Independent Game Developer Pranks Pirates With 'Game Dev Tycoon'

[MacRumors]

Two brothers, Patrick and Daniel Klug, recently released their first game called 'Game Dev Tycoon'. In it, players start a small game development company in the 1980's and attempt to build it up to a development powerhouse over the next 30 years.

In a bit of an experiment, the Klugs released a cracked version of their game and uploaded it themselves to a torrent site. However, in the pirated version, the in-game developers begin to run into crippling piracy that eventually drives them into bankruptcy. In-game CEO's receive this 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.

Players who downloaded the game illegally then began posting questions in the game's support forums asking how to better fight the pirates.

After the first weekend, the company had 3100 gamers playing the cracked version, with 214 playing the genuine edition.

The game itself would be enjoyed by any fans of the tycoon series of games -- as CEO of the game company, players can research new technologies and game types, while hiring new employees and making bigger and bigger video games.

Fictional versions of major game platforms like NES, Sony PlayStation and the Xbox are all used in the game, with some clever thinking required to figure out what types of games will be bestsellers.

Game Dev Tycoon for Mac is $7.99 straight from the developers, with access to Windows and Linux versions also included in the purchase price.

Article Link: Independent Game Developer Pranks Pirates With 'Game Dev Tycoon'

[bwillwall]

Simply awesome

[achtung!]

nice!

[phillipduran]

Best trick ever. I love it!

Don't be a pirate kids. Play what you earn or don't play at all. Life lesson.

[swarmster]

Hilarious, I love stuff like this. You can't really stop it, but the best anti-piracy, to me, shouldn't be a clear "it works or it doesn't" thing, but something that insidiously destroys your gameplay over time while causing all the pirates to self-report.

Although in this case I guess the icing on the cake would be if Kairosoft released an update to Game Dev Story where you suddenly have to compete with rival developers that clone your games.

[Jessica Lares]

$7.99 for THAT game?

Still a very good joke.

[Namjins]

Genius!

[goodcow]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

$7.99 for THAT game?

Still a very good joke.

Oh hey, where's the game you released?

[achbed]

Originally Posted by swarmster

Although in this case I guess the icing on the cake would be if Kairosoft released an update to Game Dev Story where you suddenly have to compete with rival developers that clone your games.

That's included in the "leaked" source code version that they seeded as well.....

j/k - would be epic if they did that tho.

[johnnnw]

This is actually amazing.

People posted in the forum asking how to defeat the pirates?... brilliant.

[Cameront9]

Since I just got into Game Dev Story on the phone, I'm intrigued by this game, but it pretty seems to be a direct clone of GDS. I mean, they could have at least changed the isometric view to a top-down one or something. Even the metrics they use for the quality of the game look the same.

The whole pirate thing seems to be the pot calling the kettle black...

[Jessica Lares]

Originally Posted by goodcow

Oh hey, where's the game you released?

In Google Play.

Joking, nothing up at the moment. I'm still planning it out and learning Unity.

I feel like $7.99 is a bit much for a game like that though. Even with the promotion they're getting now from this little joke of there's, it's probably not going to compel too many people to buy it. I'm saying that as someone who does buy a lot of the better $2.99-9.99 games. Based on the screenshots, it just looks like another building/shop freemium game.

[Liquorpuki]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

$7.99 for THAT game?

Still a very good joke.

It's a good game and worth it if you like sims. It's basically a better looking version of Game Dev Story, which is $4 with graphics lifted straight from the 80's

[ArtOfWarfare]

Interesting how many people pirate their app instead of buy it... in my experience I have far more legal downloads than pirated downloads (about 10x as many legal users as pirating users), but that might just be a matter of different markets - I'm targeting IT people who know that $1.99 for my app is already a steal* whereas they're trying to charge casual gamers $7.99, who are used to getting their games for free.

* Plus they're spending company money rather than their own, plus a lot more people will know they're doing illegal things and so they're more likely to get busted for it.

I enjoy the market I sell in. I just wish I knew how to sell video games, since those are a lot more fun to make...

[reidme]

Brilliant. "Hey can anybody tell me how to thwart a jerk like me?"

[SnowLeopard2008]

Ha this is a big middle finger to the pirates out there.

[iMacFarlane]

Poetry. Sheer poetry.

torrent.zombie to help.desk: "How can I stop these pirates from destroying my company?"

** uncomfortable silence **

help.desk: "You tell us."

[nick_elt]

haha. gold.

[eyhk]

Originally Posted by Cameront9

Since I just got into Game Dev Story on the phone, I'm intrigued by this game, but it pretty seems to be a direct clone of GDS. I mean, they could have at least changed the isometric view to a top-down one or something. Even the metrics they use for the quality of the game look the same.

The whole pirate thing seems to be the pot calling the kettle black...

I was wondering about that myself. Cool prank though.

[mrkgoo]

They should've also put in an event where another company apes the player game style and ideas and makes their own version.

[rmwebs]

Looks like their site was killed. Getting 502 errors here.

[BC2009]

Wow, the ratio of pirated versions of the game in use versus legal versions is staggering.

[roadbloc]

Originally Posted by goodcow

Oh hey, where's the game you released?

Just because somebody thinks a game is overpriced, doesn't mean they have to be in the industry or even know anything about video games. People see different value in different things. Personally, I think the fact that 3100 out of 3314 players chose to pirate the game shows how possibly overpriced people seem to think it is.

Kudos to the developers for the prank though.

[flottenheimer]

Genius.
Hope they let the dialogue and the experiment run long enough before revealing their move.

[downpour]

To be fair I doubt many of the people who pirated the game would have bought it if they couldn't have got it for free. It can even have a positive effect on sales by increasing its fame. Think how famous Photoshop is. Do you really think it would be so famous if everyone who used it had payed for it?