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Ultrakill dev says it's fine to pirate his game if you don't have money to spare: 'Culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it' (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[+] [email protected] -17 points 5 months ago (6 children)

These sorts of stories are stupid, and pirates love to eat them up because they see it as validation, because one developer is financially independent enough to not go broke if his game doesn't sell. Most indie devs are not in such a position.

If he truly thought it was fine to download his game for free, he'd have released it for free in the first place. It's pretty easy for him to have a chill attitude and say it's okay to pirate his game after making nearly $100 million on it.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Edit: I also read the actual tweet. I think the author was responding to an "aha, gotcha!" moment. Someone posted a screenshot of them pirating his game with the caption "I love pirating indie games." It almost feels like a troll post. And the dev didn't bite the bait. He was like "eh, you do you. Devs gotta eat, sure, but you know what, culture should be accessible too."

Your argument is weak.

Ultrakill made the game to make money. Releasing a game "for free" for all makes no business sense.
Plenty of publishers do release games for free. Though they hope sell players' data, or ads or add-ons.
This dev is just one dev. Everyone else is free to do whatever they want.

So, there.

It’s pretty easy for him to have a chill attitude and say it’s okay to pirate his game after making nearly $100 million on it.

This is true. I don't see a problem with that. Give me $100 million dollars. It will be pretty easy for me to do neat stuff that doesn't necessarily bring me profits.

Edit: Downvoted by corporate suits. On Lemmy of all places.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Additionally: word of mouth can turn into sales down the line, too, if the pirate liked the game and talks about it.

At worst, the developer isn't negatively impacted (by people pirating a game they couldn't afford / had no intention of buying), at best it leads to more sales.

I don't see the problem.

And I know that someone reading this will be foaming at their mouth, excited to say "But what if everyone did this? Then developers/studios/... wouldn't make any money and stop producing games/movies/...!", so I have to preemptively add the following:

obviously this is not the case. Pirates have existed for decades.
pirates pirate because the cost is either too high for them to afford, or higher than what they value the game/... at. If you consider yourself a "rational capitalist" (which, let's be real, is what most of the anti-piracy-crowd sees themselves at) then consider this as the market working as intended: demand simply isn't high enough at the price they're selling at
and once more, just to make sure this comes across, pirating a digital product incurrs zero (0) loss on the side of the developer/studio. No, you can not count "virtual" losses from what they could have sold if the pirates ever had the intention of buying, or pirating didn't exist (because, y'know, it does).

Edit: btw I say this as someone who has never pirated a game except for Minecraft when I was, like, 10. I love playing (esp. Indie) games and am happy to pay for them. I just want people to leave folks alone who can't.

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