Pixel Piracy Makers Offer Pirates Pirated Pirate Game

from the doint-it-right dept

More and more we see stories of content producers recognizing piracy as the opportunity it actually represents. It isn't universal, but these stories tend to happen in the following way. Upstart or established producer releases content, realizes it's being pirated, and then finds some way to make use of that admittedly non-paying interest. The Angry Birds people did it, as have independent filmmakers and entire music markets. The idea here is to push emotion to the side when you find your work being pirated and attempt to make use of the piracy.

It's an entirely different matter, however, when a producer proactively attempts to slingshot themselves to success on the backs of "piracy" they themselves create. It's not an entirely new concept by any means, but they're far too rare. That's what makes it worth highlighting it when such stories come up, such as this latest example of two game producers who created the Pixel Piracy side-scroller and then offered up a torrent of the game on their own website.

Here is a direct torrent link that we will personally seed to our currently available version of the game. We aren't idiots, we aren't high. We believe that anyone who wants to pirate our game will do so anyways, and feel it's a much safer bet to offer those people the official link to our game in hopes that they keep their computer's virus free.

If you LIKE the game you can support us in a number of ways besides purchasing the title outright. Steam greenlight is very important to us right now, and a vote for it DOES make a difference, and your warm reception on our IndieDB review page is what pushed us to initially take this decision. Not everything is about money, and we want to thank those that pirate our title and actually give them the opportunity to do so with our blessing, while giving them an opportunity to actually make good on the piracy itself. Tell your friends about us, share the link around IF and only IF you enjoy the game, and if you DON'T enjoy it at least you didn't have to pay for it!

Vitali Kirpu and Alexander Poysky
Now, I imagine we'll get the usual unimaginative arguments from the usual sources, typically centered on the idea that Kirpu and Poysky aren't Sid Meier, so it doesn't count, or how they somehow have nothing to lose or whatever. Unfortunately for those detractors, results count, and their decision to behave in an awesome fashion is causing many to support their efforts to be "greenlit" on Steam. And, in the meantime, the word of mouth campaign is putting their game in spotlights all over the place.

Now, they would have been well within their rights to keep their creation locked up behind the official barriers instead. And they could have been pissed off should their game be pirated afterwards. Going this route, however, they instead get a ton of exposure for their games, themselves, and they get to leave all the anger and angst by the wayside. Bravo.

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Filed Under: copyright, piracy, pixel piracy, video games


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  • icon
    halley (profile), 4 Dec 2013 @ 10:57am

    Pixel Piracy Producers Proffer Pirates Pirated Pirate Plaything

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Dec 2013 @ 11:10am

    But, but, but... PIRACY!!!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    out_of_the_blue, 4 Dec 2013 @ 11:17am

    Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.

    Your strawman is the usual ploy so that can claim your notions are overpowering the dinosaurs.

    Anyhoo, yawn. The usual unimaginative assertions that can give away products yet be showered with money. -- As shareware showed, free distribution can work IF popular, low price, and easy to pay with a couple clicks. So long as goal is reasonable profit not ruthlessly maximized, and more importantly so long as the moral force of copyright (of rewarding the producers) remains in effect this notion can work fine. It has done so. Won't work if everyone doesn't pay. (I'll assume we're agreed there; no advertising revenue seems mentioned.) So as business plan for the coming era as freetards proliferate, it stinks! You can't compete with free unless get some income, right?

    Summary:
    ) Need a cheaply duplicable item people want, priced low. Video game for kids who don't work to pay for it is perfect. Does not apply to real products.
    ) The moral suasion of copyright must remain as is. If everyone feels free to take without paying, NO income.
    ) As number of freetards with the above opinion increase, this fails, rapidly gets unsustainable even for cheap games.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Arthur Treacher, 4 Dec 2013 @ 11:25am

      Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.

      " strawman " - You keep using that word, but just like "common law", I don't think you know what it means. Nevertheless, you do use strawman arguments, as your poorly-named "summary" reveals.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        John Fenderson (profile), 4 Dec 2013 @ 1:08pm

        Re: Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.

        You don't even have to get as far as the summary. He said "Your strawman is the usual ploy so that can claim your notions are overpowering the dinosaurs."

        Since Tim never claims that his notions are overpowering the dinosaurs, Blue managed to cram a straw man attack right into his mistaken accusation of Tim proposing a straw man.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Dark Helmet (profile), 4 Dec 2013 @ 11:25am

      Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.

      "and more importantly so long as the moral force of copyright (of rewarding the producers) remains in effect this notion can work fine."

      Yeah, not even close. This is an example of someone circumventing copyright entirely. Nice try, though....

      "Won't work if everyone doesn't pay."

      Also wrong. It won't work unless ENOUGH people pay. That's the entire point of viewing pirates as a promotional tool for the wider market. WHOOSH!

      "Need a cheaply duplicable item people want, priced low. Video game for kids who don't work to pay for it is perfect. Does not apply to real products."

      So entertainment isn't a product now? Interesting. I now fully trust you in the realm of economics!

      "The moral suasion of copyright must remain as is."

      Summary: Hi! I didn't read the post again, or maybe I didn't understand it. Who can tell, what with all this drool on my chin?

      "As number of freetards with the above opinion increase, this fails, rapidly gets unsustainable even for cheap games."

      Strange, since this hasn't happened yet. Freetards sure are taking their time destroying all that is right and holy in the world. They're probably lazy. Yeah, that must be it....

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 4 Dec 2013 @ 12:59pm

        Re: Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.

        Strange, since this hasn't happened yet. Freetards sure are taking their time destroying all that is right and holy in the world. They're probably lazy. Yeah, that must be it....
        What's even stranger of course is that despite the ever-increasing number of "freetards" and despite all the whining about how the economic apocalypse of content is already upon us from the industry, the mainstream media companies still manage to break records for making money in a depression...

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 4 Dec 2013 @ 8:16pm

        Re: Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.

        "So entertainment isn't a product now? Interesting. I now fully trust you in the realm of economics!"

        no, entertainment is NOT A PRODUCT, I cant buy or sell 'entertainment' if I buy a football to play with in the park, I have not purchased "entertainment" yet I entertain myself anyway!!

        I can also buy products (such as games) that I find not entertaining at all, so yes, entertainment is not a product now, or ever.

        You can be entertained by products, just as you can be entertained by planting a garden, or cooking a meal or walking your dog, entertainment but not a product.

        A product is something that is produced, entertainment is something that is experienced.

        So entertainment is NOT A PRODUCT, and a product is not entertainment.

        "I now fully trust you in the realm of economics!"

        I certainly don't trust you in the realm of economics you cant even differentiate between a product and a emotion or experience (entertainment).

        You might find using products you don't pay for to be entertaining, I guess you do, you might find that the 'economics of theft' is a form of entertainment.

        You might even find that you can pay for products that provide you with entertainment, and you might even find that you are paid to provide entertainment for others (as TD does).

        But entertainment and product and profit and theft are not the same things.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Greevar (profile), 4 Dec 2013 @ 9:51pm

          Re: Re: Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.

          Entertainment is not a product because it is not an object, it is an experience or event. It's something that happens.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      silverscarcat (profile), 4 Dec 2013 @ 11:29am

      Re:

      Last time I checked, didn't rappers and hip hop artists get rich and famous by giving away free mix tapes of their works?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        LAB (profile), 4 Dec 2013 @ 11:37am

        Re: Re:

        no, they get rich and famous when they release content someone buys it. The mixtape is the advertisement to the eventual album for sale release.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          That One Guy (profile), 4 Dec 2013 @ 5:17pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          But how many people are likely to buy their stuff if none of them have heard of that artist before, something passing out free mixtapes helps solve?

          Advertising in the form of free mixtapes/samples/songs may not directly get an artist money, but such actions help deal with something far, far more important: obscurity, which is a greater threat and challenge to creators being successful than any other factor out there.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 4 Dec 2013 @ 8:21pm

        Re: Re:

        they might of gotten rich and famous, and they may have given away mix tapes, but I do not believe (as most don't) that they got rich and famous BECAUSE they gave away shit, they got rich and famous from selling lots of product and being popular !

        I am sure there are lots of rappers who gave away lots of free tapes that never got rich and famous and never will.

        there is no causal effect of 'giving away mix tapes' and being rich and famous.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 5 Dec 2013 @ 7:24pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          No, talentless hacks like you will not make money by giving things away.

          Just because you are too useless,lazy and stupid to work out how free promotion works, does not mean that others are.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Rikuo (profile), 4 Dec 2013 @ 11:36am

      Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.

      Just wondering. Have you ever proof-read your posts?
      "The usual unimaginative assertions that can give away products yet be showered with money."

      You're missing the 'you' in between 'that' and 'can'.

      "can work IF popular..." you're missing 'it is'. Also, that there is describing Steam's business model which plenty of copyright infringers (like yours truly) pay into quite regularly.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Rikuo (profile), 4 Dec 2013 @ 11:39am

        Re: Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.

        Just so you understand my point about Steam's business model...even if there were no such thing as copyright, I would more than likely still pay for Steam. Steam simply offers too many benefits over downloading for free from other sources, benefits that those other sources cannot match (99.99999% guaranteed working games, virus-free, supporting developers, frequent sales, communication with customers, guaranteed infinite redownloads/re-installs etc)

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 5 Dec 2013 @ 5:57am

          Re: Re: Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.

          Automatic patches and an easy way to gauge system performance vs. the rest of the market (the steam survey) are high on my list.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Designerfx (profile), 4 Dec 2013 @ 12:30pm

      Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.

      This is hilarious. Shareware is not like torrenting your own software. Failed argument from the initial statement.

      I'm not going to refute the rest, I'm just going to point out you are 100% wrong from the start and not even read the rest. Why should it be worth my time if you're willing to misconstrue basic facts?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 4 Dec 2013 @ 4:46pm

      Re:

      >Does not apply to real products

      Fair enough. Easily backed-up MP3s aren't real products either.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 5 Dec 2013 @ 5:51am

      Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.

      Does not apply to real products


      Neither do copyrights.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    MerryMe, 4 Dec 2013 @ 12:03pm

    Hooray, Pixel Piracy has been greenlighted. See here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=197015198

    That's great news, and I wish them all the success they can get. Doing it right in so many ways simply deserves the huge response they got from their (I imagine) now vastly enlarged fan base.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Dec 2013 @ 12:24pm

    So...they discovered a business model that is already widely in use in the open source community? With the exception that their implementation is much worse: it's closed-source, for one.

    This is a non-dtory. The only thing worth highlighting in this story is how Techdirt was duped into giving them free publicity because they used the magic word "piracy".

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      G Thompson (profile), 4 Dec 2013 @ 9:13pm

      Re:

      It's a game about PIRATES you land lubbered excuse for a Shrill. Therefore it is not just about Piracy in the way you think it means but actually about PIRACY as it specifically means.

      Arrrrrrr!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Dec 2013 @ 8:04pm

    MEH, its just shareware

    Move along, nothing to see here!!! its been here for 20 years or more, and TD are just working it out now !

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      That One Guy (profile), 5 Dec 2013 @ 12:08am

      Re: MEH, its just shareware

      Nice Wizard of Oz impression.

      'Nothing to see here people, move along. I said there's nothing here, why are you still looking? Stop looking I said!'

      link to this | view in chronology ]


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