4 ms·

> The high load revealed technical issues which we don’t feel we can fix to the level that our paying customers deserve. That doesn't scream to me that piracy

by debacle 14y ago

> The high load revealed technical issues which we don’t feel we can fix to the level that our paying customers deserve. That doesn't scream to me that piracy killed the game. Rather, piracy just revealed the reality that their server software was shit, and they didn't want to invest in fixing it, so they refunded everyone's money. No harm, no foul.

TheCapn 14y ago
My interpretation was that they had a budget of $x to run their servers with from y paying customers. $x in no way could provide the services that y+z needed (z being the number of pirates) regardless of infrastructure or efficiency of code. Instead they decided to cut losses and refund without finding a way to block z or monetize it.
- debacle 14y ago
  I think you're trying to read between the lines of what the article stated.
  - xauronx 14y ago
    Really? That's exactly what I got out of the article as well. They have to pay for the bandwidth somehow.
  - Steko 14y ago
    I think you're jumping through hoops trying to rationalize piracy as having no negative effects.
    - debacle 14y ago
      I didn't say that anywhere. Piracy obviously resulted in lost revenue, but that's not what this article is about - it's about bad server software.
      - Steko 14y ago
        "Piracy obviously resulted in lost revenue" Previously on HN: "No harm, no foul."
stephengillie 14y ago
They would have had the same problem if this were a free-to-play game. Actually, they would have had a smaller server load (though it would have still overwhelmed them) because I'm sure a percentage of these people are playing it merely because it was pirated -- like kleptomaniacs, these people want to play the game mostly because they aren't supposed to be allowed to. Some people just want to break laws to show they can, as a latent rebellious streak.
- bo1024 14y ago
  > I'm sure a percentage of these people are playing it merely because it was pirated -- like kleptomaniacs, these people want to play the game mostly because they aren't supposed to be allowed to. Really?
- teamonkey 14y ago
  Some pirates like to collect games and I'm sure they try a lot of them, but I don't think they play them just because they're pirated. Not for any length of time, anyway. The game still has to be fun to keep them playing for more than 20 minutes.
  - stephengillie 14y ago
    In the past, I've analyzed piracy rates to see which games were worth playing. Black markets are still markets, and still have supply and demand. It's a fallacy when game developers don't use piracy numbers to indicate demand for their games.
    - teamonkey 14y ago
      Absolutely, and all the major publishers analyse piracy numbers in extreme detail. But I still question the assumption that they play games because they've been pirated. Pirated games have retention rates just like legitimate copies.
cupcake-unicorn 14y ago
I completely agree! What an odd title to the article, and then the company itself goes ahead and basically says, "Yeah, since now there are actually people using the game, we found out that it would be too much work to fix the serious problems that were there in the first place." If they were willing to work on their product further this would have been a good event for them as a wakeup call in order to know what to expect later when the load gets heavier.
no_more_death 14y ago
There is harm and foul here. Apparently, they developed iteratively and failed to do "premature optimization." Fact is, hosting servers costs money, and developing optimized software costs money and time. The pirated copies are costing them money without giving them anything in return. On top of that, a lot of these people might have paid for the game if they had not been able to get it free. As a game dev you are going to have an awful lot of things on your mind that are more important than optimizing a system that currently works. This is business reality. Obviously, this could have been an "excuse" to shutter a poorly-constructed game, but I totally believe that the load from copies freely obtained (against the developers' wishes) made their product untenable. All their blood, sweat, and tears, wasted. I feel deeply about software piracy. Piracy disrespects the software developers. The developers worked hard to produce something and you tell them that there code is worth $0.00. I'm extremely offended that people pirate code. The key is that they asked for money and you told them no. It's one thing for someone to offer their software for free, it's another thing for someone to say, "I need money to develop this," and you tell them "No, your software isn't worth that." Maybe you didn't mean that. It's like slapping someone in the face and telling them that you really didn't mean it that way. I'm absolutely shocked that comments in this thread insist that it's the responsibility of the developers to either throw up an authentication wall (think about the conversion losses!) or just handle thousands of people using their software for free. That's precious development time that they've spent on premature optimization when they could have built better features for paying customers. I'll wager that 95% of the developers commenting here actually get paid for their code in some way, shape, or fashion. Why wouldn't you want to pay for someone else's code? Why do you have a kneejerk reaction when other people don't want to pay to use others' code? I go out of my way to support free code if there's a donate button. Nearly every time I see a donate button I click it. I used Readability before their donations fell apart. I have a gittip account. I respect developers and the time it takes to create code, so I pay the price. I assume the people reading this are like me. You also donate to open source projects and buy the paid version when possible, once you've tried the game. However, the rank and file of people who are pirating software probably do not. Even though copying code is cheap, piracy takes a toll on the company: - It often takes away potential sales. - Pirated copies are often sub-par and can tarnish your brand. Some developers might not realize how important brand is, but just consider how many millions of dollars are spent to build brand for these companies. - In this case, pirating imposed an unbearable load on servers. They had to shutter the game. I am all about open source and donate whenever possible. I totally understand that, for example, patents are just ridiculously overplayed in today's world. However, software piracy offends me deeply. I think it ought to offend other developers as well, but you are free to hold whatever opinion you like.

by debacle 14y ago

TheCapn 14y ago

My interpretation was that they had a budget of $x to run their servers with from y paying customers. $x in no way could provide the services that y+z needed (z being the number of pirates) regardless of infrastructure or efficiency of code. Instead they decided to cut losses and refund without finding a way to block z or monetize it.

debacle 14y ago
I think you're trying to read between the lines of what the article stated.
- xauronx 14y ago
  Really? That's exactly what I got out of the article as well. They have to pay for the bandwidth somehow.
- Steko 14y ago
  I think you're jumping through hoops trying to rationalize piracy as having no negative effects.
  - debacle 14y ago
    I didn't say that anywhere. Piracy obviously resulted in lost revenue, but that's not what this article is about - it's about bad server software.
    - Steko 14y ago
      "Piracy obviously resulted in lost revenue" Previously on HN: "No harm, no foul."

stephengillie 14y ago

They would have had the same problem if this were a free-to-play game. Actually, they would have had a smaller server load (though it would have still overwhelmed them) because I'm sure a percentage of these people are playing it merely because it was pirated -- like kleptomaniacs, these people want to play the game mostly because they aren't supposed to be allowed to. Some people just want to break laws to show they can, as a latent rebellious streak.

bo1024 14y ago
> I'm sure a percentage of these people are playing it merely because it was pirated -- like kleptomaniacs, these people want to play the game mostly because they aren't supposed to be allowed to. Really?
teamonkey 14y ago
Some pirates like to collect games and I'm sure they try a lot of them, but I don't think they play them just because they're pirated. Not for any length of time, anyway. The game still has to be fun to keep them playing for more than 20 minutes.
- stephengillie 14y ago
  In the past, I've analyzed piracy rates to see which games were worth playing. Black markets are still markets, and still have supply and demand. It's a fallacy when game developers don't use piracy numbers to indicate demand for their games.
  - teamonkey 14y ago
    Absolutely, and all the major publishers analyse piracy numbers in extreme detail. But I still question the assumption that they play games because they've been pirated. Pirated games have retention rates just like legitimate copies.

cupcake-unicorn 14y ago

I completely agree! What an odd title to the article, and then the company itself goes ahead and basically says, "Yeah, since now there are actually people using the game, we found out that it would be too much work to fix the serious problems that were there in the first place." If they were willing to work on their product further this would have been a good event for them as a wakeup call in order to know what to expect later when the load gets heavier.

no_more_death 14y ago

There is harm and foul here. Apparently, they developed iteratively and failed to do "premature optimization." Fact is, hosting servers costs money, and developing optimized software costs money and time. The pirated copies are costing them money without giving them anything in return. On top of that, a lot of these people might have paid for the game if they had not been able to get it free. As a game dev you are going to have an awful lot of things on your mind that are more important than optimizing a system that currently works. This is business reality. Obviously, this could have been an "excuse" to shutter a poorly-constructed game, but I totally believe that the load from copies freely obtained (against the developers' wishes) made their product untenable. All their blood, sweat, and tears, wasted. I feel deeply about software piracy. Piracy disrespects the software developers. The developers worked hard to produce something and you tell them that there code is worth $0.00. I'm extremely offended that people pirate code. The key is that they asked for money and you told them no. It's one thing for someone to offer their software for free, it's another thing for someone to say, "I need money to develop this," and you tell them "No, your software isn't worth that." Maybe you didn't mean that. It's like slapping someone in the face and telling them that you really didn't mean it that way. I'm absolutely shocked that comments in this thread insist that it's the responsibility of the developers to either throw up an authentication wall (think about the conversion losses!) or just handle thousands of people using their software for free. That's precious development time that they've spent on premature optimization when they could have built better features for paying customers. I'll wager that 95% of the developers commenting here actually get paid for their code in some way, shape, or fashion. Why wouldn't you want to pay for someone else's code? Why do you have a kneejerk reaction when other people don't want to pay to use others' code? I go out of my way to support free code if there's a donate button. Nearly every time I see a donate button I click it. I used Readability before their donations fell apart. I have a gittip account. I respect developers and the time it takes to create code, so I pay the price. I assume the people reading this are like me. You also donate to open source projects and buy the paid version when possible, once you've tried the game. However, the rank and file of people who are pirating software probably do not. Even though copying code is cheap, piracy takes a toll on the company: - It often takes away potential sales. - Pirated copies are often sub-par and can tarnish your brand. Some developers might not realize how important brand is, but just consider how many millions of dollars are spent to build brand for these companies. - In this case, pirating imposed an unbearable load on servers. They had to shutter the game. I am all about open source and donate whenever possible. I totally understand that, for example, patents are just ridiculously overplayed in today's world. However, software piracy offends me deeply. I think it ought to offend other developers as well, but you are free to hold whatever opinion you like.