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[Koobazaur]

Three weeks after release, I shared this statistic with a few online dev communities. The response and questions that followed surprised me more than the piracy itself. So I wrote an article with full details of how I got the number, and what I make of it. of it.

Also I just downloaded one of the pirated copies of my game. They asked me to remove my ad-blocker to keep their site running. Oh the sweet irony  



And wow - they sure put extra effort these days...

(FYI the red box is my own, but they changed the game header)

[InfiniteStateMachine]

The link to your article is busted. I was able to figure it out though.

The other game with the gameplay anti-piracy technique you mentioned but forgot I think might be serious sam. They had some enemy that would be in your face all the time if it detected piracy.

[quantumpotato]

You didn't block the piracy because you didn't want them to have a bad experience?

http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/

[Koobazaur]

Thanks for the heads up, fixed the link! And saw that earlier quantumpotato - a big lol 

[ViktorTheBoar]

Yeah, that's normal. My game had a semi-finished beta on pirate sites. We had half a mind just to warn pirates about it, but we didn't care enough

[oliviakane1997]

that sounds interesting! welcome 

[SchriefFighter]

I'm sorry that happened to you man!

[zizulot]

Make it unplayable on other sites , like COD used to have shoot with chickes or something

[eaglegamma]

I'm a game developer and I think piracy can be a decent thing...

[quantumpotato]

Yeah it's an unfortunate reality of computers that copying is easier than over.
Servers + aggregate service (eg a WoW server) can justify charging users but for no-online content it's tricky.

Many game developers have been public about pirating games when they were growing up.. it seems to be part of internet culture.

[ViktorTheBoar]

It could have been worse. We could have been musicians

[pelle]

Good well balanced text.

The red piracy text looks a bit hostile. Would not be surprised if it turns away more than what it converts to buyers.

I first read about games deliberately ruining games for pirates in Chris Crawford on Game Design. He was so smug about a game he made ca 1990 that would allow pirates to play, no indication that they were detected, just silently crash close to the end (of a long strategy war game). Such a stupid idea to come from an intelligent person. Imagine those that ran into that and had the game crash right at the end. How many would buy that game or his next game, compared to if he had tried to be friendly or at least show them a popup explaining instead of simulating a buggy game?

[quantumpotato]

It could have been worse. We could have been musicians

I think board game designer is the equivalent.. and tigs added board game forum recently O_O

[pelle]

It could have been worse. We could have been musicians

I think board game designer is the equivalent.. and tigs added board game forum recently O_O

I fail to see the connection between piracy and board game designers? Board games are in general not hit hard at all by piracy.

One thing they have in common though is that even if sales of all types of games are doing great (low prices or not, the total amount of money is increasing) the number of people trying to make a living from making games seem to be increasing much faster? I fail to understand how even 0 % piracy would be the answer to that situation. It seems rather hopeless in the long run (as for musicians) other than for hobby gamedev and niche markets.

[quantumpotato]

Oh, I was making a joke about the likelihood of succeeding at all (musicians, board game designers)