model. Of course, that does not mesh well with the greed and fantasies of supremacy of the large content monopolies, because it is far cheaper to push a small number of artists as the hottest shit, while neglecting all others, in particular those with smaller audiences because their material is not mainstreamed. As such, the content monopolies actually are very bad for the arts, as they actively oppose diversity. One effect of that is that I never felt the need to pirate even a single bit of music, the stuff in the mainstream was just to universally bad that I lost all interest.

Hence this guy understand what each actual artist and entertainer does: You live by the good opinion of your audience, and all that want to pay you something will do so. Trying to force the others is not only futile, but long-term counterproductive.

Re:Best of luck, buddy

[MangoCats]

I've sold "shareware" like this... with no locks, honor system for payments. Net sales when people know they can get it for free: approximately one unit per year. Net sales when the site it was on misrepresented it making it look like you had to pay in order to get it: approximately 10 units per month. No, I didn't retire off of the income, but it was very instructive that people have the money and are willing to spend the money when they have to, but those same people, given a free alternative, never seem to remember to send even a thank-you note afterwards. I actually got more feedback and positive comments from the people who paid $9 for the app (PalmOS days) than all of the freeloaders.

Re:Best of luck, buddy

[Picass0]

He's saying (paraphrase) "think of me later when you have a few bucks in your pocket."

It's not difficult.

Re:Best of luck, buddy

[KGIII]

I don't even game. I am going to go buy a couple of keys and give the game to my friend's kids.

Why? Because that guy's actions are one of the realistic, viable, acceptable ways to respond to piracy.

Re:Best of luck, buddy

[Kjella]

No, I didn't retire off of the income, but it was very instructive that people have the money and are willing to spend the money when they have to, but those same people, given a free alternative, never seem to remember to send even a thank-you note afterwards.

Is that very surprising? There's probably a hundred things I could spend money on every month and my disposable cash can cover each one but not all of them. And part of it I'd probably like to save for later. So you pay for the things that you have to pay for in order to get while the things you can have for free anyway never make the cut. Or the TL;DR version: No matter how "poor" the student is he always finds beer money.

Re:Best of luck, buddy

[Dutch Gun]

Good for him. I'm going to be in the same boat as this guy in a year or so, and I've actually given quite a bit of thought to how to deal with the issue of people sharing my game. It's going to happen, so for those that want the game for free, I was thinking of releasing a special version of the game with a small Paypal button or something like that in the credits menu. But I don't want it in the retail game for paying customers. So... I dunno, upload it to Pirate Bay myself with "PayPal=true" in the game's config file? That way people can make sure they're getting a clean, signed, malware-free package as well (for instance, on Mac, the entire app is signed, data and all, unlike Windows where just the exe is signed). Maybe. I've got some time to think about what to do.

That being said, my game will be DRM-free (on platforms where I have a choice in the matter), so there won't be a need for keys. That just seems like a pain in the ass for no good reason. I did notice that this dev had a DRM-free version available too, and he joked it would have been much easier if they had uploaded that version. I wonder why he'd bother with releasing both DRM'd and DRM-free versions?

Re:Best of luck, buddy

[tlhIngan]

here are a lot of artists and entertainers that survive on the goodwill of their audience. It happens to be the traditional model.

Actually, most do.

Because unless you're signed by a big content conglomerate with tons of marketing money behind it, you're someone competing with millions of other someones doing the same thing - trying to get noticed. And the vast majority of those someones are trying to get noticed with genuine crap.

If you're indie, the problem is just getting noticed. Because there are millions of others doing the same. You can indie and have the world's best product, but if no one notices or even knows you exist, you have diddly squat. You may have a bulletproof plan for world peace, but if it languishes among everyone else, no one cares or knows.

It's why indies have to try all sorts of things hoping to maybe one of them might catch their 15 minutes of fame and thus rise up above the noise.

I WAS going to buy this.

[Thud457]

But now that he's giving it away, I am forced by principle to pirate it.

Re:I WAS going to buy this.

[MangoCats]

You are in the amoral majority.

Re:Negotiations

[MangoCats]

Depends on the market, my experience in the PalmOS apps market was the opposite. When people thought they had to pay, they would, just for the convenience, even when the user's manual explicitly said they didn't have to pay - who's got time to read that thing, right? When the promotional material made it clear up-front that payment was optional, sales dropped by 99%.

My "security" was a nag notice that showed up randomly once per every few hours of play saying something to the effect of "Thank you for supporting..." - as a thank you to the people who paid, and a guilt trip to those who have spent yet another few hours playing the game without paying. Doesn't matter, unless the form says "put your CC# here to continue" people usually don't bother.

Re:Naivety of children

[Dunbal]

Try it, bring in pizza for the office 3 Fridays in a row, hell, just 2 and you'll see your cow orkers will be expecting free pizza on the next Friday.

Or you might be shocked when next week your co-worker brings in a couple dozen doughnuts.

Re:Entitlement at its best

[Anonymous Coward]

Total nonsense. So all the hours spent developing the game initially are free? No opportunity cost? It'd be much more accurate to say, "how many keys did the developer expect to sell? Divide that across (total number of hours to develop the game) x (dollars per hour that the developer values his time) and now you've got something meaningful.

You apparently believe that someone who spends hours and hours crafting something should do it just for the love of it, and they obviously have nothing better to do with their time.

Re:Entitlement at its best

[KGIII]

> As many on here will tell you, if you're making more than it costs to produce the game, you're a greedy bastard.

No, we don't even have that many retarded people. You expect them to break even? If they make more than 0 profit, they're greedy bastards?

You might find a more amicable audience at a site called Reddit. I highly suggest you visit there. You'll like it.

This guy knows the business!

[Highdude702]

Does anybody know how to get ahold of this guy? I would like to purchase at least one of the 3 keys he has given away if the game isnt too pricey. But I doubt ill ever actually play the game myself. I want do commend him for his actions though!

Re:This guy knows the business!

[CronoCloud]

Why do you need to get a hold of the guy when you can just fricking buy the game on Steam, it is even on sale

http://store.steampowered.com/...

Re:Entitlement at its best

[CronoCloud]

Here's another thing, The game only costs $14.99, full price and is currently on sale for $11.99.

http://store.steampowered.com/...

That is NOT exorbitant for an Indie game.

All he's done is enable thieves and legitimized their theft.

Agreed.

Re:Naivety of children

[WolfgangVL]

You give something away for free and you quickly create the exception that it should be free.

I am confident that you are surrounded by counter examples to your argument as you read this. Look around and think about it for a minute, how much of what you are using everyday is offered gratis, but manages to support a business while remaining free for you?

So a better way to run his business would be to do what exactly?

He finds his work being traded illicitly online, and you would have him tangle with paying attorneys fees, and screwing around with rights management with all of the evils that go along with it? Maybe Sue his player-base? You must be a IP lawyer.

His work was already out there, he just put a smiley on it, and reminded people that he's not some mega-corp. He even mentions his own piracy and is giving back.

And now he's got the free publicity that is the software piracy counter culture on one of the biggest site in the scene, as well as all of us discussing on unrelated sites.

If you think this wont drive sales, I would like to point out the the grateful dead's policy on bootlegs in the 60s and 70s, Metallica's monumental rise to fame in the 80s via hand traded dubs and demos, the entire PC gaming shareware market in the 90s, and even the modern trend of free for personal use $$ for production fremium models of today.

Being a pirate, he knows first hand how silly it is to have to deal with sign ins, keys, and validation for a legit purchased software while watching the pirates skate fully functional by nothing more than a doubleclicked installer.

IP of all kinds is OFTEN given away for free, people are still buying it, and I doubt he came to this decision lightly.

I can personally guarantee that this dev got at least one sale out of this that he would not have had before.

Re:Entitlement at its best

[Ichijo]

Is there a legal way to buy and download a DRM-free copy of Game of Thrones?

Re:End greed and you end piracy.

[speedplane]

It would also end piracy for people to live within their means. If they make money and can afford to a buy a game, they buy it. If they want a second one, they buy that one. It feels a bit greedy to go and download thousands of games illegaly, no?