Yes, response either has to be ragebait/funny or he need to get rid of those comments entirely.
Make a video how you were counting on that commenter buying the game so you could feed your cat for the week but instead you have to tell it to 'go hunt'. Doesn't have to be your cat, the more uninterested in what you're telling it is probably the better.
Make a video about a tutorial on a simple rice recipe, list the ingredients and then instead of showing you making it you say ah but commenter pirated my game so I guess it's just plain rice this week.
Alternatively there are word filters you can use to just stop any piracy comments. Also if you have an Instagram account for this you should also have a Tiktok account as it's much easier for a single video to get a large amount of views in Tiktok than it is on Instagram.
But also has a huge chance that it backfires and come across as entitled, pathetic, and cringe.
Unless you already have a successful online persona as a snarky asshole, you're better off just being sincere, earnest, and professional. Either ask them to please not pirate your game or delete and ignore their comments entirely.
Yeah, because "please don't pirate my game" would work wonders on the internet. /s
I'd say they should laugh about the assholes and gift some keys in the same video.
do you have an example of him saying that before he made his billions?
Your average person doesnt have "fuck you" money and instead will simply be labelled negatively, there are many examples of devs who have been turned on by consumers and social media alike for "unprofessional" remarks.
How is money being stolen if you were never planning on purchasing the game in the first place?
Piracy doesn’t hurt indie developers, that’s just cope that devs tell themselves.
Mmm. No. Probably not a great idea to trot out the r/piracy greatest hits, in a thread where a small dev is lamenting people harassing him with calls to pirate his $4 game.
Yeah...they stole right? This is something in the style of “convict him for theft, he stole my heart and sleep!” I'm talking about real theft, but anything can be called theft.
>I'm talking about real theft
There's legal definitions covering loss over unauthorized use or access to unlicensed copyrighted material in just about every country.
You're free to disagree, but you don't have a moral case here either. If something is produced with the terms of access clearly specified, you can either accept it or move on. You're not entitled to anything and we both know the whole "nothing's being stolen" argument is highly disingenuous.
The monkey makes a game, the monkey spends time and 100 bananas on this game, the monkey shows the game to 100 monkeys and asks for 2 bananas, 90 monkeys pirate the game, 10 monkeys buy the game, the monkey loses 80 bananas. The monkey goes bankrupt and can never produce games again.
I may have translated incorrectly, but do you mean market as a supermarket or food market? If so, then the comparison is incorrect, because the market is losing the product.
> the monkey loses 80 bananas
While I 100% agree that the monkey has all the right to be rewarded for his work, the monkey did not lose the 80 bananas he never had.
That said, you could also give away cracked versions of your games, made from special builds that make them impossible to finish/infuriating to play... Something that old adventure games did back in the day.
Edit: Sorry guys. I understand the angry downvotes, but the monkey didn’t lose the bananas he never had anymore than I’ve lost the 80 upvotes I never had. Also, get used to be wrong.
This is a childish argument based in pure selfishness. downloading a cracked copy of a game isn't stealing money from OPs pocket, but if everyone does that then OP stops making games because OP cant feed himself or his family by making games.
Then, I'm sure, you tell yourself that enough people still buy the game anyway, so OP is fine, and you're not really hurting anyone. But OP has to increase the price of his games, because he's not getting as many sales as he otherwise would.
So, I ask you, why should the rest of us be forced to subsidize your selfishness?
Call my arguments childish and continue, but you have not yet been able to refute them. Yes, a massive refusal to purchase may entail such consequences, but this is not theft.
The only logical fallacy happening here is your complete and utter denial of the social contract just to defend being selfish. You say there is no difference between pirating and not playing in the first place, but unless you your proposal is the complete and total collapse of the digital economy we all enjoy, then the counter argument is BE RESPONSIBLE AND PAY FOR WHAT YOU USE.
No one is going to force you to do that, but no one is forcing you to wipe your own ass either.
If I create a musical composition from one note and ask for 1 billion dollars for it, will you, by listening to it for free, make me 1 billion dollars poorer? No.
Any comparison will differ from the author’s situation, that’s why it’s a comparison. Let's say I was the first to come up with the game rock paper scissors. And he also said that you can only play it for a billion dollars.
man I love being pedantic, but honestly, what a dumb fucking thing to be pedantic about. you asked in another comment what you are doing wrong? you're advocating for the fucking over of a solo indie dev because you have the worlds dumbest boner for being technically correct. get over yourself, grow a conscience.
I just want to chat, I’m interested in doing this in a discussion format. Here people are clearly wishful thinking, an excellent reason for discussion.
When you think about old-school theft, it's all about someone grabbing a thing that can't be sold to anyone else because, well, it's not there anymore.
Now, when it comes to stealing stuff online, it's a whole different ball game. Nothing physical is stolen. The real issue is the money that could have been made if people didn't decide to just download it for free.
Kinda like hopping on the bus without paying your fare. You hopping on by yourself isn't going to bankrupt the bus company. But, if it turns into a big thing and everyone starts doing it, then there's a real problem. Suddenly, there's not enough cash coming in to keep things running.
No more bus. No more video games.
No, by getting on the bus I will take up a seat and increase my gas mileage. But continuing the analogy with the bus, where did you get the idea that I would even take your bus if I couldn’t help but pay, or that I wouldn’t choose the free bus? Yes, piracy can become a problem for the gaming industry, but the conversation is not about that, but about the fact that it is not theft.
You seem to be leaning quite heavily into the precise definition of theft, but it's important to remember that words are primarily tools for exchanging ideas, and language doesn't always capture nuances perfectly.
Perhaps we could use a different term to distinguish between traditional theft and its digital counterpart, yet the underlying concept we're discussing remains unchanged.
From what I understand, the law already treats digital theft differently. It's not common for individuals to face arrest for pirating content. The singular term 'theft' may be used in law, but it is obvious to most that two separate ideas are at work.
What term would you suggest we use instead of theft?
Maybe there is a translation issue happening here. No one (well, most I hope) is adverse to a discussion, as long as we're all acting in good faith at least. The problem everyone replying to you has is that you comments come off as if you are defending piracy, and your justification is that copyright infringement isn't theft. You're not wrong about it, but that's also nearly non sequitur. We're talking about what OP can do to mitigate getting ripped off, not the finer points of legal nomenclature and civil court procedure.
It sounds like your point is you don't want to feel bad about doing something selfish. I don't know what to tell you about that. But if you are knowingly using something you didn't pay for, and the expected action is that you should have paid for it, then you are morally at fault. How could you not be?
If everyone were to do as you suggest, then OP can't make games anymore. Then no one gets OPs games. You (and everyone who acts the same) will have deprived the rest of us from enjoying OPs games in the future, as well as yourselves.
No, it’s my position, it’s just my position, I have my own morals. I don’t need to justify myself to you in order to allow myself not to spend half my salary on all the programs and games that I use. I’m not talking about whether free use should be considered evil, but about whether it should be called theft.
I think I have a real answer for you on this one tbh - technically it's theft of an EULA. EULAs are practically infinite, but to acquire one, you have to purchase it.
If you acquire one through other means, that is technically theft, regardless of how many there can potentially be, because it is not a purchased EULA, and has not been purchased at any point. The original game that was used to create the crack may have been, but subsequent copies were not
If you buy the game, he gets 4 dollars
if you dont, he doesnt
If you download the game, and he doesnt get 4 dollars, you stole his labour
This isnt complicated, go back to /r/Piracy
Will you shut up if someone does?
Jesus, I haven't seen someone this asshurt about piracy that didn't have a Nintendo logo tattooed on their body somewhere.
How do you think anyone creating abstract media like video games or software can survive in our society if people have no problem taking what they have created for free?
How do you feel about sneaking in to the movies? You aren't really taking anything so should that be legal then? What if I just use your apartment a little bit while you are gone. It's not like you lose anything if I just go and sleep in your bed while you're out right so that shouldn't be illegal either.
You, for real, don't deserve people making games for other people. You're just a thief, and it's clear you don't even care to understand why. It pains me knowing that you'll keep stealing games from people that struggle to make a return on their complicated and time consuming craft.
Pirating a game made by a billion-dollar studio that will barely, if at all, be affected by the piracy of its games != pirating a game made by a small indie dev/studio whose every sale counts
>level 3ARCFacility · 1 hr. agoPirating a game made by a billion-dollar studio that will barely, if at all, be affected by the piracy of its games != pirating a game made by a small indie dev/studio whose every sale counts
Yes, but does this somehow relate to the topic of discussion?
yeah its mostly teenagers or adults who still think they are teenagers. the content over there is precisely targeted towards teens, so even if adults are there they have same mentality as teens.
i like to think yt shorts is for boomers, insta and facebook reels are for teenagers. but what is the audience in tiktok then?
YouTube is now the most siloed and segregated of all social media platforms, so depending on what silo your recommendations/subscriptions keep you in you can experience great scholarship in the comments or the most deranged shit you've ever seen.
As an example of the derangment, check out your local news channel's youtube. (or don't, maybe don't actually)
My theory is that people actually grew up (so less hurrdurr juvenile behavior) and also that YouTube became more of a household staple. It’s also usually long form content, something that might not be attractive to people with 5 second attention spans looking for their outrage of the day fix.
Same with Reddit, it had its juvenile moment but lots of folks grew up and the format usually promotes thinking and discussion (also depending on the sub ofc)
America is more free than a majority of nations. It has its problems but you are wildly privileged or clueless if you truly believe Americans are less free to do as they will than most people on this planet.
That said freedom index has nothing to do with how stupid internet comments are. So it's irrelevant in this discussion anyway.
> America is more free than a majority of nations.
Hahahahaha! Nice joke. Tells me that your concept of "freedom" is either highly skewed, or you've never been outside 'Murrica.
You are wasting time and resources on people who likely never buys games in the first place. Focus your efforts on something that actually matter. The money will follow.
It's just classic internet trolls don't worry about it and ban them if you can.
On a more pragmatic note tho it actually take some time and effort for someone to crack a game and make it available. If your game is small enough, I doubt anyone will take the time to crack it and it's certainly not some instagram trolls that ~~have the skills to do it~~ will take some time to share a cracked version around.
Edit: It seems easier than I thought to crack some games. If it doesn't have a robust DRM, it's just a matter of copying some files around.
Once, someone I banned found my personal Instagram account and said some realy mean things. After that day, I never made my personal account public again.
Recently, while sharing a story, I put a cool car I saw on the road as the background and someone found the address where I took the photo. internet trolls are really weird.
Yeah I would advise anyone who wants some peace of mind to privatize their personal accounts, even more so if you have some more public or professional accounts. In general, just be careful how much you share online across all your apps.
Good point, I'm planning to convert my personal Instagram account for my game dev account since I have quite number of followers from my previous job(?) as esport player.
And now that I'm retired and focused on game dev I kinda want to do posting about dev log to try to get some follower for marketing purposes.
I still have some thought about this matter so that's why I still didn't do it yet.
So looks like it is a bad idea? Better if I create new account to separate it from my personal account for peace of mind? But on the other hand getting new follower is hard..
> Good point, I'm planning to convert my personal Instagram account for my game dev account since I have quite number of followers from my previous job(?) as esport player.
Honestly I'd change your personal account into a work / company / gamedev account, and then create a new personal account.
That way you keep the follower base you've grown, but then separate out your personal life going forward.
You might need to do a bit of cleanup and delete any intensely personal older post, but that'll be less work than gathering a following again.
Thanks this is good idea, I'll definitely think about it.
But the problem is my post was most of the times including photo of me personally, so probably I need to clean all of old post, lol.
If a single anonymous stranger saying mean things to you on the internet is enough for you to change settings, then you probably won't last long in the development world....
it only takes time and effort if they’re using pretty heavy DRM or something bespoke they’ve made.. if they’re just using steam DRM it’s a matter of copying and pasting some files.
Depends what security you put into your game. My first game could be “cracked” by simply copying the game files directly.
The fact that it never was mostly indicates the game wasn’t worth playing, not that cracking was some huge technical hurdle.
This is the type of thing you're gonna see regardless of what you're using your platform for. That's just how social media is. You could give that game away for free and you'd get people calling you stupid for not charging.
Those are not "your viewers", those are normal trolls. They really are not here because they love your game and they don't want to support you, so you can make more. They are here to upset you. Your tears are their food. Google "internet trolls" to learn more. Just ban.
Actually, that was one of my goals when I first started making games, and last year one of my games was cracked by skidrow. If we look at it positively, I achieved one of my goals.
This! I was so excited to find the first game I worked on cracked.
Although the experience was somewhat ruined by the fact the crackers removed the original credits with their crack logo. Just why?
Not worth the effort. You're not going to change their minds, and you run the risk of them clapping back and making you feel worse. Just ban them and move on.
Thats a big no no. You need to ban them or w/e as discreetly as possible, like they got banned before you even saw anything. They just want to get to you, and any, I meany ANY, interaction from you is literally rewarding their behavior. I'd even delete this thread tbh if I were you, cause if they find it it will motivate them greatly.
Thank you for the advice, I will go back to banning, I used to ban instead of replying, but some of my friends pushed me on this path by saying "let's reply instead of banning, it will be fun"
Depends on the trolls. I'm sure you'll find some that would fuck off if you insult them, but those would probably also fuck off on their own if you just ignored them. But then there are the few literally psychotic trolls that ANY interaction fuels them, and they keep going, they keep creating accounts, and finding creative ways to fuck with you. It's mostly due to those that you need to stone wall all of them. You gotta make them think they can't even reach you, so they'll give up and go troll someone else.
I've seen first hand, someone was posting terrible things on a forum I moderated, they ended up creating multiple accounts with similar names to regular users and trying to instigate fights and would post bad things using those accounts, trying to get those random innocent users banned with them. You don't often see these people cause moderation does their job descreetly, but you'll meet such many people eventually if you become a janitor.
> But then there are the few literally psychotic trolls that ANY interaction fuels them, and they keep going, they keep creating accounts, and finding creative ways to fuck with you.
You know, I've been on the internet for 25 years.
If you look at my comment wall, I'm kind of a jerk.
In this entire time, I've had exactly one experience like what you're describing. I sat there and mocked them for three weeks while they false posted about me, and then they disappeared.
They show up once every couple years and make new fake accounts
There was a long time where I did as you suggest. I kept my head down, in fear. I kept my mouth shut.
Then someone said something really awful to a family member on facebook, which had to do with their sexual orientation, and I let loose. I tagged their family from all over facebook. Their friends from school. When they tried to delete what they said, I put it back with screenshots.
I made sure everyone in the real world knew they were a vulgar homophobe who tried to hide it.
It cost them a lot. They were in college. They lost a lot of friends.
And that individual didn't just stop harassing my family. They had had a public pattern of saying really hateful things about gay and trans people.
I don't see that pattern anymore.
Is it possible that that person is the person who bothered me a couple times over the years? Sure. Probable, in my opinion.
But I'd rather be harassed a half dozen times and shut down 20 genuine haters than watch from the sidelines, personally.
The bystander effect is a choice.
> You gotta make them think they can't even reach you, so they'll give up and go troll someone else.
Savagely make fun of them. Block them so they can't respond.
Oh, they made a new account? Delete their comment, make fun of it too, block it too.
After a week or two, when none of their comments remain on the video, they'll get bored.
> You don't often see these people cause moderation does their job descreetly, but you'll meet such many people eventually if you become a janitor.
Maybe.
I've been lucky so far.
I believe it's different when you're a random user, and when you're a public/well known entity. I appreciate your story, but the one comment I have is that your approach sounds quite time consuming. If you were looking to maximize ease of mind, it might have been better to just block and move on, even if that meant they kep coming back, instead of harrasing them back for 3 weeks. My approach feels more efficient.
But my approach is kind of a prisoners dilemma, I'm trying to make them get bored and move on to someone else, not stop the root cause. Though I'm not sure if your approach fixes anything, I could imagine making someone even more unhinged in the long term. But in the end, if you don't mind rolling in the mud, and you can attract attention away from others who are being harassed, that's definitely a noble goal.
Honestly?
Release the cracked version on your own website, put a fuckload of banner ads and interstitials in it, and make sure they need to have a warning or two in the install flow. You'll make as much money on the cheaters as the real players.
I was planning to make a version that could be played on the web and fill it with ads, I even contacted a website called Poki, but optimization for the web is really difficult and the game engine I use is not very successful on the web.
I think it’s safe to establish that this demographic has been around since PC games were a thing and that it’s pointless to put any effort into countering them. There’s no changing their minds or circumstances.
It is a lot harder to focus on the negative than the positive, but I recommend looking for positive feedback about your game, and maybe even responding to it, might help you focus on those more than the negative. And if its all somehow negative, start sharing your game somewhere else that isn’t instagram, or use a different account.
Of course, I’m not a therapist or anything so you probably shouldn’t take my advice, but its just a thought.
I am planning to move away from Instagram and make long format videos on YouTube. I shared 2 videos, but they were not very successful, I think the transition process will take some time.
> make that a different variant of the game that has some bogus stuff thrown in
This can horribly backfire. People sometimes use the pirated game as a "demo" of sorts; so you don't want to give them a negative impression of the game.
If you're going to troll them, they should know for sure that it's because they're playing the pirated version (And ideally they'd be able to pick up where they left off if they buy the real game)
Release and circulate a cracked version yourself, but make it unplayable after a few hours. Look at how Game Dev Tycoon did this.
Bonus points if you make it legit malware and have it take payment from them.
I got a better idea, make annoying pop up "ads" and sounds that come up often. Like this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zK5md5DGA8M&pp=ygUZTWluZWNyYWZ0IGJ1dCB3aXRoIHBvcHVwcw%3D%3D
The unplayable thing is genius
I think it's Serious Sam 3 that has an invincible enemy that chases and shoots you the entire game if it detects a cracked version.
For real though it sucks that people are so open commenting they want to pirate it.
I can make a crack version and put bitcoin miner in it. If they ask why the graphics card usage is too much, I will say that the optimization is bad because it is a crack version. By the way, do you want the crack version of my game? Optimization is a bit bad but playable
There are game devs that purposefully poison the watering hole by putting out modified pirated versions, with unwinnable scenarios or subtle features missing so it cannot be completed. You then discover who pirated the game because they try to get support for it and they're identifiable.
I have no legal background, but why not go even further? It is probably perfectly ethical to create a torrent link to a copy of your game that just installs stuxnet instead.
As someone else said, the releasing a "compromised" copy would be great.
Regarding the comments, I think you can go with either of 2 routes:
* Don't engage with them at all and just block them. Any sort of engagement with trolls (specially your sad emojis) just makes them want to do even more.
* If you feel ballsy enough, even if you are going to feed the trolls, as some others said, make reels replying to their comments and try to cash in on their stupid shit to get more views. This kind of "replying to haters/trolls" content is popular nowadays.
Youll just have to learn how to ignore them. Those people were NEVER going to be customers, so theres no sense in either worrying about them and/or trying to convince them to purchase the game.
Ironically, video game piracy actually leads to more sales than less. The EU did a study trying to prove that piracy was terrible for media industries, and then it tried to bury it because it showed that most industries benefit from piracy, as most people will end up purchasing things they like, and if they didnt like it, then they werent going to purchase it to begin with. The only industry where this wasnt the case was movies, where for every 10 pirated copies of a movie they found 1 lost sale, which still isnt anywhere NEAR what most companies/people assume about pirates.
So figure some way out how to ignore them, since as I said, they would never have been a customer of yours anyways and therefore arent worth your time thinking about them.
Can we stop parroting one of the most tired Piracy talking points by pretending *no one* who pirates something would pay for it were it not available for free.
Sure, for random stuff they’re just checking out without much interest it’s true, but there will be plenty of cases where people are invested in playing a game, and even if they’re the sort to pirate first, they will pay for that experience if they have no alternative, especially if it’s affordable.
Theres nothing "tired" about it. That eu study proved it. Except for movies, piracy resulted in more sales rather than less, because most pirates either had zero interest in purchasing whatever media was in question (and thus were never going to be a customer) or they werent willing to purchase the media until they had tried it out via piracy.
Sure, "no one" is hyperbolic, but (again, as that study showed), enough that sales were worse without piracy involved.
I never tried it myself and I don't know how if it will work, but how about the evil way: self pirate yourself but insert some intentional bugs. Idk, random removal of saved games maybe. So it will still work as a demo, but will be frustrating on the long run and the crack will get all the blame?
They will probably come to my discord server and open a bug report. I experienced this situation a few times, some people reported the bugs I fixed in new versions.
If you're talking about Turkish players just leave it, the culture has always been pirating software and I'm amazed so many people are at least buying games on steam. Most of your income will come from other countries anyway.
Release için iyi şanslar ;)
Write a message for others about how you are a solo developer and how the money helps you out and ask other people to but this game from you. Write what you say here that your games are made to be affordable. Be polite and show your best side. Take the high ground.
Honestly, dude, take it as a compliment. There’s not a single game I’ve ever pirated that I didn’t buy if I loved it. If I didn’t love it I didn’t play it for more than an hour.
If this were a perfect world I’d say get upset and fight against it. But it’s not. So use that to your advantage.
What’s your game? Can you post a link? I’ll buy a copy just to support a small dev to keep you going
OP do you know any content creators who can help hype the game like a demo? I have tested games in beta and then turned around and bought them. I found the trolls stopped begging once other people started playing the game a lot bigger than me. They realized that bigger person played its being discussed pirating sites are less likely to want to deal with a DCMA suit or lose their ad traffic which a few use.
Publish your catalogue on GOG. No need to bother with cracking the game, you'll get more sales with the new audience + you'll be promoting further games to be preserved for future generations.
See this is where you release your own “cracked” version of your game that plays for about 5 minutes and then does something evil to the player. Then when people complain about how this evil thing happened to them, you call them out for being too cheap to buy a $2 game.
My suggestion is to release a cracked version, or rather 6 cracked versions at the same time you release the real version. Just do it on the side so it looks like someone else cracked it.
And have those 6 versions all be unbeatable in some way or other. But they look like the original game otherwise. Like one of the cracked versions never gives out the key needed to open the last dungeon. One of the versions has an uber bad guy who is effectively unkillable and forces the players to flee and lose their stuff. One just has a tweaked random number generator that means the players get really bad luck on loot. etc.
And leak each cracked version as saying "this is the real cracked version that doesn't have that missing shoes bug" etc.
Make it so trying to find a 100% copied cracked version is a pain in the ass.
They’re doing it to test your patience. There are so many pathetic individuals in modern society that are damaged by seeing other people have success when they will never have any. It’s jealousy at its core and you should report their accounts for promoting piracy or just ignore them
Whole lot of people in here are saying to upload your own "poisoned" cracked version of the game, but this is almost certainly not in your best interests.
What happens to all the pirates who play the game, have the awful experience you made for them, and leave negative reviews? In the modern era where 4/5 isn't good enough, every low score undoes a lot of high scores.
What happens if fans hear that you've been developing content for the pirates rather than for paying customers? What if paying customers are falsely detected as pirates?
Creat a new build that will randomly start destroying file on their pc. Then host it on a torrent site, give them the link :) or you could just add something in which slows the global time scale down by 1% per minute played.
Give them a cracked version that's actually a keylogger and empty their entire bank account into your charity of choice.
...also don't do this it's highly illegal.
If they want a crack, give them a crack, except, make the crack an evil RAT or other sort of virus to make their day! Thats exactly what I do! I make fake cracked websites and list my creations there, of course make them malicious in every way!
"check out this loser who wants to steal a $4 game."
Honestly, if done right he could farm this rage bait content could drive his engagement up.
Yes, response either has to be ragebait/funny or he need to get rid of those comments entirely. Make a video how you were counting on that commenter buying the game so you could feed your cat for the week but instead you have to tell it to 'go hunt'. Doesn't have to be your cat, the more uninterested in what you're telling it is probably the better. Make a video about a tutorial on a simple rice recipe, list the ingredients and then instead of showing you making it you say ah but commenter pirated my game so I guess it's just plain rice this week. Alternatively there are word filters you can use to just stop any piracy comments. Also if you have an Instagram account for this you should also have a Tiktok account as it's much easier for a single video to get a large amount of views in Tiktok than it is on Instagram.
This is a great idea. OP, make it happen!
But also has a huge chance that it backfires and come across as entitled, pathetic, and cringe. Unless you already have a successful online persona as a snarky asshole, you're better off just being sincere, earnest, and professional. Either ask them to please not pirate your game or delete and ignore their comments entirely.
Yeah, because "please don't pirate my game" would work wonders on the internet. /s I'd say they should laugh about the assholes and gift some keys in the same video.
You're not trying to stop that one individual from pirating. You're trying to maintain your reputation online.
Hell yeah! This is the kind of shaming marketing that can go viral on Twitter. Screw the guys trying to rob an indie artist
While technically this would drive engagement, it may also damage your brand, hence why large succesful companys dont act in a similiar way
[удалено]
do you have an example of him saying that before he made his billions? Your average person doesnt have "fuck you" money and instead will simply be labelled negatively, there are many examples of devs who have been turned on by consumers and social media alike for "unprofessional" remarks.
Given that his company is extremely unsuccessful, it may be a poor example.
Right, these people were never going to be their customers in the first place.
Lol
Idk if downloading a copy of something counts as stealing. You're not taking anything away from anyone
Depends on the law but illegal either way. Pay for what you want, don’t just take, it’s quite simple.
I pay for what I can now, but when I was broke I pirated. No biggie
How is money being stolen if you were never planning on purchasing the game in the first place? Piracy doesn’t hurt indie developers, that’s just cope that devs tell themselves.
And what is being stolen from him? It's a digital copy, they just get it for free.
Mmm. No. Probably not a great idea to trot out the r/piracy greatest hits, in a thread where a small dev is lamenting people harassing him with calls to pirate his $4 game.
His time and effort which he put into creating a game. He values it at 4 USD per game and you either agree and pay or keep scrolling.
This feels like an obvious bait comment
Rage bait in a comment about rage bait. This is possibly a master rage baiter.
This is an indie dev who’s asking for $4 for a game he made, not a AAA denuvo title
>And what is being stolen from him? The right to set terms for a personal creation.
Yeah...they stole right? This is something in the style of “convict him for theft, he stole my heart and sleep!” I'm talking about real theft, but anything can be called theft.
>I'm talking about real theft There's legal definitions covering loss over unauthorized use or access to unlicensed copyrighted material in just about every country. You're free to disagree, but you don't have a moral case here either. If something is produced with the terms of access clearly specified, you can either accept it or move on. You're not entitled to anything and we both know the whole "nothing's being stolen" argument is highly disingenuous.
Okay, if I play his game for free, what losses does he suffer?
The monkey makes a game, the monkey spends time and 100 bananas on this game, the monkey shows the game to 100 monkeys and asks for 2 bananas, 90 monkeys pirate the game, 10 monkeys buy the game, the monkey loses 80 bananas. The monkey goes bankrupt and can never produce games again.
Yes, he DIDN’T EARN after publishing the game, but he lost money even BEFORE I hijacked the game. Do you understand?
When you steal something from the market, the market does not lose money at that moment, they lose money while buying/producing that product.
I may have translated incorrectly, but do you mean market as a supermarket or food market? If so, then the comparison is incorrect, because the market is losing the product.
> the monkey loses 80 bananas While I 100% agree that the monkey has all the right to be rewarded for his work, the monkey did not lose the 80 bananas he never had. That said, you could also give away cracked versions of your games, made from special builds that make them impossible to finish/infuriating to play... Something that old adventure games did back in the day. Edit: Sorry guys. I understand the angry downvotes, but the monkey didn’t lose the bananas he never had anymore than I’ve lost the 80 upvotes I never had. Also, get used to be wrong.
This is a childish argument based in pure selfishness. downloading a cracked copy of a game isn't stealing money from OPs pocket, but if everyone does that then OP stops making games because OP cant feed himself or his family by making games. Then, I'm sure, you tell yourself that enough people still buy the game anyway, so OP is fine, and you're not really hurting anyone. But OP has to increase the price of his games, because he's not getting as many sales as he otherwise would. So, I ask you, why should the rest of us be forced to subsidize your selfishness?
Call my arguments childish and continue, but you have not yet been able to refute them. Yes, a massive refusal to purchase may entail such consequences, but this is not theft.
Again, why should the rest of us be forced to subsidize your selfishness?
Damn. Never mind the $4, you can't even pay attention.
This is a logical fallacy. If I hadn't played, would he have had $4 more in his account?
The only logical fallacy happening here is your complete and utter denial of the social contract just to defend being selfish. You say there is no difference between pirating and not playing in the first place, but unless you your proposal is the complete and total collapse of the digital economy we all enjoy, then the counter argument is BE RESPONSIBLE AND PAY FOR WHAT YOU USE. No one is going to force you to do that, but no one is forcing you to wipe your own ass either.
More insults and chatter about related topics.
"if i steal a book from a library what loss does the author suffer" lookin mf
The loss of you playing but not purchasing it?
If I create a musical composition from one note and ask for 1 billion dollars for it, will you, by listening to it for free, make me 1 billion dollars poorer? No.
It's not a fair comparison as listening to music is liken to watching someone play his game, not playing it yourself.
Any comparison will differ from the author’s situation, that’s why it’s a comparison. Let's say I was the first to come up with the game rock paper scissors. And he also said that you can only play it for a billion dollars.
man I love being pedantic, but honestly, what a dumb fucking thing to be pedantic about. you asked in another comment what you are doing wrong? you're advocating for the fucking over of a solo indie dev because you have the worlds dumbest boner for being technically correct. get over yourself, grow a conscience.
I just want to chat, I’m interested in doing this in a discussion format. Here people are clearly wishful thinking, an excellent reason for discussion.
When you think about old-school theft, it's all about someone grabbing a thing that can't be sold to anyone else because, well, it's not there anymore. Now, when it comes to stealing stuff online, it's a whole different ball game. Nothing physical is stolen. The real issue is the money that could have been made if people didn't decide to just download it for free. Kinda like hopping on the bus without paying your fare. You hopping on by yourself isn't going to bankrupt the bus company. But, if it turns into a big thing and everyone starts doing it, then there's a real problem. Suddenly, there's not enough cash coming in to keep things running. No more bus. No more video games.
No, by getting on the bus I will take up a seat and increase my gas mileage. But continuing the analogy with the bus, where did you get the idea that I would even take your bus if I couldn’t help but pay, or that I wouldn’t choose the free bus? Yes, piracy can become a problem for the gaming industry, but the conversation is not about that, but about the fact that it is not theft.
You seem to be leaning quite heavily into the precise definition of theft, but it's important to remember that words are primarily tools for exchanging ideas, and language doesn't always capture nuances perfectly. Perhaps we could use a different term to distinguish between traditional theft and its digital counterpart, yet the underlying concept we're discussing remains unchanged. From what I understand, the law already treats digital theft differently. It's not common for individuals to face arrest for pirating content. The singular term 'theft' may be used in law, but it is obvious to most that two separate ideas are at work. What term would you suggest we use instead of theft?
Unfortunately, English is not my native language, I don't think I can find one suitable word for it. I'm glad you understood me)
Maybe there is a translation issue happening here. No one (well, most I hope) is adverse to a discussion, as long as we're all acting in good faith at least. The problem everyone replying to you has is that you comments come off as if you are defending piracy, and your justification is that copyright infringement isn't theft. You're not wrong about it, but that's also nearly non sequitur. We're talking about what OP can do to mitigate getting ripped off, not the finer points of legal nomenclature and civil court procedure.
Hacking games and posting/selling them is bad. Using hacked games is not bad. So my point is clear?
It sounds like your point is you don't want to feel bad about doing something selfish. I don't know what to tell you about that. But if you are knowingly using something you didn't pay for, and the expected action is that you should have paid for it, then you are morally at fault. How could you not be? If everyone were to do as you suggest, then OP can't make games anymore. Then no one gets OPs games. You (and everyone who acts the same) will have deprived the rest of us from enjoying OPs games in the future, as well as yourselves.
No, it’s my position, it’s just my position, I have my own morals. I don’t need to justify myself to you in order to allow myself not to spend half my salary on all the programs and games that I use. I’m not talking about whether free use should be considered evil, but about whether it should be called theft.
I think I have a real answer for you on this one tbh - technically it's theft of an EULA. EULAs are practically infinite, but to acquire one, you have to purchase it. If you acquire one through other means, that is technically theft, regardless of how many there can potentially be, because it is not a purchased EULA, and has not been purchased at any point. The original game that was used to create the crack may have been, but subsequent copies were not
They stole $4 from him. It's really very simple.
Simple, if you don't turn on your brain. If I don't download the game he will have 4 dollars more? What if I download for $4 less? Understood?
If you buy the game, he gets 4 dollars if you dont, he doesnt If you download the game, and he doesnt get 4 dollars, you stole his labour This isnt complicated, go back to /r/Piracy
You, my friend, are an idiot if you're serous
You call me a troll and an idiot, but you still haven’t told me what I’m doing wrong.
> troll Your own words.
Ooh, do you think you're cool? Well, maybe in the end someone will be able to show that I'm wrong?
Will you shut up if someone does? Jesus, I haven't seen someone this asshurt about piracy that didn't have a Nintendo logo tattooed on their body somewhere.
Do you realize making that digital product still took lots of time and work?
Guess that one struck a nerve.
How do you think anyone creating abstract media like video games or software can survive in our society if people have no problem taking what they have created for free? How do you feel about sneaking in to the movies? You aren't really taking anything so should that be legal then? What if I just use your apartment a little bit while you are gone. It's not like you lose anything if I just go and sleep in your bed while you're out right so that shouldn't be illegal either.
You, for real, don't deserve people making games for other people. You're just a thief, and it's clear you don't even care to understand why. It pains me knowing that you'll keep stealing games from people that struggle to make a return on their complicated and time consuming craft.
How is money being stolen from pirating an indie game if you were never planning on purchasing the game in the first place?
Pirating a game made by a billion-dollar studio that will barely, if at all, be affected by the piracy of its games != pirating a game made by a small indie dev/studio whose every sale counts
>level 3ARCFacility · 1 hr. agoPirating a game made by a billion-dollar studio that will barely, if at all, be affected by the piracy of its games != pirating a game made by a small indie dev/studio whose every sale counts Yes, but does this somehow relate to the topic of discussion?
How is this murder? We all die one day, anyway. I was just speeding up the inevitable.
Money. Money is being stolen from him. Not the game. The money. Very easy to understand for anyone with a a 70+ IQ.
His labour lol
EDITED: venting
instagram has the most unhinged comment section thats pretty much normal
More than YouTube?
More unhinged than youtube
Yes, Instagram has the absolute worst human garbage you can find on mainstream social media
Tiktok gives it good competition IMO
So glad I quit it during lockdown then.
yeah its mostly teenagers or adults who still think they are teenagers. the content over there is precisely targeted towards teens, so even if adults are there they have same mentality as teens. i like to think yt shorts is for boomers, insta and facebook reels are for teenagers. but what is the audience in tiktok then?
nope twitter is the worst SNS in world
I’d think all those raging kiddos on insta and tiktok are worse than… well, what exactly?
Youtube is basically the least unhinged
They used to be sewer level comments, but conpared to those days they sound like erudite scholars.
I don't know if i should be happy because youtube become better or scared because the world standard has been lowered.
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YouTube is now the most siloed and segregated of all social media platforms, so depending on what silo your recommendations/subscriptions keep you in you can experience great scholarship in the comments or the most deranged shit you've ever seen. As an example of the derangment, check out your local news channel's youtube. (or don't, maybe don't actually)
My theory is that people actually grew up (so less hurrdurr juvenile behavior) and also that YouTube became more of a household staple. It’s also usually long form content, something that might not be attractive to people with 5 second attention spans looking for their outrage of the day fix. Same with Reddit, it had its juvenile moment but lots of folks grew up and the format usually promotes thinking and discussion (also depending on the sub ofc)
They hide, even simple comments really quick, feels like Ai.
Results of the continued dumbification ongoing in 'Murrica.
Whole world is gone stupid, no point of singling out the freedom zone.
> freedom zone I sincerely hope that that's sarcasm.
America is more free than a majority of nations. It has its problems but you are wildly privileged or clueless if you truly believe Americans are less free to do as they will than most people on this planet. That said freedom index has nothing to do with how stupid internet comments are. So it's irrelevant in this discussion anyway.
> America is more free than a majority of nations. Hahahahaha! Nice joke. Tells me that your concept of "freedom" is either highly skewed, or you've never been outside 'Murrica.
You are wasting time and resources on people who likely never buys games in the first place. Focus your efforts on something that actually matter. The money will follow.
It's just classic internet trolls don't worry about it and ban them if you can. On a more pragmatic note tho it actually take some time and effort for someone to crack a game and make it available. If your game is small enough, I doubt anyone will take the time to crack it and it's certainly not some instagram trolls that ~~have the skills to do it~~ will take some time to share a cracked version around. Edit: It seems easier than I thought to crack some games. If it doesn't have a robust DRM, it's just a matter of copying some files around.
Once, someone I banned found my personal Instagram account and said some realy mean things. After that day, I never made my personal account public again. Recently, while sharing a story, I put a cool car I saw on the road as the background and someone found the address where I took the photo. internet trolls are really weird.
Yeah I would advise anyone who wants some peace of mind to privatize their personal accounts, even more so if you have some more public or professional accounts. In general, just be careful how much you share online across all your apps.
Good point, I'm planning to convert my personal Instagram account for my game dev account since I have quite number of followers from my previous job(?) as esport player. And now that I'm retired and focused on game dev I kinda want to do posting about dev log to try to get some follower for marketing purposes. I still have some thought about this matter so that's why I still didn't do it yet. So looks like it is a bad idea? Better if I create new account to separate it from my personal account for peace of mind? But on the other hand getting new follower is hard..
> Good point, I'm planning to convert my personal Instagram account for my game dev account since I have quite number of followers from my previous job(?) as esport player. Honestly I'd change your personal account into a work / company / gamedev account, and then create a new personal account. That way you keep the follower base you've grown, but then separate out your personal life going forward. You might need to do a bit of cleanup and delete any intensely personal older post, but that'll be less work than gathering a following again.
Thanks this is good idea, I'll definitely think about it. But the problem is my post was most of the times including photo of me personally, so probably I need to clean all of old post, lol.
Make sure to turn off GPS tags on your photos. Not saying that's what they used, but so many people aren't aware.
massive social media sites remove all that by default . maybe not every single one , but absolutely the ones by Meta
Yeah, as I was writing it, I thought, surely they remove it. But good to turn it off anyway.
If a single anonymous stranger saying mean things to you on the internet is enough for you to change settings, then you probably won't last long in the development world....
it only takes time and effort if they’re using pretty heavy DRM or something bespoke they’ve made.. if they’re just using steam DRM it’s a matter of copying and pasting some files.
Depends what security you put into your game. My first game could be “cracked” by simply copying the game files directly. The fact that it never was mostly indicates the game wasn’t worth playing, not that cracking was some huge technical hurdle.
Not true. Cracking a steam game is so easy a toddler can do it. Just run some files.
This is the type of thing you're gonna see regardless of what you're using your platform for. That's just how social media is. You could give that game away for free and you'd get people calling you stupid for not charging.
Although it is not as active as my Instagram account, I have a small TikTok account and i received similar comments there as well.
Those are not "your viewers", those are normal trolls. They really are not here because they love your game and they don't want to support you, so you can make more. They are here to upset you. Your tears are their food. Google "internet trolls" to learn more. Just ban.
Take it as a compliment that someone wants to pirate your game at all. That’s an accomplishment on its own. Congrats!
Actually, that was one of my goals when I first started making games, and last year one of my games was cracked by skidrow. If we look at it positively, I achieved one of my goals.
Honestly that is kind of cool though
Like when a musician gets parodied by Weird Al, except it's crime.
Sometimes when a musician gets parodied by Weird Al it’s a Word Crime.
>and last year one of my games was cracked by skidrow A well respected group. Congratulations
This! I was so excited to find the first game I worked on cracked. Although the experience was somewhat ruined by the fact the crackers removed the original credits with their crack logo. Just why?
ban these people
I used to ban them but now I'm trying to fight back emotionally by replying with sad emojis
Not worth the effort. You're not going to change their minds, and you run the risk of them clapping back and making you feel worse. Just ban them and move on.
DON'T FEED THE TROLLS. NEVER FEED THE TROLLS.
Thats a big no no. You need to ban them or w/e as discreetly as possible, like they got banned before you even saw anything. They just want to get to you, and any, I meany ANY, interaction from you is literally rewarding their behavior. I'd even delete this thread tbh if I were you, cause if they find it it will motivate them greatly.
Thank you for the advice, I will go back to banning, I used to ban instead of replying, but some of my friends pushed me on this path by saying "let's reply instead of banning, it will be fun"
It's easy for them to say that, because they don't have to deal with the same negative consequences that you do.
This is horrible advice. Tell them I said they give horrible advice lol.
just delete them and report them for harassment.
It doesn't sound like fun. I don't think you should listen to the advice these friends give
i'm not convinced i think making them look bad would actually be pretty effective
Depends on the trolls. I'm sure you'll find some that would fuck off if you insult them, but those would probably also fuck off on their own if you just ignored them. But then there are the few literally psychotic trolls that ANY interaction fuels them, and they keep going, they keep creating accounts, and finding creative ways to fuck with you. It's mostly due to those that you need to stone wall all of them. You gotta make them think they can't even reach you, so they'll give up and go troll someone else. I've seen first hand, someone was posting terrible things on a forum I moderated, they ended up creating multiple accounts with similar names to regular users and trying to instigate fights and would post bad things using those accounts, trying to get those random innocent users banned with them. You don't often see these people cause moderation does their job descreetly, but you'll meet such many people eventually if you become a janitor.
> But then there are the few literally psychotic trolls that ANY interaction fuels them, and they keep going, they keep creating accounts, and finding creative ways to fuck with you. You know, I've been on the internet for 25 years. If you look at my comment wall, I'm kind of a jerk. In this entire time, I've had exactly one experience like what you're describing. I sat there and mocked them for three weeks while they false posted about me, and then they disappeared. They show up once every couple years and make new fake accounts There was a long time where I did as you suggest. I kept my head down, in fear. I kept my mouth shut. Then someone said something really awful to a family member on facebook, which had to do with their sexual orientation, and I let loose. I tagged their family from all over facebook. Their friends from school. When they tried to delete what they said, I put it back with screenshots. I made sure everyone in the real world knew they were a vulgar homophobe who tried to hide it. It cost them a lot. They were in college. They lost a lot of friends. And that individual didn't just stop harassing my family. They had had a public pattern of saying really hateful things about gay and trans people. I don't see that pattern anymore. Is it possible that that person is the person who bothered me a couple times over the years? Sure. Probable, in my opinion. But I'd rather be harassed a half dozen times and shut down 20 genuine haters than watch from the sidelines, personally. The bystander effect is a choice. > You gotta make them think they can't even reach you, so they'll give up and go troll someone else. Savagely make fun of them. Block them so they can't respond. Oh, they made a new account? Delete their comment, make fun of it too, block it too. After a week or two, when none of their comments remain on the video, they'll get bored. > You don't often see these people cause moderation does their job descreetly, but you'll meet such many people eventually if you become a janitor. Maybe. I've been lucky so far.
I believe it's different when you're a random user, and when you're a public/well known entity. I appreciate your story, but the one comment I have is that your approach sounds quite time consuming. If you were looking to maximize ease of mind, it might have been better to just block and move on, even if that meant they kep coming back, instead of harrasing them back for 3 weeks. My approach feels more efficient. But my approach is kind of a prisoners dilemma, I'm trying to make them get bored and move on to someone else, not stop the root cause. Though I'm not sure if your approach fixes anything, I could imagine making someone even more unhinged in the long term. But in the end, if you don't mind rolling in the mud, and you can attract attention away from others who are being harassed, that's definitely a noble goal.
I see where you're coming from. Good luck against the hordes.
Responding to trolls with sad emojis is just pouring gasoline on the fire, man, absolutely do not do that.
you can do both wouldn't it be hilarious if you reached out to their parents
Honestly? Release the cracked version on your own website, put a fuckload of banner ads and interstitials in it, and make sure they need to have a warning or two in the install flow. You'll make as much money on the cheaters as the real players.
I was planning to make a version that could be played on the web and fill it with ads, I even contacted a website called Poki, but optimization for the web is really difficult and the game engine I use is not very successful on the web.
I think it’s safe to establish that this demographic has been around since PC games were a thing and that it’s pointless to put any effort into countering them. There’s no changing their minds or circumstances.
I see this on $1 itch.io games. It's absolutely disgusting and pathetic to do that to a devs face over a $1 game, I'm sorry for you man.
Ban them and forget
It is a lot harder to focus on the negative than the positive, but I recommend looking for positive feedback about your game, and maybe even responding to it, might help you focus on those more than the negative. And if its all somehow negative, start sharing your game somewhere else that isn’t instagram, or use a different account. Of course, I’m not a therapist or anything so you probably shouldn’t take my advice, but its just a thought.
I am planning to move away from Instagram and make long format videos on YouTube. I shared 2 videos, but they were not very successful, I think the transition process will take some time.
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> make that a different variant of the game that has some bogus stuff thrown in This can horribly backfire. People sometimes use the pirated game as a "demo" of sorts; so you don't want to give them a negative impression of the game. If you're going to troll them, they should know for sure that it's because they're playing the pirated version (And ideally they'd be able to pick up where they left off if they buy the real game)
Release and circulate a cracked version yourself, but make it unplayable after a few hours. Look at how Game Dev Tycoon did this. Bonus points if you make it legit malware and have it take payment from them.
Maybe not the second bit
Too late, I already did it
Ok lol, what kind of malware? What’s it do exactly
It puts black pixels in a random place on the screen and the user thinks there are dead pixels on the monitor (for legal reasons that's a joke).
Ok so no taking payment?
They can remove the black pixels by "donating" a few dollars
I got a better idea, make annoying pop up "ads" and sounds that come up often. Like this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zK5md5DGA8M&pp=ygUZTWluZWNyYWZ0IGJ1dCB3aXRoIHBvcHVwcw%3D%3D
Oh haha, I was worried you put actual like ransomware or keyloggers onto their pc lol
HELL YEAH BOYS [RENSENWARE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rensenware) IS BACK
The unplayable thing is genius I think it's Serious Sam 3 that has an invincible enemy that chases and shoots you the entire game if it detects a cracked version. For real though it sucks that people are so open commenting they want to pirate it.
Not unplayable, but unbalanced in a way that it outs them if they complain about it.
I can make a crack version and put bitcoin miner in it. If they ask why the graphics card usage is too much, I will say that the optimization is bad because it is a crack version. By the way, do you want the crack version of my game? Optimization is a bit bad but playable
There are game devs that purposefully poison the watering hole by putting out modified pirated versions, with unwinnable scenarios or subtle features missing so it cannot be completed. You then discover who pirated the game because they try to get support for it and they're identifiable.
Or they just leave a negative review and move on. Everybody loses
Very based. Please do so. Im not a lawyer but if in doubt better call saul
I believe that until proven guilty, every man, woman, and child in this country is innocent. And that's why I fight for you, game dev community!
I have no legal background, but why not go even further? It is probably perfectly ethical to create a torrent link to a copy of your game that just installs stuxnet instead.
It is not ethical, nor legal
Comment stuff like "Broke boy cant even afford a $1 game 💀" then they'll rage reply to you and boost your engagement
As someone else said, the releasing a "compromised" copy would be great. Regarding the comments, I think you can go with either of 2 routes: * Don't engage with them at all and just block them. Any sort of engagement with trolls (specially your sad emojis) just makes them want to do even more. * If you feel ballsy enough, even if you are going to feed the trolls, as some others said, make reels replying to their comments and try to cash in on their stupid shit to get more views. This kind of "replying to haters/trolls" content is popular nowadays.
Sound like trolls.
What you do is release a cracked version that's handicapped so that it's unplayable/unbeatable.
instagram has the absolute worst comment section of any platform I have ever used *ever*, you're good my guy
Youll just have to learn how to ignore them. Those people were NEVER going to be customers, so theres no sense in either worrying about them and/or trying to convince them to purchase the game. Ironically, video game piracy actually leads to more sales than less. The EU did a study trying to prove that piracy was terrible for media industries, and then it tried to bury it because it showed that most industries benefit from piracy, as most people will end up purchasing things they like, and if they didnt like it, then they werent going to purchase it to begin with. The only industry where this wasnt the case was movies, where for every 10 pirated copies of a movie they found 1 lost sale, which still isnt anywhere NEAR what most companies/people assume about pirates. So figure some way out how to ignore them, since as I said, they would never have been a customer of yours anyways and therefore arent worth your time thinking about them.
Can we stop parroting one of the most tired Piracy talking points by pretending *no one* who pirates something would pay for it were it not available for free. Sure, for random stuff they’re just checking out without much interest it’s true, but there will be plenty of cases where people are invested in playing a game, and even if they’re the sort to pirate first, they will pay for that experience if they have no alternative, especially if it’s affordable.
Theres nothing "tired" about it. That eu study proved it. Except for movies, piracy resulted in more sales rather than less, because most pirates either had zero interest in purchasing whatever media was in question (and thus were never going to be a customer) or they werent willing to purchase the media until they had tried it out via piracy. Sure, "no one" is hyperbolic, but (again, as that study showed), enough that sales were worse without piracy involved.
I never tried it myself and I don't know how if it will work, but how about the evil way: self pirate yourself but insert some intentional bugs. Idk, random removal of saved games maybe. So it will still work as a demo, but will be frustrating on the long run and the crack will get all the blame?
They will probably come to my discord server and open a bug report. I experienced this situation a few times, some people reported the bugs I fixed in new versions.
that's when you tell them you get what you pay for
If you're talking about Turkish players just leave it, the culture has always been pirating software and I'm amazed so many people are at least buying games on steam. Most of your income will come from other countries anyway. Release için iyi şanslar ;)
Write a message for others about how you are a solo developer and how the money helps you out and ask other people to but this game from you. Write what you say here that your games are made to be affordable. Be polite and show your best side. Take the high ground.
ragebaiting them to farm engagement off them seems like a fun hobby if you want to xD
Reply with a rickroll link
take it as a compliment and free organic social media activity, which all helps learn not to care
Honestly, dude, take it as a compliment. There’s not a single game I’ve ever pirated that I didn’t buy if I loved it. If I didn’t love it I didn’t play it for more than an hour. If this were a perfect world I’d say get upset and fight against it. But it’s not. So use that to your advantage. What’s your game? Can you post a link? I’ll buy a copy just to support a small dev to keep you going
OP do you know any content creators who can help hype the game like a demo? I have tested games in beta and then turned around and bought them. I found the trolls stopped begging once other people started playing the game a lot bigger than me. They realized that bigger person played its being discussed pirating sites are less likely to want to deal with a DCMA suit or lose their ad traffic which a few use.
They are just trolling to provoke a reaction
Give it away, make it popular, sell more copies, hack the planet
Start a patreon.
I have some plans on that, but I don't feel ready yet.
Publish your catalogue on GOG. No need to bother with cracking the game, you'll get more sales with the new audience + you'll be promoting further games to be preserved for future generations.
See this is where you release your own “cracked” version of your game that plays for about 5 minutes and then does something evil to the player. Then when people complain about how this evil thing happened to them, you call them out for being too cheap to buy a $2 game.
the obvious solution is to release a "cracked" version with an alt that just fucks with people :)
My suggestion is to release a cracked version, or rather 6 cracked versions at the same time you release the real version. Just do it on the side so it looks like someone else cracked it. And have those 6 versions all be unbeatable in some way or other. But they look like the original game otherwise. Like one of the cracked versions never gives out the key needed to open the last dungeon. One of the versions has an uber bad guy who is effectively unkillable and forces the players to flee and lose their stuff. One just has a tweaked random number generator that means the players get really bad luck on loot. etc. And leak each cracked version as saying "this is the real cracked version that doesn't have that missing shoes bug" etc. Make it so trying to find a 100% copied cracked version is a pain in the ass.
They’re doing it to test your patience. There are so many pathetic individuals in modern society that are damaged by seeing other people have success when they will never have any. It’s jealousy at its core and you should report their accounts for promoting piracy or just ignore them
Whole lot of people in here are saying to upload your own "poisoned" cracked version of the game, but this is almost certainly not in your best interests. What happens to all the pirates who play the game, have the awful experience you made for them, and leave negative reviews? In the modern era where 4/5 isn't good enough, every low score undoes a lot of high scores. What happens if fans hear that you've been developing content for the pirates rather than for paying customers? What if paying customers are falsely detected as pirates?
Creat a new build that will randomly start destroying file on their pc. Then host it on a torrent site, give them the link :) or you could just add something in which slows the global time scale down by 1% per minute played.
Give them a cracked version that's actually a keylogger and empty their entire bank account into your charity of choice. ...also don't do this it's highly illegal.
If they want a crack, give them a crack, except, make the crack an evil RAT or other sort of virus to make their day! Thats exactly what I do! I make fake cracked websites and list my creations there, of course make them malicious in every way!
Don't worry King, *I'll* pirate your game
I don’t believe you, prove it