I’m not sure what I think is the funniest, the troll itself or seeing a lot of people who were trolled complain about it here…
Anyway @PatrickKlug, excellent prank sir! You have my $8 just because of this! 
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Support from hong kong.
I am also a developer and I have the same thought that since people keep stealing games, the industry is actually kind of “dying”. We can see many free-to-play games in the society with an “in app purchase” feature, which is absolutely annoying. Why can’t I fully pay the game and enjoy all the contents? Why do I need to pay for every slightly changes? Some mobile games are even non-playable if you didn’t pay periodically. There are a number of good games being ruined like this and I feel very sad as a gamer or developer. But well, that’s the result of pirating games.
The only way to stop this trend is to pay for good games, especially for those individual developers. That’s why I am paying for your game even I don’t think I will have the time to play it. As a developer myself, I just want to show my support and respect. Please keep on to make more good games!
NICE ACT to trick those free riders.
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Am I the only one finds it hilarious when someone, who seemingly endorses taking the work of others without contributing in return, uses the word ‘unethical’?
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Just have to say I love your idea of posting the game with a “pirate feature”.
I usually don’t like this type of games, and even though I am sure it is a great product, But I will still buy the game to support you guys. Great slap in the face of all the pirates.
(With that being said I did also pirate games in my youth, more for the convenience of not having to go to the store. Now that you can easily download games legally (usually Steam) I do not own a single pirated game any more (and have bought most of the games I played during my pirating days.)
I agree that the basic idea is funny especially in the context of the storyline of the game, but it is not very genuine. There used be other games in the past that used similar approaches - even other applications like Dragonburn utilized the concept of a degrading experience for cracked versions to some extent.
While you do give credit to Kairosoft and the original Game Dev Story game, you quite heavily pirated the original idea of the game as well as the graphical appearance (you call it inspiration).
I mean seriously, just compare the screenshots:
http://bit.ly/14MKCMo vs. http://bit.ly/12g3Se8
Does this give users the right to pirate Game Dev Tycoon ? Obviously not - I totally agree with you that people should honor the work by paying for games they enjoy to play. But it is kind of lame to pirate the concept and graphical aesthetics of another game and then complain about others pirating your work. Maybe you’ve learned how the guys at Kairosoft must feel, when they see your game.
That might be true, but it does not invalidate the point made.
Greenheart Games explicitly states on its website, that it was “inspired” by Game Dev Story and while I do not have a problem with games taking a similar storyline, the inspiration in this case goes way beyond that - I would simply call it a copycat (just compare the screenshots, heck even the name is kind of copied).
It is quite hilarious blaming others for acting unethical by pirating the game when the game itself is nothing short of a blatant copy of an existing game.
Well, i bought myself a game now and its got kinda too easy - already got two runs without any difficulties.
How about giving back some kind of piracy to the game? Like hard mode or something, because non-pirated game is quite easy to play and gives you no challenge. Right now i have to play with custom limitation to make it harder (like roleplaying indie dev studio with only 2 guys).
Hi,
I just had to buy the game after reading the post about the piracy system. I had not even heard from this game before that. Just bought it without testing.
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Your clever way to annoy and teach pirates got me here and without knowing anything else about your game I bought it to try it out and to support you. Then just because your trick was so awesome, I bought the game again just to support you and compensate pirated games.
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You are big fat liars and hypocrites, Greenheartgames. You are showing desirable for actual, instead of how piracy actually influenced your sales.
The reason why there were so much of so-called “illegal” downloads against “legal”, is because your game is more then mediocre. Instead, torrent trackers acted for you as a promotional platform.
In fact, I’m more then sure that you’ve gained the majority of those legal sales thanks to your “torrent advert event” and because of the hype you’ve managed to build all over around it. Otherwise your sales would be even more poor then they now.
I hope some day game developers will acknowledge, that people are willing to pay for what it deserves to be paid and what priced accordingly. I wish that they’ll understand someday, that whole world isn’t obliged to them, because they’ve created some damn game, and how they prise and value their own product. It’s up to the market to decide, how valuable your product actually is, so stop blaming each and every project and its poor sales due to the piracy actions.
There, I’ve said it all. Good luck to your future projects.
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It is fairly amusing how a blog post written mostly around hard facts (and some, if a bit misguided, interpretation) generates reaction with words “liars” and “hypocrites”.
You are right. I think “Greenheartgames” are twice hypocrites, because of this.
Yes because your product isn’t AAA quality it deserves to be stolen? WTF man, if it’s a poor product then don’t play it. If it’s not worth buying you have no right playing it. Just because a product might not be good in your eyes doesn’t give you the right to steal it.
You may want to check a dictionary article for “hypocrite”.
Great story, had to buy the game just because of your blog post
Product shouldn’t be stolen regardless of its quality. And you statements don’t contradict with mine at all, as you can see.
My point was, devs should stop focusing at piracy as a major source of their financial troubles and stop showing it as a one solid reason of poor sales. It’s simple, as it is.
I’ve stumbled across your blog post and found it really interesting ( and a fun concept with the pirated version ). Thereby i decided to buy the game and haven’t even played it yet just to show some support.
While i do believe you helped the piracy level by releasing the fake copy to the wild, the numbers in itself are quite interesting (eventhough as said, slightly skewed).
I would suggest you write a follow up, as to how all the press you have been getting, has affected your sales now. That also would be an interesting thing to see.
Hope you’ll consider it and good luck with your future endeavours.
You may want to remind it yourself too then, if you can’t see the parallel.
You don’t in any way see the duplicity and hypocrisy in spreading a honeypot torrent of a maliciously edited version of your game to prove a one-sided point without any self-scrutinzing information such as how much advertising (if any - I know I’ve certainly never heard of Game Dev Tycoon before this pathetic article) was done to put the game’s name out there? What was Game Dev Tycoon’s Hype, if we’re to use a leaf from the game’s (stolen) book?
Like, why is this game not on Desura? It has a far kinder entry process than Steam and is widely regarded as basically “the Steam of indie games”.
Look at the spoiled internet children throw their toys out of the pram when they realise that a little indie company has played them. Sense of humor bypass indeed
Reading some of the pro-torrent comments of here is like watching a panic in a needle park…but funnier. You kiddies sure know to exploit the word ‘stolen’ for you own self serving interests don’t you? On one hand you tell everyone that copying is NOT stealing (despite the fact you steal their potential income via your so-called ‘sharing’) yet OTOH, when it suits you, you claim they ‘stole’ the idea of the game…and then you accuse others of hypocrisy.
Oh the irony of it all.
Now, if you pop your jim-jams on and get into bed like a good kiddie-wink I’ll not tell your mom you were on the internet past your bedtime
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