I just downloaded the demo cause a friend gave me the link, else I would have used a pirated copy to test the game, too. If I would have seen this I would never buy anything from you. BTW: From the demo itself I almost said that I won’t buy it. Reason: No window border, weird graphical glitches, weird other glitches, the game is pretty boring till year 5… But then I tried the warez (cause my friend told me it gets better there) and everything was fine… So if I never would have used the warez and relied on the demo I never would have buyed the game…
But yea, defend the free advertising, defend people from buying your games, defend simply everything… This was the last game I buyed from you.
//EDIT: BTW: $854.93 income for each_of_you on one_day (the release day) doesn’t sound like you are so poor that you can’t live with the few people pirating and never buying the game (nor avertising it to their friends…) …
I have no credit nor debit card. I get maybe $50 every 6 months from my mom.
I know there are millions of people out there just like me.
95% of pirates are those who literally CAN’T afford to donate to you just like me.
Most pirates want to support you after they do pirate.
It is not stealing because there is an *infinite supply. Take one from infinity and you still have infinity.
In the history of gaming, I’d say no one ever has gone down because of pirating. If you’re small, you get LOTS more publicity from it. People look to TPB to legitimately try new games.
We should embrace “piracy” (kind of a misnomer because again you can’t steal from an infinitely reproducible supply) because it allows so many more people to grow, gain knowledge, experience, absorb all the things you put into the game at the price of nothing. If people aren’t giving you enough money to get by, you probably did not deserve to make enough money to get by.
I’d say for every 10 people who pirate your game, 5/10 of them REALLY want to donate but can’t, 4/10 will donate afterward, and 1/10 probably could’ve paid. The amount of people who just mindlessly download without a second thought is very miniscule I think.
You shouldn’t punish “pirates,” because most of them aren’t bad but just want to be able to play what you made It’s impossible to detect the sentiment behind someone pirating or their situation, so you shouldn’t punish all the pirates for the extreme minority who just doesn’t care.
Imagine you invent something and when you have manufactured it and have it in stores, someone else brings out a copy of the exact same thing, but gives it away for free.
I would make anything I create available for free. Digital things are different from physical things because when there’s an infinite supply of something, the price goes down to almost nothing. I’d rather more people play the game. I’d rather live in poverty my whole life and make very little money than restrict from people who deserve the experience I can give them. I think we will definitely move to a more donation based way of paying for games.
Piracy is the key to success these days. Without piracy, no one would be able to consider buying your game or not, that is, except your game has a demo version. If a pirate successfully pirated the game, then he would tell everyone to download the cracked version. If some of those guys who cracked the game think the game is good, there’s a good 73% chance that he/she would buy the game legally.
I would like to see the percentage for piracy today
Hello! I haven’t actually bought or tried out your game, yet (I plan on doing that now). I just wanted to tell you that your tactic was very unique. I absolutely loved it! I’m on the forensics team at my college (the speech-giving activity, not the science), so I decided to write a communication analysis on your approach to piracy. I hope everything goes well for you and your indie company!
lol i was thinking about buying the game and tryed to google for requirements and such, then found a part of the post on a website and well i am now more intrigued by the game and creators xD
I would love to buy this game but I literally can not, even through steam, because the game is not legally allowed to be sold in my country. I realize this is not the fault of the developers and I was very disappointed when I read the article which explained why the game could not be sold in South Africa.
I am more than happy to pay for it, though I am sure that Greenheart Games could accept my payment without running into legal problems if it is discovered.
If this is not the case, and there is a way I could get a legal, paid for copy then please tell me how? I would prefer not to use a pirated version, especially if it has this ‘bug’ in it.
So Game Dev Tycoon is illegal in South Africa, so you illegally downloaded a copy from the internet and you are now playing a game thats basically illegal in your country? ( well maybe not punishable illegal, but not being approved is about the same in this matter )
Anyways these rating systems do need a major reconsideration, small dev companies do not have the financial means to get their games through an expensive rating all around the world.
Solution to your problem:
If you want to support Greenheart Games, just make a donation
I’m no legal expert but my impression is that it is illegal to sell it, not own or play it.
I might although that still leaves me without the game, or with a ‘bugged’ pirated version. With the exchange rate, $8 is cheap but it isn’t pocket change.
Hey Patrick, just a question and I don’t know how it happened but I had a cracked version from some website that gives out games for free (reply to me if you want the website to see that they have the game up) and I downloaded it from there (sorry) and I got to the piracy notification but I had the option to sue too. Does this mean they gave me a “legit” copy? Like it’s obviously cracked since I didn’t get it from GreenHeart, but could it have been one of the real copies? Since only the pirates don’t have options and the one I got had the option to sue was it legitimate and could they have found a way to bypass your piracy thing? If you want the website to check it out just tell me.
Pirating is a difficult issue and as a gamer and game developer I sympathize with both sides, and here is why! I have lived 25 years in a post Soviet Eastern block country and the past 5 years in Canada, which has broadened my opinions on things. Now In the West if you make at least $20 an hour at your job, I see no reason for you to pirate games, unless you are just super into getting shit for free and couldn’t care less about the devs (especially indie devs who aren’t Toby Fox, tho he needs money to make better games too, I suppose). In the ye old Eastern Block, pirating is rampant and socially highly accepted. This is not because everyone from there is a thief, but because economical development is 50 years behind the West. E.g. an average salary of 80%, not even mentioning the minimum here, of my old countrymen is about 600 EUR (670 USD / 880 CAD) per MONTH that’s 3.4 EUR an hour (3.8 USD / 5 CAD). At this point you may think “well shits cheap there”, No! Most of the Ex-Soviet block countries are now in the Euro zone and prices are mostly balanced out, some thing are a bit cheaper, some dare I say more expensive. So extra money is rare. When I was working there most of my colleagues would run out of funds a week before payday…we cant talk about a “spending money” here. Now we have a dilemma, people want to game, but cant afford to pay 10-60 EUR for a game. So at least there pirating is not because people are assholes and want shit for free, tho there are those in every country, most who like the products they pirate, but they cant afford it. Some buy an original copy later on sale if they have the extra euro. Also this is form my experience so not to take everything at face value, nor am I defending piracy, just there are two sides to every coin.
Recently, I’m not hearing much talk about pirates, it is rumored that they are no longer able to hack the new games that are coming out, well, it was not an answer to your question, but it’s important to know.
It’s impossible to detect the sentiment behind someone pirating or their situation, so you shouldn’t punish all the pirates for the extreme minority who just doesn’t care.
