I saw it on youtube…a youtuber (ZeRoyalViking) was starting a play through and I pretty much immediately bought the game…and I’m so happy I did… xD
Merchandise is physical and in the case of GDT the game is based in an office so a bit of it could be things people actually need in an office.Then there are collectors that well don’t want the fake stuff.
[quote=“JayCheetah, post:50, topic:4786”]
The idea that game developers should open a souvenirshop just to make some money is ridiculous.
They make games and not merchandise…
[/quote]Many many businesses do it and in the case of game companies it is a way to keep a cash flow so they don’t go broke and to make money from pirates and more money from legit buyers of the game without being a jerk to either.
Keep in mind too that they would be getting paid to have people advertise their games with the merchandise.
A clean forum, very nice; thank you.
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I personally bought the game once I saw it was DRM Free directly from Greenheart Games.
I try hard to support DRM free gaming with my hard earned money.
I support Greenheart Games as it appears it does not view its user base as casual pirates; real or imagined.
I will keep supporting this DRM free work with part of my livelihood.
Yes. Once it goes on Steam I feel the game will gain even more success and exposure, those naughty pirates have helped to spread the word and vote for it on Greenlight etc, I really don’t think he has much to complain about.
Patrick needs to be careful and tone down the rhetoric a little I think. He’s got a very commercially successful game on his hands, which is “inspired” by a much less successful Android game. Nearly all of the ideas in the game are “pirated” ideas. People in glass houses should know when to stop throwing stones…
Why is that ridiculous? Games make money without physical merch, I’m simply suggesting a way they can make even more. If they’re so upset by piracy, make some stuff which cannot be pirated.
Very few people respect digital products as actual “property”, which is why most of us choose not to pay for it. Everyone respects physical products as “property”, and the profit margins on branded official merchandise are very good.
You will find it easier to sell a T-shirt or mug than a collection of bytes.
Personally, I download all of my music from pirate sites. I haven’t bought a CD in about 10 years. I support the bands I like by going to their concerts (physical performance), buying T-shirts and posters etc (physical merchandice). The bands get a lot more money from me this way than if I just bought their CDs, and I get a lot more value for my money, great memories and some physical goods which I can wear or use, rather than a useless CD which I would just rip to iTunes and sit on a shelf gathering dust.
This is the new economy, friend.
You fail to realise ( again ) that merchandise does not always sell.
Only a few game companies have aquired a status that their players ( pirates or real fans ) are willing to buy something to wear or drink their coffee from.
As for musicans, they already been paid by sponsors and their record company for doing a concert to promote the latest album ( most of them ) All income from concerts end up in the pockets of the record companies and sponsors.
Buying their CD, will in most cases provide the artist with the % they agreed upon signing their contract.
You might be wearing T-shirts of your favorite band, which they never got any money from since they might not be official merchandise, but simply a “pirated” version.
Funny how you didnt replied on this.
Agreed, but it does sell more often than it doesn’t, and there’s no reason to assume that Game Dev Tycoon merch would not sell.
I personally bought quite a lot of Streetfighter 2 merch over the years, even though I’ve never paid for that game, always just pirated it, so Capcom got some money out of me I guess, and I got some cool little things that I still have today. At least it’s one way of making pirates pay. There’s very little risk associated with making a mug, and actually coffee mugs feature quite heavily in Game Dev Tycoon so it would be a great fit.
You clearly don’t know how the music industry works, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time dismissing your spiel about record label sponsorship and concert sales etc, because it’s just completely wrong. I will just say this: I have a few friends who are professional musicians;
A couple of them are in a “Traditional” band and they have been signed to a major label. They made quite a lot of money from their first album deal, but for their 2nd and 3rd albums they made a lot more playing concerts touring and selling shirts than from CD sales. They also make more from PRS royalties than they do from CD sales.
One of my friends is a “Modern” music producer. He makes a lot of music himself and gives it away for free on his SoundCloud and Youtube. He makes money by performing at concerts & festivals, selling merch and doing remixes for other artists. He also has a modest income as a Youtube partner. He makes more money than the “traditional” band does, and it is not split with any record label. He does pay an agency for a publicist and manager, but nothing like as much as a record label charges for those services.
The old ways are dying, the new ways are better for everyone and there does not need to be a “label” for music or “publisher” for games any more, we simply don’t need them, and we don’t need their old ideas of how to make money.
Ok… This is more than simple digital copyright infringement at this point however, this is producing counterfeit goods, which is a lot easier to put a stop to. But sure, lets say you were able to get away with this…
It is the same yes, it’s the same in that counterfeits being available does not really diminish sales of the originals. A pirated game being available does not reduce the sales of non-pirated version.
People are aware that you can buy a fake Rolex these days that is pretty much identical to the original, at least to the untrained eye. The copies have only been this good for about 5 years, yet Rolex sales continue to rise year on year. The people who would buy a fake one are not the same as the people who would buy a real one.
It’s simply not the case that a cheaper, counterfeit alternative being available impacts sales of the genuine article. If anything, more people wearing Rolexes, real or fake, makes more people want one.
So your assertion that fake Game Dev Tycoon mugs being available would make sales of the genuine mugs “go down by a lot” is simply false.
People will buy the merch directly from the Greenheart Games website because they want to support the game and they think it’s cute, not because they want the cheapest merch they can possibly get.
Well i had some thoughts about it and i changed my position about piracy.
I want to get a get on the free ride as well.
If there will be something to buy on the ride, I might if not then it’s not my fault.
@Charlie
When will the first Greenheart Merchandise be available?
Since i already paid for the game i will most likely save my money to buy something from a developer which game i will pirate.
Don’t drag me into this thread haha 
I for one am waiting with baited breath for Greenheart Mugs, Big ones. that hold 2 cups of coffee at once! 
Ideally not shipped from Merica cause i don’t want to pay $50 postage 
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I want a greenheart Saltshaker.
I’ve been through three in the past year - I’d like one that doesn’t break so easily 
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[quote=“Charlie, post:61, topic:4786”]
Big ones. that hold 2 cups of coffee at once!
[/quote]That’s crazy talk there!
Those Mugs are awesome you got my support.
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Here’s my idea for how it would work:
When you complete the game, you are given your personal access code to order a mug from the online store. The mugs cannot be bought without the access code, and the only way to get one would be to finish the game with a good score.
The access code would have your company name, best game, character creation choices etc embedded within it, so when you came to purchase your mug, it could be personalised using that data with your game company name, a picture of your lead dev, or maybe a boxart for your best game… Or you could just choose a plain white mug with a green heart on it…
Maybe certain designs could only be unlocked with high scores…
Complicated, but this would be a world first and certainly interesting for players 
It would be cool but that seems like it could get expensive and stressful.I imagine people at their computer crying saying I just want a dang coffee mug.
Edit:Could do something easier like that with a mug holder/if I’m saying it right and just have a characters head on a shiny white background with a slip for a picture or two in the bottom so you could print off your own scores if you wanted to and just put them in there and change them in the future if you want to.
I like to imagine people at their computer crying too
[quote=“Jaidge, post:66, topic:4786, full:true”]
I like to imagine people at their computer crying too
[/quote]Don’t we all?
If they found a cheap way to do it your idea would definitely be a cool thing to try.
I’m thinking something like that in a merchandise giveaway/contest with signed stuff from the devs would be cool too if they make merchandise for their games sometime.
Hi, guys. I’ve been lurking around since the game’s release, but the discussion here finally convinced me to register and chime in.
Full disclosure: I stumbled onto the game through Steam’s Greenlight back when it first got put up and was instantly fascinated with its premise, as the subject and genre are both right up my alley. I also legally purchased it through GHG’s website, anticipating its release on steam, and would have paid for the game again for the Steam integrated services.
But before that, I pirated it… and ironically, the version I played was a cracked version of the original, not the modified version Patrick posted up, so I had access to a fully functional (if illegal) copy of the game.
I may not represent the majority of pirates online, but I buy any software I download which is within my means. A few comments above talked about the convenience of pirating and not having to do things like hassle with DRM, being gouged by “withheld in development” DLC and other problems plaguing the industry. Bluntly, it may not be the small Indie dev’s fault that piracy is often more convenient than legally purchasing a product, but it is something they have to compete with.
So why’d I buy it when I could have just kept the illegal copy?
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I had a convenient way to pay for, download and play the game. This comes back to the ‘convenience’ issue above. If your game is hard to pay for or download, or so riddled with DRM that it causes problem for the user, they’re going to pirate it. EA and Ubisoft will never see another dime from me for this exact reason. On the other hand, I own over 200 games on Steam. Why? Because they’re super convenient and have never stopped me from playing my own (legally purchased) games.
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It represents something new and interesting. The premise and execution aren’t totally original by themselves, but the game treads a path that a lot of larger studios with publishers won’t touch because it’s not “mainstream profitable.” This goes double for being a small Indie studio without the stable financial backing or huge marketing budgets of a publisher.
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Because the game is genuinely fun to play and absolutely worth the asking price. If this had been a $20 game, I still probably would have bought it - but I would have waited months, or even a year, for it to go on sale through a venue like Steam first. The game is priced appropriately for the amount of content it offers and to be competitive in the genre.
But the number one way to get me to buy your games is to make a product that I WANT to support. Game Dev Tycoon is a good game, and more importantly, it makes me want to support Patrick and GHG so I can see what cool stuff they’ll come out with next. It makes me tell my friends, who will also legally purchase the game.
That’s how you win against piracy.
Very good post and I could not agree more with your closing sentiments. Make a good game that people want to buy, and they will buy it.
There was an interesting article this week in the news about piracy and small films:
The reasoning goes that for smaller, indie films rather than the blockbusters like Harry Potter etc, the positive word-of-mouth that pirates generate is highly beneficial, and actually generates a significant amount of sales.
I should imagine that the same is true for indie games as well, if not moreso, because people who are into indie games no doubt have much more exposure through social media etc to the views and opinions of pirates.
Everyone has heard of Call of Duty, pirates saying that it’s great probably has no impact on their sales, but virtually nobody has heard of Game Dev Tycoon, I should imagine that pirates telling their friends or posting about it to toal strangers on forums and social media really helps their sales a lot.
my whole family pirate this game, from looking at torrents on pirate bay, now my whle family buy game this is 4 copies they have sold due to piracy, they lost nothing in the first exchange, and gained exponentionally in comparison.
Gentle reminder that personal attacks are never needed.