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Pirates react to their games being pirated in Game Dev Tycoon

usea

Member
When we released our very first game, Game Dev Tycoon (for Mac, Windows and Linux) yesterday, we did something unusual and as far as I know unique. We released a cracked version of the game ourselves, minutes after opening our Store.

The cracked version is nearly identical to the real thing except for one detail…

priate-message.png


Slowly their in-game funds dwindle, and new games they create have a high change to be pirated until their virtual game development company goes bankrupt.

Some of the responses I found online (identities obscured to protect the guilty):
steam.png

http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013...lator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/

edit: if above link doesn't work, here's a mirror: http://www.greenheartgames.com.nyud...lator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
I love stuff like this. Intentionally integrating things that expose pirates publicly on forums will never get old.
 

NEO0MJ

Member
Should have waited at least a week before revealing that. Still, pretty cool. I really liked the super scorpion that followed players in Serious Sam if it their copy was pirated.
 
I didn't know Game dev tycoon was a thing. I very much enjoyed game dev story on iOS so I will definitely be buying this.

Great "fuck you" to pirates as well.

Edit: Just up voted it on green light
 

saunderez

Member
I hope they're willing to constantly upload new copies of their broken version of the game, it'll be flagged as dodgy in no time and 10 other copies will take its place.
 

usea

Member
Honestly, with a game about game development, you're in a unique situation. You can create some super poignant DRM this way.

However, I'm sure all the negative comments will sway some users from buying the game since most won't be aware that only the cracked version has this issue. This has happened with other games in the past.

I was talking to a coworker about Operation Flashpoint (2001) a few months ago. He said the game was a piece of shit and was filled with tons of terrible bugs. I mentioned that it had a sort of DRM that silently degraded the gameplay as you kept playing. He was like "oh, well...how was I supposed to know? I told all my friends it sucked and not to buy it." He had pirated it.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Kind of dumb, now the pirates will just as easily get a version uploaded by someone else while they have to deal with all the negative impressions they got from their own upload. Same for all the other DRM schemes people find to be clever when they really are no more effective than any other as soon as discovered (which I imagine more often than not is very soon). At least they didn't make it crash and obscure real bug reports...
 

Recall

Member
This is pretty great and the irony of those posts, oh boy.

How does the game differ from game dev story on iOS, is it more in depth?
 

Robin64

Member
These guys have made some money off me, now. I had no intention of buying this, and still probably won't play it, but this has made my day so, yeah.
 
Ironic post that is linked since the psx era is where EVERYONE had a chipped psx... Piracy was more rife then on consoles than it is now and the audience now is much, much bigger.

It would be clever if their game correlated with reality since notch is sitting on a billion euros and minecraft is probably one of the most pirated games on pc. (he even helps people with how to set up pirate friendly servers)
 

Zaptruder

Banned
Delayed piracy countermeasures are a pretty cool form of DRM.

But it needs to be followed up with: This is happening because you're a pirate. If you enjoyed this game - then click here to buy the full version! You can use your pirate save game in the full version too.
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
I laughed. And it exists on Linux, so maybe I'll check that game out.
(But only the easy version of the game without the inflated pirates.)
 
Kind of dumb, now the pirates will just as easily get a version uploaded by someone else while they have to deal with all the negative impressions they got from their own upload. Same for all the other DRM schemes people find to be clever when they really are no more effective than any other as soon as discovered (which I imagine more often than not is very soon). At least they didn't make it crash and obscure real bug reports...

I don't see it as dumb. Looking beyond the DRM, it's a brilliant piece of publicity. Pirates will pirate, but if they capture the imagination of honest gamers with this news story, maybe they'll get a few more sales off the back of that. It's a fantastic subversion of DRM, to the point that tons of websites are going to pick up this news story.
 

Oxirane

Member
Is downloading the cracked version, that the developers put up themselves, actually piracy or an alternative distribution method?
 

cw_sasuke

If all DLC came tied to $13 figurines, I'd consider all DLC to be free
Not to be a dick...but why isnt the game on Steam ? First time i am hearing of it and it looks like an expanded Game-Dev Story and i would gladly purchased a steam version to try it out :-/

Edit:

Oh there is a demo ? Nice....
 

usea

Member
1day.png


Wow. I feel like this should be in the OP.
I think the raw sale numbers (214 copies) rather than the ratio, is a lot more telling. I have a strong feeling they will sell many more copies after this blog post.

Not to be a dick...but why isnt the game on Steam ? First time i am hearing of it and it looks like an expanded Game-Dev Story and i would gladly purchased a steam version to try it out :-/
Because getting on steam is hard / random. A ton of quality games just aren't accepted (not saying this one is quality; I haven't played it). You can vote for them to be on steam here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=134714217
 

tsumineko

Member
So like, what happens to the company you steal your game idea from? Is that in the game?

really funny idea though, absolutely loled at the forum posts
 
I'd like to point out that this isn't a new idea.

Nintendo have been using this exact same kind of DRM that subtly breaks their games since the original DS released to deter piracy (it obviously wasn't effective lol R4 card)
 
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