Dev admits to leaking own game to torrents on street day

[Zeus]

A developer has admitted that they purposely uploaded a copy of their game on torrents. However the 'leaked' version did nto include the online leaderboards, which they believe is key to the title. So the plan was to get peopled hooked on the game and then buy the full version with leaderboards included.

<blockquote>The CEO of Trials developer RedLynx has admitted that the company posted the game on torrents.

In an apparent effort to curtail piracy by contributing to it, RedLynx CEO, Tero Virtala, said that his company leaked a version of the motorcycle game, Trials, on the same day that the game was released. The only difference was that the leaked version did not have access to the online leaderboards, which Virtala claims is the "soul" of the game.

"Piracy is here, so how can we take advantage of that?" Virtala said yesterday during a panel at Develop Liverpool. It was his hope that pirates would download the game, and then become so enthralled with it that they would then go out and buy the full version. Right, pirates are suddenly going to transform into paying customers because the "soul" isn't there.

In my mind, posting even a gimped version of your game to pirate sites is counterproductive to attempting to earn money developing said games. Doing so implies that piracy is tolerable, which it isn't. Plus, any traffic which the game may or may not generate to such torrent sites may facilitate users downloading other pirate games which legitimate companies did not leak.</blockquote>

News Source: <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/95961-Developer-Leaks-Own-Game-to-Pirates" target="_blank">Escapistmagazine</a>

[tech3475]

So if you dont care about online leaderboards you basically get a free game?

[ThreeDog]

You could argue that tech but i hear that's a big part of the game, you could also argue that by releasing it on torrent sites the developer managed 150,000 sales he may not have... i hadn't heard of it until he said something.

I'm a big fan of the method to remove functions from a full game and post it online i hope it takes off but would like to see them hosted in mainstream locations, With the changes coming in april id be worried hitler brown will remove us from the internet despite the developers permission.

[danight]

EA has done stuff like this and figured out how to make money off it.

[CharmedonWB]

If the game is good, people will buy it. But if it is ok and has no replay value, then most people are not going to buy it. Just because pirates download a game, does not mean they would have bought it in the first place.

[Xenogears V]

Software house say us that pirates killing industries...when develops kill themself.:(

[gman112287]

Software house say us that pirates killing industries...when develops kill themself.:(

I cant say that I agree with this. Pirates have been killing the industry for a long time. Devs have just become desensatized to pirates. So now they're joining the party.

[CharmedonWB]

I cant say that I agree with this. Pirates have been killing the industry for a long time. Devs have just become desensatized to pirates. So now they're joining the party.

I have to LMAO at this. The industry has been seeing continual growth and you are claiming that it has been dying? If you want to see a dying industry then go back to 1979 and you will see an industry that is near death.

[msanchez]

Congrats to them, I admire that they have enough faith in their game being so good that they might actually get a few sales from this stunt. I personally don't see any bad side to this, people are going to download it anyways, might as well try to get on the pirates community's good side and show them you are not out to get them like everybody else.

It might be a small percentage, but at least .001% of the pirate population might feel tempted to buy the game either because of the way they did this, or because they like the game. This is much better than saying "piracy has cost us a billion dollars in sales!!" we all know those pirates weren't going to buy the game anyways; this on the other hand might push them to do so.... as they say "you attract more bees with honey than with vinager"

[Battlefield]

I only buy games, and still do..But iI dont care **** about the leaderboards because i buy too many new games each month, and dont have time to climb leaderboards.

[lostn]

I give this guy props for his innovative marketing strategy. I hope it works out for them. Personally it doesn't appeal to me, so I didn't even bother downloading it, but if someone likes it, I hope they buy it.

[gman112287]

I have to LMAO at this. The industry has been seeing continual growth and you are claiming that it has been dying? If you want to see a dying industry then go back to 1979 and you will see an industry that is near death.


There have been recessive points. Currently the game industry isn't doing as well as it "could" or "should" be due to piracy and game recycling centers such as gamestop. Overall yes it has grown since the ps2/xbox/ngc days but, if the ps3 gets cracked and publicly released look out....