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Just read through the Game Dev Tycoon article: http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go

Just read through the Game Dev Tycoon article: http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/ http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-... I was on the edge of my seat waiting for him to say something like "We used the pirated version that we released to communicate with all the people who pirated the game and we were able to convert 30% of them into paying customers!" But it didn't happen... It sounds like he just used it to really subtly hint that the people should have bought the game. Seems like a wasted opportunity. I feel like a popup that said something like this would have converted a bunch of people and turned the pirating problem into a marketing opportunity: "Haha, you are playing a pirated copy of this game, that's why you are losing all your money to game pirates. Its all good, but if you upgrade to the paid version this problem will go away, here is a link to buy the game. Happy gaming!"

supermatt 11y ago
If they knew they were using a doctored copy, they would go and pirate an undoctored one. Anecdote: This reminds me of the anti-griefer mechanism I put in to heyreddit/reddit roulette back in the day. If you received a verified report (following a forced match with myself), you would only got matched with other griefers. No-one realised why the penis-to-chat ratio was so low, but its because eventually all the penis flashers would only be exposing themselves to each other. Of course, if I had told people that they would have actively tried to get around it :) Yes, the downside was a manual verification step :(
- ChrisDutrow 11y ago
  Cool anecdote, sounds like an elegant way to deal with the griefing problem. I think there is more to this pirating scenario though. A lot of people probably pirate games because because they aren't sure if they will like them. Once they are at the point where they are losing the game because of the pirated version, they already know they like it. Some of the people who get to this point will want to pay the $8 because they won't want to risk putting more effort into the game and losing progress again because of the pirating. Other people will be more comfortable paying because they no longer have to worry about paying for a game that they won't play. Even if they convert only 10% of the pirates, they will have increased their sales more than 33%, making them over $800,000 more money.
  - supermatt 11y ago
    Yeah, i definitely agree with the premise, but as soon as that alert pops up, people would rate the torrent/whatever and say its a bad copy, and then future pirates would download an alternate seed. Maybe they could "leak" a few different torrents in future and do some testing! :)
    - ChrisDutrow 11y ago
      Ah, interesting. I'm not super familiar with torrents and didn't know about that feature. I suppose he could release many versions with their own unique hashes. Would people be less likely to put the effort into creating a cracked version if they felt there were already a lot out there? I always wondered who does software cracking and how hard it is.
Vaskivo 11y ago
I think they are just using the medium effectivelly. Instead of going and tell them "I know you pirated our game. Please don't do that." they made the game simulate the consequences of piracy to game development studios. Instead of having the someone tell them they are wrong, the player comes to that conclusion themselves (hopefully).
- ChrisDutrow 11y ago
  I agree, I don't think it would be super effective to say "Please don't pirate", like an after school special or something. What I think they should have done was used it as a marketing opportunity and given the pirates another opportunity to buy they game and get more value after they have already been playing it and know they like it. (Get more value by removing the severe pirating problem within the game so that they can progress farther)

supermatt 11y ago

If they knew they were using a doctored copy, they would go and pirate an undoctored one. Anecdote: This reminds me of the anti-griefer mechanism I put in to heyreddit/reddit roulette back in the day. If you received a verified report (following a forced match with myself), you would only got matched with other griefers. No-one realised why the penis-to-chat ratio was so low, but its because eventually all the penis flashers would only be exposing themselves to each other. Of course, if I had told people that they would have actively tried to get around it :) Yes, the downside was a manual verification step :(

ChrisDutrow 11y ago
Cool anecdote, sounds like an elegant way to deal with the griefing problem. I think there is more to this pirating scenario though. A lot of people probably pirate games because because they aren't sure if they will like them. Once they are at the point where they are losing the game because of the pirated version, they already know they like it. Some of the people who get to this point will want to pay the $8 because they won't want to risk putting more effort into the game and losing progress again because of the pirating. Other people will be more comfortable paying because they no longer have to worry about paying for a game that they won't play. Even if they convert only 10% of the pirates, they will have increased their sales more than 33%, making them over $800,000 more money.
- supermatt 11y ago
  Yeah, i definitely agree with the premise, but as soon as that alert pops up, people would rate the torrent/whatever and say its a bad copy, and then future pirates would download an alternate seed. Maybe they could "leak" a few different torrents in future and do some testing! :)
  - ChrisDutrow 11y ago
    Ah, interesting. I'm not super familiar with torrents and didn't know about that feature. I suppose he could release many versions with their own unique hashes. Would people be less likely to put the effort into creating a cracked version if they felt there were already a lot out there? I always wondered who does software cracking and how hard it is.

Vaskivo 11y ago

I think they are just using the medium effectivelly. Instead of going and tell them "I know you pirated our game. Please don't do that." they made the game simulate the consequences of piracy to game development studios. Instead of having the someone tell them they are wrong, the player comes to that conclusion themselves (hopefully).

ChrisDutrow 11y ago
I agree, I don't think it would be super effective to say "Please don't pirate", like an after school special or something. What I think they should have done was used it as a marketing opportunity and given the pirates another opportunity to buy they game and get more value after they have already been playing it and know they like it. (Get more value by removing the severe pirating problem within the game so that they can progress farther)