The Best Anti-Piracy Measure Ever

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/04/29/the-best-anti-piracy-measure-ever

The Best Anti-Piracy Measure Ever

Game Dev Tycoon shows players the effects of piracy in-game, too.

by Keza MacDonald

April 29, 2013

Developer Greenheart Games
has come up with an impressively smart anti-piracy measure for its
first game, Game Dev Tycoon - in which people who've downloaded a
cracked version will feel the effects of piracy in-game, too.

As an experiment, the developer decided to release a cracked version
of Game Dev Tycoon onto torrent sites along with the genuine version,
pre-empting piracy. "The cracked version is nearly identical to the real
thing except for one detail," explains Greenheart on its website.
"Initially we thought about telling them their copy is an illegal copy,
but instead we didn’t want to pass up the unique opportunity of holding a
mirror in front of them and showing them what piracy can do to game
developers." After a few hours of building up your virtual game studio,
this message appears:



From
then on, everything pirate players make in-game has a huge chance of
being pirated, and it becomes almost impossible for them to make a
profit. The most brilliant thing about this is the responses that
Greenheart has found online from players who didn't pay for the game.



Ahh, the irony. There are plenty more over on Greenheart's site.
This isn't the first time that developers have tried to make a point
with anti-piracy messages. Rocksteady released a cracked version of
Batman: Arkham Asylum onto the Internet that was complete except for one
tiny detail: Batman's cape-glide ability didn't work. Back in 2001,
Operation Flashpoint's developers decided to make the game degrade
slowly as pirates played, with enemies becoming ever stronger and guns
ever weaker until the game eventually became unplayable. For me, though,
this is the cleverest.

After one day on sale, Greenheart says, 93.6% of players had
downloaded the illegal version rather than buying it legally. "If years
down the track you wonder why there are no games like these anymore and
all you get to play is pay-to-play and social games designed to suck
money out of your pockets then the reason will stare back at you in the
mirror," the developer says.

Nonetheless, creator Patrick Klug isn't mad at pirates, and doesn't
believe in DRM. He entreaties them to spend the 8 dollars and see what
the game really should be like.

When we released our very first game, Game Dev Tycoon (for Mac, Windows and Linux) yesterday,
we did something unusual and as far as I know unique. We released a
cracked version of the game ourselves, minutes after opening our Store.

I uploaded the torrent to the number one torrent sharing site, gave it a description imitating the scene and asked a few friends to help seed it.








A minute after we uploaded it, my torrent client looked like this:








Soon my upload speed was maxed out (and as of the time of writing
still is) and my friends and I had connections from all over the world
and for all three platforms!

How does piracy feel?


The cracked version is nearly identical to the real thing except for
one detail… Initially we thought about telling them their copy is an
illegal copy, but instead we didn’t want to pass up the unique
opportunity of holding a mirror in front of them and showing them what
piracy can do to game developers. So, as players spend a few hours
playing and growing their own game dev company, they will start to see
the following message, styled like any other in-game message:

Boss, it seems that while many players play our new game,
they steal it by downloading a cracked version rather than buying it
legally.
If players don’t buy the games they like, we will sooner or later go bankrupt.

Slowly their in-game funds dwindle, and new games they create have a
high chance to be pirated until their virtual game development company
goes bankrupt.

Some of the responses I found online (identities obscured to protect the guilty):

Is there some way to avoid that? I mean can I research DRM or something …

And another user:

Why are there so many people that pirate? It ruins me!

As a gamer I laughed out loud: the IRONY!!!

However, as the developer, who spent over a year creating this game and hasn’t drawn a salary yet, I wanted to cry. Surely, for most of these players, the 8 dollars wouldn’t hurt them but it makes a huge difference to our future!

Trying to appeal to pirates


I know that some people just don’t even think about buying games.
They will immediately search for a cracked version. For this reason,
when we released the game, we also published a page which targets people
who search for a cracked/illegal version.
Unfortunately, due to my lack in search-engine-optimization skills,
that page has had no impact yet, but I hope it will convince some to buy
the game in the future.

[…]if years down the track you wonder why there are no
games like these anymore and all you get to play is pay-to-play and
social games designed to suck money out of your pockets then the reason
will stare back at you in the mirror.

I do think it’s important to try to communicate what piracy means to
game developers to our consumers. I also tried to appeal to a particular
forum a day earlier after someone who I gave early-access to the Store
seemed to have passed on the copy to others:

We’re just a start-up and really need your support. The game is only 7.99USD, DRM free…

Clearly, my post hadn’t worked too well since on the same forum someone posted the earlier screenshot (“Why are there so many people that pirate? It ruins me!) just a bit after I made my appeal and this was followed by many others complaining about piracy.

I still hope that it made a difference to someone.

Anyway, how many really did buy and how many did pirate our game during this first day?

The awesome/depressing results


Today, one day after release, our usage stats look like this:








Genuine version: 214 users

Cracked version: at least 3104 users

Over 93.6% of players stole the game. We know this because our game contains some code to send anonymous-usage
data to our server. Nothing unusual or harmful. Heaps of games/apps do
this and we use it to better understand how the game is played. It’s
absolutely anonymous and you are covered by our privacy policy. Anyway,
the cracked version has a separate ID so I can separate the data. I’m
sure some of the players have firewalls and some will play offline
therefore the actual number of players for the cracked version is likely
much higher.

To the players who played the cracked version!


I’m not mad at you. When I was younger, downloading illegal copies
was practically normal but this was mostly because global game
distribution was in its infancy. To be fair, there are still individuals
who either can’t make a legal purchase because of payment-issues or who
genuinely cannot afford the game. I don’t have a quarrel with you. To the rest who could afford the game consider this:

1. Would you like to see a bigger/better sequel of Game Dev Tycoon in the future? Buy the game!
   Creating this game was already expensive and this was just a small
   game. If we ever want to make a bigger/better version we need a lot of
   support!
   
2. Do you hate the trend towards social or pay-to-play free games? Buy games from independent developers! (start with ours )
   
3. Do you hate the recent trends in the industry? Buy DRM free games.
   

We are not wealthy and it’s unlikely that we will be any time soon,
so stop pretending like we don’t need your 8 dollars! We are just two
guys working our butts off, trying to start our own game studio to
create games which are fun to play.

The game is DRM free, you can use it on up to three of your computers
for your own use, you get copies for Mac, Windows and Linux, you can
continue your game before piracy wrecked your company and we even aim to
provide you with a free Steam key once the game is on Steam. All for a
mere 8 bucks.

If you just want to try the game then there’s the free DEMO:

Final words


Do we need DRM?
Whether or not to use DRM isn’t clear at all to a new start-up. The main
argument against it is that all it does is to inconvenience genuine
customers. Fact is that any game can be cracked, so all you do is spend
time on something that in the end just annoys your real customers while
only slightly delaying the inevitable. The only way to protect yourself
is to create an online game. I guess that’s why so many studios focus on
these types of games and it’s probably a driving force to eradicate
traditional single player games.

Personally, I love single players games and hope to be able to
continue down this path and if more people would buy our game, we might
even be able to.

Would I do this again?

This was a unique opportunity. You need a game development simulation
game to make this particular joke work. The more general
idea/experiment to release a cracked version which inconveniences and
counts pirates can probably work for any game and might work in the long
run.

If pirates are put through more trouble than genuine customers, maybe more will buy the real game.
Sadly, for AAA games it is currently the other way. Customers get the
trouble with always-on requirements and intrusive DRM, while pirates can
just download and enjoy. A twisted world.

To our genuine customers


Thank you for your support. Your
purchase is more important to us than you might think. We hope to be
able to bring you more games in the future. Also, please update to the
latest version of the game by using the download link from your purchase
email. Before writing this blog post I’ve fixed most of the known
issues

Patrick Klug
- Greenheart Games ♥

thats funny.. makes me want to buy the game actually..

seems like an interesting enough game