Platinum Mad
Banned
The most popular torrent on KAT says 20.6 K in 5 days so it seems piracy is taking a good chunk of potential sales.
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It looks like The Witness was priced correctly: week 1 sales tracking > Braid year 1
- Thread starter INTERNET
- Start date
If you're drawing out and solving mazes on paper, there is a good chance you're playing The Witness.
cleveridea
Member
I was surprised the game wasnt $60.
Game looks amazing, and thats as someone who doesnt like puzzle games
Game looks amazing, and thats as someone who doesnt like puzzle games
The person I was replying to was acting like this was a huge "Take That" to people who passed on the game due to it's price but the only one I see who is upset is Blow.
I am not saying that one one is willing to buy his game, and I'm certainly not condoning piracy. The game is above the price I'm willing to pay for a digital download, that doesn't mean I want to see the guy lose his shirt, it means I'll wait for a physical release or buy it on a discount later.
The most popular torrent on KAT says 20.6 K in 5 days so it seems piracy is taking a good chunk of sales.
They probably weren't going to buy the game anyway tbh.
LegendofDragoonLives
Member
Hold on, are you saying people on gaf were being overdramatic? That never happens, ever ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I have some work at the moment, but I'll be buying this game in the first of days of February.
The most popular torrent on KAT says 20.6 K in 5 days so it seems piracy is taking a good chunk of sales.
You can't really tell how many of those would have been sales one way or the other.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
There's no great way to know that really, but there is some truth to the notion that some people are irredeemable cheapasses.
I think you are failing to detect sarcasm. 20.6k isn't a huge deal. I mean, if every single one of them was added to his sales, it's a chunk of cash, but it wouldn't mean the difference between success and failure. He has every right to be upset about it, mind you.
Awesome news! The Witness is a steal at $40 and truly one of the finest puzzle games I've played in years and years.
I'm actually only on GAF right now because I'm giving my brain a break from a particularly brutal puzzle. But I will crack it, just like I cracked the last one.
I'm actually only on GAF right now because I'm giving my brain a break from a particularly brutal puzzle. But I will crack it, just like I cracked the last one.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
I'm fascinated with the fact that he could tell that a streamer was playing a pirated version of the game just from looking at it. I wonder what he did. Does the game display elements differently when it's pirated? And how does a game know it's pirated? This stuff fascinates me.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
no
no he didn't
prove it.
more like a simple human appeal to pirates to consider the impact of their actions a little, made by a man who's poured his heart and soul and life into his work
i honestly can't fathom where he was coming from, mostly because i'm a jaded person who doesn't like to publicly display a lot of empathy or read into context too hard, so i'll just repeat the kinds of tired platitudes i picked up off of oink.cd during my formative years
bodyboarder
Member
Or they liked it so much they ended up buying it.
I wonder how often this happens. Like genuinely curious
This would be really interesting to learn more about, I loved learning about all the previous instances where devs did certain things that only effect pirated copies.
Platinum Mad
Banned
True but even if 10% of the people that pirated it actually bought the game that's still a couple thousand sales missed
Huh? You mean that tweet? Come on.
NinjamicWZ
Banned
He said two things:
1.) The game was #1 on PB.
2.) Not making money would make it hard to make another game as big as this one, so please buy instead.
Which would be great and all, but that wouldn't really tip the scale between sales success or failure. It wouldn't even tip that scale if every one of those pirates bought the game.
G-Bus
Banned
Good price point. Was warey going in because "puzzles!" But hell naw. More than worth it.
Fuck. After playing the game and in the process of finishing (this part is done rarely) I can't help but feel I got one hell of a deal (yea Dr sues up in this bitch. Wish I was as good as puzzles...) and a great experience.
Fuck the haters. More than I could say about any game I've ever played.
Edit: please, PLEASE release dlc. And make it friggin awesome.
Fuck. After playing the game and in the process of finishing (this part is done rarely) I can't help but feel I got one hell of a deal (yea Dr sues up in this bitch. Wish I was as good as puzzles...) and a great experience.
Fuck the haters. More than I could say about any game I've ever played.
Edit: please, PLEASE release dlc. And make it friggin awesome.
Haunted
Member
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
Like Serious Sam which would spawn an unkillable monster that chases you around if you are running a stolen version. Like how does it know it's pirated? As for Witness, I haven't seen the game in motion much aside from all the previews. I'm trying to remain in the dark as long as possible. But I assume it doesn't have any on-screen UI elements that he could make appear in different places. Maybe certain things show up different colored if it's pirated? I'd love to see the stream he was watching and compare it to one that is legit and see what ingenious method he used. He should just make it so the pirated version only plays in black and white because it would suck to remove the beautiful colors out of this game.
If it was sarcasm I missed it. People's arguments about piracy generally seem to be black and white "Every download is a missed sale" or "Literally no one who pirated would have bought it anyway" with very few people seeming to take a grey area argument somewhere in the middle.
If you're interested in this type of stuff the cutting room floor has a lot of info about anti piracy methods and sometimes gives an explanation of how they work.
https://tcrf.net/Category:Games_with_anti-piracy_methods
Some of them are very interesting. Earthbound's anti-piracy measures are particularly sadistic and it's a must read if you're not familiar with them.
GhostTrick
Banned
Lol. Now lets think of all the posts claiming PC release shouldnt have happened or later.
Game is currently sitting at 40k on Steamspy, twice more than when the outrage started.
Piracy still sucks though.
Game is currently sitting at 40k on Steamspy, twice more than when the outrage started.
Piracy still sucks though.
This game is legit amazing. There are only so many games that I can call "genius", and this game is one of them. Without spoilers it's one of the most rewarding games I've ever played.
Absolutely worth $40. The guy spent $6M making his dream game.
EDIT: Can we stop with the piracy sales mediators? It's had an impact on sales but none of us know how much. Either way it's shitty to steal someone's game, regardless of whether or not it's a sale.
Absolutely worth $40. The guy spent $6M making his dream game.
EDIT: Can we stop with the piracy sales mediators? It's had an impact on sales but none of us know how much. Either way it's shitty to steal someone's game, regardless of whether or not it's a sale.
i can only speak from personal experience. when i was a teen, i couldn't afford not nearly as much as i can now, thought that dcc'ing was the bees knees and whatnot, so i pirated lots of games. many of those games, i went on to buy; some of them, i bought multiple times (physical, digital and then digital again when i lost my 1st steam account). while i'm sure that there's a few lost sales in piracy, i'll guarantee that it makes the industry more money than it costs them thru exposure, people enjoying the product and paying for it and from kids growing up into adults that support a hobby that they first got introduced thru piracy. it's certainly not as cut and dry as 1 pirated copy == 1 lost sale.
in any case, blow did seem to be a little put-off by the piracy, as he should be considering he worked hard and for a long time on something people are just taking for free but i'm sure the sales numbers will make him feel better.
steamspy numbers are far from accurate yet.
SunBroDave
Member
Glad it to see its getting all it deserves. So far it's the best game of 2016.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
It's one of his tweets.
@Jonathan_Blow said:
https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/693202734703472640
Some fun stuff there.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
a long time ago, i pirated crysis.
i would have bought the game at full price if that option wasn't available.
and during my teen years the games i bought were the unpiratable ones
whether they were multiplayer, or difficult to crack. if i wanted to play it, and i couldn't download it, i'd buy it. sometimes at full price. sometimes during sales.
but i'd still buy it. that's a thing that happens. i don't know why it's apparently reasonable to insinuate that people who take the cheapass option out wouldn't ever, under any circumstances, pony up the cash for an experience they already know they want. even if only the equivalent of 4000 full priced copies went unsold due to the free alternative, that's still a fair sum of money that the people behind this game deserve no questions asked.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
my favorite is still the subtlety and effectiveness of your inability to glide whatsoever in a pirated copy of arkham asylum. people going to their forums like "wtf rocksteady why is your game broken" "because you're a piece of shit, banned"
Or steamspy is wildly inaccurate during a launch window. Which it is.
PeakPointMatrix
Member
Bet it's 90% PS4 sales ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Admiral Woofington
Member
For those curious braid sold around 450k copies by 2012 according to wiki/quick Google search.
Don't know how it sold in its first year alone, probably not disclosed by Blow. Now the issue comes on whether he is able to make a profit considering the amount of time he took working on this game.
Don't know how it sold in its first year alone, probably not disclosed by Blow. Now the issue comes on whether he is able to make a profit considering the amount of time he took working on this game.
The fact he's made multiple tweets about it is enough to show that it seems like he's upset about it.
Absolutely. I'm not defending the piracy, I'm just saying not every download is a lost sale. It's pretty unlikely that none of them are lost sales though, which is unfortunate.
Steamspy is inaccurate early on (he even says so in his tweets, actual amount is much higher).
He also said PS4 was comparable, but not higher than PC.
A Link to the Past
Banned
It did. He was hoping to do 10x Braid's sales.
EventHorizon
Member
Don't forget development time. It is all about the profit you make divided by the effort it took to make it. For example I'd rather make $100k for one years worth of work rather than $100k for two years worth of work. I don't have any stats but I've heard that The Witness took considerably more time to make.
As for the legs, let's wait and see. As I've pointed out The Witness has had a much higher visibility which would front load sales. If the game has to quickly drop its price to keep its numbers up then that's not helping it.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
If he had a way to detect when the game is pirated, he should have done some more creative fuckery. Like someone in the Twitter chat said, move puzzles around and make it harder to solve. Maybe he actually does. It's something most people wouldn't expect. Maybe he made it so on pirated copies, the puzzles look different. Not too different, but just different enough for Blow and company to know when they see it, but other people wouldn't really notice because to them it would just be a puzzle. That would be amazing and I bet that's what he did.
chrominance
Member
Good to see his risk paid off. Given the amount of work him and his studio put in, and the quality of the final game, it was absolutely worth the price.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
have you... read the tweets?
if so...
i'd really like you to point to the part where he's 'really upset' like you characterize him as being. like, go ahead and repost the tweets here in a quote for everyone to see. if you're as sure as you seem then the tweets in context should only corroborate your point. right?