Pirates pirate a game and get their game pirated in the pirated game and complain

[blastingcap]

OP's link is broken for me--maybe the server is having a hiccup or my ISP. I can read this article about the topic though: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/...s-give-pirates-a-taste-of-their-own-medicine/

 

[Kalmah]

Has anybody here played it yet? How is it?

 

[ImpulsE69]

Has anybody here played it yet? How is it?

I'd tell you if this damn torrent would ever finish...

 

[BladeVenom]

If you released the cracked version yourself then it is not piracy, you gave your game away.

True.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I wish more real data on piracy were released. Developers tend to me mum on it. And then the detractors are all like "it doesn't affect developers at all so piracy is fine!!.." Sigh.

Nice info though, thanks for posting.

So, not sure if you saw the post about this in off topic, and while what they did is indeed interesting, keep in mind that to make the "piracy" have an effect, they had to change the game mechanics to make piracy worse than it was actually is. Much like how the #'s are "made up" for real piracy.

At least in this case they have real numbers of piracy to purchased.

 

[electronicmaji2]

There's really no way to know how many of the people downloading the torrent are actual players or just archivers.

 

[shortylickens]

Which is funny, cuz thats not at all what happens in real life.

 

[Aikouka]

There's really no way to know how many of the people downloading the torrent are actual players or just archivers.

Their numbers aren't based on people downloading the software. The numbers (200 buys vs. ~3000 pirates) are based on people that have run the software and have open Internet access that allowed the software to provide anonymous usage statistics. The company stated that the pirated version has a different ID, so they can track who plays which version.

 

[blackened23]

edit: dp

 

[CPA]

Reminds me of the Immortal Scorpion in Serious Sam 3.

 

[Sleepingforest]

There's really no way to know how many of the people downloading the torrent are actual players or just archivers.

Do you really, honestly believe that the number of archivers is statistically significant compared to the number of pirates?

 

[lilrayray69]

They did that with ARMA II - or something like it. It warned that "illegal copies may degrade". I personally pirated ARMA II a couple of times, and the results were pretty hilarious. Look up some videos of it.

Basically you start your "basic training" in the game, and in the middle of it the instructors turn into enemies and will kill you. Mission over. You can't complete just about any mission - friendlies turn into enemies, random enemies spawn and shoot at you, vehicles don't operate correctly, etc...

I think it's a neat idea and is funny to watch - but quite honestly when I played those cracked versions I didn't realize that's what was happening...I just thought the game was fucking awful. Therefore, I never really gave it another chance even though I'd heard good things about it. Now, 2 years later, I finally bought it and the expansion and play DayZ quite a bit and love it. But yeah, I probably would have bought it 2+ years ago if I'd known what it was actually like, rather than how the "degraded" version played.

 

[zokudu]

Game is tough. I can't make any money on anything after the gameboy. It gets worse when you get a massive hit and upgrade your shop. I couldn't get anything good churned out.

 

[blastingcap]

Do you really, honestly believe that the number of archivers is statistically significant compared to the number of pirates?

If it's anything like porn, there are plenty of hoarders or people who play like 5 minutes and then forget about the game. For goodness's sake look at Steam, which is legit: how many people buy games on Steam sales "because it's cheap" and then don't even play the games much if at all? The forums are overflowing with people with massive backlogs of such games. It stands to reason that there are a lot of pirates who download things because it's "free" and then hardly even touch most of it.

 

[JoetheLion]

It's a pretty clever marketing.

 

[BrightCandle]

Considering the game has a free trial there isn't a great deal of excuses for pirating this one.

I wouldn't have heard about this game if this story hadn't broken so I think from a marketing perspective its worked. But its shame this was the strategy they chose to market their game, its a very negative way to reach your potential audience.

I read a lot of gaming sites I don't remember seeing this launch. They definitely have a problem there.

 

[Raduque]

They did that with ARMA II - or something like it. It warned that "illegal copies may degrade". I personally pirated ARMA II a couple of times, and the results were pretty hilarious. Look up some videos of it.

Basically you start your "basic training" in the game, and in the middle of it the instructors turn into enemies and will kill you. Mission over. You can't complete just about any mission - friendlies turn into enemies, random enemies spawn and shoot at you, vehicles don't operate correctly, etc...

I think it's a neat idea and is funny to watch - but quite honestly when I played those cracked versions I didn't realize that's what was happening...I just thought the game was fucking awful. Therefore, I never really gave it another chance even though I'd heard good things about it. Now, 2 years later, I finally bought it and the expansion and play DayZ quite a bit and love it. But yeah, I probably would have bought it 2+ years ago if I'd known what it was actually like, rather than how the "degraded" version played.

The biggest problem with techniques like this is that the game doesn't tell you why it's doing it.

 

[Revolution 11]

Game is tough. I can't make any money on anything after the gameboy. It gets worse when you get a massive hit and upgrade your shop. I couldn't get anything good churned out.

Did you specialize in a genre of games in particular? I find that RPGs with good story and dialogue elements are far more resilient to competition instead of action games that depend on graphics/sound. And you can still make good money ($5 million profit on $600K development/marketing) on the PC, no license or high development costs required. The trick is to find a genre you are good in, make big budget games there, and use that as your main income source, varying different smaller cheaper games in other genres to give diversity and to avoid game fatigue with customers.

Casual games, which fit well with the gameboy, are often the hardest to do well once you are in the intermediate stages.

 

[zokudu]

Did you specialize in a genre of games in particular? I find that RPGs with good story and dialogue elements are far more resilient to competition instead of action games that depend on graphics/sound. And you can still make good money ($5 million profit on $600K development/marketing) on the PC, no license or high development costs required. The trick is to find a genre you are good in, make big budget games there, and use that as your main income source, varying different smaller cheaper games in other genres to give diversity and to avoid game fatigue with customers.

Casual games, which fit well with the gameboy, are often the hardest to do well once you are in the intermediate stages.

I've been doing mostly adventure style games. Pirate Adventure was my first massive hit with a few other good ones based in fantasy and sci-fi mixed in.

Thing is once the STES comes out I just cannot seem to get above a 5. If I don't have a 3 person team or so I get straight 1s. I made my first engine for the TES but I keep trying a save right after my massive hit and I cannot seem to get anything to work. Building a new engine, new game bonuses, nothing seems to help.

 

[Revolution 11]

I am assuming you do the obvious things like training your employees, keeping morale high, giving vacations when needed, not releasing games with bugs.

Are you doing publisher deals? Now if you are getting 1s in scores, published deals won't really help. I don't really make adventure games but I suppose you should aim for everyone and focus on gameplay, level design, and a mix of graphics/world design. Don't skimp on story/dialogue but don't put too much there.

Try a good Racer/Simulation game. Good combo, include peripherals like steering wheel and joystick, and requires no dialogue/world design/story/quests.

How many fans do you have and how much money?

 

[drebo]

Where are you guys buying this game from?

I can't find it for download anywhere.

NM, i found it. But they don't make it easy. Their marketing and sales sucks dick.

 

[zokudu]

I am assuming you do the obvious things like training your employees, keeping morale high, giving vacations when needed, not releasing games with bugs.

Are you doing publisher deals? Now if you are getting 1s in scores, published deals won't really help. I don't really make adventure games but I suppose you should aim for everyone and focus on gameplay, level design, and a mix of graphics/world design. Don't skimp on story/dialogue but don't put too much there.

Try a good Racer/Simulation game. Good combo, include peripherals like steering wheel and joystick, and requires no dialogue/world design/story/quests.

How many fans do you have and how much money?

Yea I don't know I've been out all day so haven't opened it up. I do think that it relys a tad too heavily on understanding gaming history, at least early on. You can either develop for PC the whole time and ignore everything else or jump to consoles which you almost have to know about the systems ahead of time to understand what to put on them.

For instance it doesn't tell you until after you release a gritty mature action military game on the gameboy that the system doesn't sell mature games very well. We may know that but it is a barrier to entry in a way for an average person.

 

[theevilsharpie]

Where are you guys buying this game from?

I can't find it for download anywhere.

NM, i found it. But they don't make it easy. Their marketing and sales sucks dick.

I'm pretty sure that this is a troll post.

However, in case it isn't, searching for 'Game Dev Tycoon' on Google provides a link to Greenheart Games' web page, and they have a huge (seriously!) button to purchase the game in the middle of the page.

 

[Revolution 11]

For instance it doesn't tell you until after you release a gritty mature action military game on the gameboy that the system doesn't sell mature games very well. We may know that but it is a barrier to entry in a way for an average person.

Some of it is common sense, I wouldn't expect to play a mature large-scale sci-fi RPG on a Gameboy but I agree that the game should have been more dynamic and less pre-determined. As far as I can tell, no matter how popular/groundbreaking/influential your game is, it doesn't affect the evolution of any platform at all.

 

[shortylickens]