Pirate This Game For A Surprise Ending

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I like stories like this where developers have a little fun at the expense of people who have pirated their game. :cool:

Noodlecake Studios recently launched a mobile shoot-em-up called Shooting Stars!. It costs 2.99. Unless, of course, you pirate it. Then it’s free. Thing is, Noodlecake actually uploaded the pirated version to torrent sites themselves—and the game comes with a funny surprise.
 
So 3 bucks is too much money for 90% of the players? That's fucked up
 
more developers are already doing this kind of thing where the pirated version comes with some gimped feature, graphics or bug...
 
I haven't pirated a PC game in ages. These developers work their collective asses off and then we thank them by stealing their games. This is why so many developers don't give a crap about the PC anymore. Grow up, don't pirate games.
 
It's a smartphone/tablet game, not a PC game.

Pay for the game or lose, hilariously. I like it. :D
 
OFaceSIG said:
I haven't pirated a PC game in ages. These developers work their collective asses off and then we thank them by stealing their games. This is why so many developers don't give a crap about the PC anymore. Grow up, don't pirate games.
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What are you talking about, PC gaming is larger than it's ever been and it's growing in percentages of multiplatform sales. Granted, piracy sucks, no question, but a lot of these devs make more money even with piracy than they would with console fees and percentages.
 
OFaceSIG said:
I haven't pirated a PC game in ages. These developers work their collective asses off and then we thank them by stealing their games. This is why so many developers don't give a crap about the PC anymore. Grow up, don't pirate games.
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The last console generation was incredibly easy to pirate. So no, it's not a "PC" only thing.
 
Imagine if all the games in your Steam library were tied to a particular piece of hardware...
If it isn't acceptable for end user software than why is is acceptable for the OS?
No consumer wants to "rent" or "license" their software. People want to OWN things and most of them assume they do.
 
They are kind of encouraging pirating the game by uploading a version that everyone will want to try. Then those people will play it and see that ending then hunt for a complete version.
 
i'm surprised people are pirating games that look like shit I was playing on 8bit nintendo. Well, worse than that.
 
nilepez said:
So 3 bucks is too much money for 90% of the players? That's fucked up
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The 90% piracy rate was on another game, which currently cost $7 not sure what it cost. That's quite a bit of money to fork over for a mobile game if it's a big unknown as far as how good it is.

That said, I think they spoil the surprise by tell them to find a copy of the legit version, let them keep trying to win. Although the game itself looked very pedestrian, almost like a game you'd play for free on any number of flash game sites.
 
Games on the Commodore 64 often had a little easter egg for people who copied the copy-protected disks without using any special crack/duplication software (like Hack'Em Back 'Em, Fast Hack'Em, and Maverick). They'd range from a scolding to a redirected and custom loading screen that would never end.
 
It isn't the fact they have a sense of humor or are good spirited about this. This is cheap marketing that is only costing them free downloads. The more people playing your game will mean more people to likely buy your next or other products.
 
if I pirated the game and played it to the end I would probably click the buy link for this.
 
nilepez said:
So 3 bucks is too much money for 90% of the players? That's fucked up
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I wouldn't pay more than $.99 four any mobile game, but then I wouldn't pirate it either. Point was that yes $3 is too much.
 
The developers have totally missed the point, if they uploaded the game to the sharing site it isn't piracy. They just gave it away. It sounds like they don't understand how intellectual property works.

Is piracy really a big issue for $3 games? How many people who would have paid $3 don't because of piracy. $3 is less money than I make in the time it would take to find a pirated copy of this game.
 
tetris42 said:
What are you talking about, PC gaming is larger than it's ever been and it's growing in percentages of multiplatform sales. Granted, piracy sucks, no question, but a lot of these devs make more money even with piracy than they would with console fees and percentages.
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Regradless of how you spin it, developers agreed to all those platform fees Sony and Microsoft charge. They didn't agree to theft. Piracy is theft. Have some f***ing standards and buy your games.
 
They published a game called Wayward Souls on Android a year ago, and they claim that a whopping 89% of all installations on that platform were pirated.
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Wayward Souls is a $7 game, oh the humanity!

tetris42 said:
What are you talking about, PC gaming is larger than it's ever been and it's growing in percentages of multiplatform sales. Granted, piracy sucks, no question, but a lot of these devs make more money even with piracy than they would with console fees and percentages.
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I would love to see their numbers comparing iOS to Android piracy. The ease of which Android users can side-load apps is one of the things that pushes development efforts towards iOS. Even if the developers make money, they would certainly rather go with a platform that allowed them to make more money...
 
OFaceSIG said:
Regradless of how you spin it, developers agreed to all those platform fees Sony and Microsoft charge. They didn't agree to theft. Piracy is theft. Have some f***ing standards and buy your games.
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I DO buy my games, I'm talking about which gets the developer the most money in his pocket, piracy or not. I think you're confused, I'm not defending piracy, I was responding to the claim "so many developers don't give a crap about PC anymore" when the reality is it has more developers than EVER and is growing. I mean who do you think has more games, Steam, or Playstation & Xbox combined?
 
Dekoth-E- said:
I wouldn't pay more than $.99 four any mobile game, but then I wouldn't pirate it either. Point was that yes $3 is too much.
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Then don't buy it, but if you're stealing it, then 3 bucks shouldn't be too much to buy it. Personally, I don't buy any mobile games...well maybe if they had some classic 80s arcade game I might pay 3 or 4 bucks, but stealing 3 bucks? At that point, you can't argue that it's unaffordable.
 
grim4593 said:
Imagine if all the games in your Steam library were tied to a particular piece of hardware...
If it isn't acceptable for end user software than why is is acceptable for the OS?
No consumer wants to "rent" or "license" their software. People want to OWN things and most of them assume they do.
Click to expand...

ummmmmmmm.......
 
Spidey329 said:
The last console generation was incredibly easy to pirate. So no, it's not a "PC" only thing.
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Piracy was rampant on 360 and PS3, yet developers still released games for them. I found that it was much easier to pirate for the consoles than it was for PC.
 
Deadly Ramon said:
Games on the Commodore 64 often had a little easter egg for people who copied the copy-protected disks without using any special crack/duplication software (like Hack'Em Back 'Em, Fast Hack'Em, and Maverick). They'd range from a scolding to a redirected and custom loading screen that would never end.
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The C64 was rampant with disk sharing. I can't fault them for doing that back in the day and even now.
 
Sounds like release groups didn't even bother cracking the game in the first place so the developers themselves had to release the pirated version.

And if you think about it the developers spent more time catering to pirates (since they created an exclusive version for them) than the people who paid in the first place.

Now that the game has gotten some attention it will get properly cracked and all the effort, time and resources spent in making the gimmick pirated version will be for naught.
 
I buy iOS boardgames all the time for costs much more than $3. Piracy has become too much work. In fact, the only time I partake is when I'm running emulators but that's usually with games I already own, or there's little to zero way of obtaining them legitimately without paying scalpers. Dolphin and Xenoblade Chronicles comes to mind. But, I purchased the 3DS version to make up for my transaction.
 
nilepez said:
Then don't buy it, but if you're stealing it, then 3 bucks shouldn't be too much to buy it. Personally, I don't buy any mobile games...well maybe if they had some classic 80s arcade game I might pay 3 or 4 bucks, but stealing 3 bucks? At that point, you can't argue that it's unaffordable.
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I don't buy or steal in this case. Is $3 cheap? Yes. However that still doesn't automatically mean it isn't overpriced or represents a good value. Just because something is cheap doesn't mean people should be expected to over pay for it. I obviously sit on the side that says if you don't buy it, you don't play it . But I also am a realist and think devs shouldn't act all surprised when they over price their shit and everyone pirates it.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
I don't buy or steal in this case. Is $3 cheap? Yes. However that still doesn't automatically mean it isn't overpriced or represents a good value. Just because something is cheap doesn't mean people should be expected to over pay for it. I obviously sit on the side that says if you don't buy it, you don't play it . But I also am a realist and think devs shouldn't act all surprised when they over price their shit and everyone pirates it.
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It's 3 bucks. I've got a music player on the iPhone that I spent more on. Sure I would have liked to have spent less. The S/W isn't perfect (though it's generally considered to be the best subsonic app on iOS), but is 5 bucks too much? Honestly, it's so little that it falls in the I don't give a fuck range.

3 bucks is so little that even a kid making 8 bucks an hour can say, why not. Again, a Coke at any restaurant costs about that much, if not more. If anyone gets near the end of this game, it was worth 3 bucks.
 
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