Our game was pirated BEFORE it even released

[@RugbugRedfern]

That's absolutely terrible. I had no idea about the flaws in the Steam curator system. Thanks so much for being public about it to help save other devs from the same fate!

[@idontknowandidontcare4603]

I dont know why this got recommended to me, but this was an interesting watch. As an Aspiring Game Dev, this certainly was really helpful. Thanks, and my condolences for the whole situation.

[@bitemegames]

I guess the algorithm is trying to prepare you for launch... Anyways, best of luck when you get to work on your game! -M

[@everdrakonis9895]

​@@bitemegamesthe algorithm listens too, if there is a mic near you, you should believe you are being recorded. This was a very important video to all noobie game devs, I include myself in this. Thank you for sharing, I hope things get better for you.

[@zoombapup]

Worked on the multiplayer bit of some of the early worms games. We used to have fun with pirates. Stuff like setting a pirate flag in the online system so that all pirates show up as pirates in the online matchmaking lobby system. It was quite eye opening when I first turned that on (we didn't activate it until a week or so after release), turned it on and like 80% of the players turned into pirate flags :) - You're right, you're not going to win that battle. Better off making your games and not worrying about it. There's enough good people who will buy your games if they are good and are right for them. I think your genre is pretty good, so keep making more!

[@EvanHarter]

I used to play (a not pirated copy of) worms 2 every night as a kid. Enjoyed it so much. Wonder if you worked on that one. Can't remember if it had only local turn-based multiplayer or a full-on online mode. I still have the disc in my storage shed lol.

[@zoombapup]

@@EvanHarter Yeah, I worked on Worms 2. It was the first one to have a proper multiplayer system. Before that we had Worms 1 with a bit of a hack to get it working with some networking. W2 had both local multiplayer and a lobby server setup. Which we improved a lot for Worms Armageddon.

[@SangHendrix]

I wasn't sure if I should send unreleased copies to Curators because they might release it. Now I know I was right. Thank you for a very informative video!

[@MarcWithaC-BlenderAndGameDev]

Thanks for the warning. I saw a while back that someone had stolen a copy of Slimekeep and created a fake copycat website pretending to be the developer. Scary stuff.

[@starlii10]

Oh *that* game.

[@Karthik-pn2yj]

what do you mean "stole" you can't steal data you mean copied?

[@thomasboone39]

Sorry to hear it happened, let's hope people realize the updates and support you provide through Steam are worth the purchase

[@Usual_User]

It may be shoking to you, but alot of people can't pay for games, especially in 2-3 world countries. People that can pay, would generally pay for it, im myself was pirating games (and still sometimes do, sorry, im in the middle of a war and money is better spent on food), but games that i really like or that i whant to support - i buy, and I think most of people are doing so (because if it wasn't, abd everyone who can pirate - pirated, indie gamedev would not survive a day)

[@trent3727]

@@Usual_User Yer I got mates that are rich. They don't even have to work, and they pirate games.

[@jussikoivisto7977]

Great video. We are planning to launch our game next year and I some how have forgotten this side of things exists. Good time to start "not caring" about it already because, as you said, it will happen.

[@bitemegames]

Indeed, if I had remembered this was a thing before launch, I probably wouldn't have been so disappointed when it happened. Good luck with the launch! -M

[@renews]

Sorry to hear that happened. Thanks for sharing

[@MenkoDany]

As a game developer, here's my mental life hack for this sort of thing. Beware that it's essentially a world view you have to adopt, not something that's easy or guaranteed to be beneficial to you. Essentially, when I was starting out I released all my games for free, on indie dev forums and alike. Back then, every download counted. I remember one of my first games got 30 downloads, I was still in middle school and that was the size of our class, and I remember how excited I was thinking a whole class worth of people played my game. So I adopt the same framework for the games that got pirated. I'm not upset that it got pirated, I think of it the same as when I released games for free, I'm just happy someone is enjoying it. Though of course, I have a steady, well-paid programming job in the financial sector, and this is just a hobby for me now, it's not my livelyhood so I 100% understand your perspective will likely differ greatly

[@JaycodingCoding]

Why don't you make it a full time job, i m curious

[@lobotomiepraktikant1128]

@@JaycodingCoding it requires a certain amount of determination and resources to go full time on a hobby, that burns your money faster than anything else. You invest money over a period of months and maybe even years - and if its your full time job, you highly depend on the result to be successful for living off of it. It usually requires the financial support of family and friends if you didnt work yourself beforehand.

[@JaycodingCoding]

@@lobotomiepraktikant1128 oh i understood, thankyou

[@NitramiuZ]

Very useful video! I'm also in the progress of releasing an indie game, and I haven't gotten any emails from people pretending to be youtubers or curators yet. What I however have gotten is emails from "companies" looking to publish and promote the game and also two emails from keymailer (or perhaps someone thats pretending to be keymailer) I haven't answered a single one of these emails because it feels like 80% of them are some sort of scam and I do not trust in my self to sort out the honest 20%. I can lose so much more than I can gain on these "deals"

[@SuperSecretSunshine]

I really love this pragmatic outlook on the situation, well done guys. The KZbin algorithm finally recommended something great.

[@XYoukaiX]

I have to admit when I was a child withouth money I also "often" got games the illegal way especially when there was no Demo (which you do have) and only bought it if I really liked it a lot as with an allowance of 30$ a month I could only buy one game like every 1-3 month depending on the price and other expenses I might have had. Nowadays with money I for one prefer getting games the legal way, its less dangerous, you get updates and you actually support your faviorite games.

[@mennovanlavieren3885]

Similar story here. But I never paid for a pirated copy of anything. I didn't want to feed the underground beast with money.

[@Karthik-pn2yj]

​@@mennovanlavieren3885 but people pirate because they want it for free? why would they pay for a pirated copy?

[@holcombentertainment]

Appreciate you sharing your experience. We released Blood Hunting on Steam yesterday and are receiving several emails that you describe.

[@Zer0Morph]

I'm an Indie Game Developer as well so thank you for making this video. Liked!

[@jarednickerl7894]

Gonna be honest i don't really play games that often anymore other than League. But that sucks. I am going right now to buy your game, hopefully to offset some of the lost revenue from pirating (qnd ill give your game a shot if i have time!) Thanks for the amazing informative content! ❤

[@lightspeedbriefs]

Sorry to hear your game was pirated before launch... but it actually can be a good thing to in some cases get some honest feedback. When people shell out money for something there's a bias to review something more gently to prevent feeling stupid for buying something terrible. When a game is pirated people will be cripplingly honest as they have nothing to lose. It can be hard to hear sometimes but their points may have weight and could potentially still be addressed before launch where people start giving you money for the game. Piracy is something you can't avoid with all the DRM in the world. If someone wants your game bad enough for free they can get it. But there's no use stressing over it as just because something is available to pirate doesn't mean everyone will opt to pirate it. Generally, if someone is willing to pirate your game they probably pirate every game so it's not like you missed out on a sale. Typically a pirate would rather not play a game at all than to pay for it. A cold hard rule of thumb though is that if you're essentially a nobody as a game dev (and unless your last title sold over 100,000 copies you are) - you're the one that needs to be reaching out to influencers. Any "influencers" reaching out to you are probably scams.... or people with inconsequential followings.

[@grindalfgames]

I've been making games for years as just a hobby and have only recently started trying to do commercial. I have learnt a lot from your videos. I knew about all this piracy but not so in depth as this, its quite scary. thank you for all the information

[@cdeloeul]

Thanks for all of your videos, I'm planning to create a game (serious here, I was stuck in the make a lot of prototypes but never release a finished game here) Ihave no issues to learn the technicals aspects, but all the do/do'nt things you share in your videos are just so valuable for me, really thanks for letting us learn from your mistakes (sry for bad english, not my main language)

[@jamesmunroe6558]

I am so sorry this happened to you. Thanks for the education!

[@officialgrimwaregamesllc]

an enlightening video friend, Thank you for the advice

[@drewdowsett]

You do gods work my friend. Well done with the game, keep your head high! Rarely do you find a KZbin channel who speaks freely about the bad side of indie development. Keep up the amazing work guys! I look forward to watching you succeed in future videos.

[@whorubeta]

It happened to me too - in an reaaally weired way. I have released "Super Drunken Guy" for nintendo switch some weeks ago and i searched youtube for some gameplay about my game and i found some videos. The weired thing about: one video had a gameplay out which was on previosly but not released binary for nintendo switch - as i submitted the binary but it was never live. Before i released the game i made an update where i replaced some graphics for example and these old graphics are in the video. I dont know how and why :D

[@cilcoposea]

That was shattering. 2 years of hard word and hardship literally STOLEN. This is NOT OK, definetly NOT OK.

[@wellingtonhiciano2954]

Appreciated your service soldier, thanks for letting us know of the danger ahead, great job. much respect!

[@ewwitsantonio]

Really solid information. I didn't consider a lot of this. Thank you!!

[@virtual_graphics]

Good video... scammers can really take the fun ou of everything, social, steam etc. As you said the best thing to do is just to ingnore it and soldier on.

[@Mudtek]

Thanks so much for the insight. I think that is valuable information, especially for someone new like me who has a steam page and is planning a launch in the future.

[@channyh.221B]

If they ever catch those rotten pirates, they should have them walk the plank!!!!

[@everyoneisgosu]

Damn, currently i'm learning a lot about GameDevelopment to make my first Project. Thank you so much for the Informationm about the Curator system! Something i would be interested in, could you give some insights how the hurdles with Steam are? Like how do you get a Part of it, how much does it cost, how do you implement Steamworks, etc.? Greetings and wish the best of luck for this and future Projects, thanks!! Greetings from Germany

[@GreyManFaustus]

One of my albums was pirated a few years back and got way more downloads than I ever had to that point. Which made me chuckle quite some, because it was a terrible rough mix and I offer all of my finished albums for free lol.

[@branidev]

Same happened to my game i think they upload every game which is released on steam because for them is very easy to go around steam and crack it, which should be fix by steam somehow...

[@ConradProteus]

You speak the truth ! this video should be included in the indie game dev PR tutorial

[@prechabahnglai103]

I've heard that tying your game progression to steam achievement system can help a bit (Example: can't progress level if a certain achievement aren't unlocked). But I just don't know yet how to implement it.

[@bitemegames]

Don't blindly listen to PirateSoftware and then come here saying the magic solution. This only works in linear games that you can play once. It doesn't really work in terms of replayability, because there's no way to remove achievements on Steam. -M

[@irene1307]

YES! Demos FTW! refunds are okay but cumbersome, and demos give you much better flexibility in evaluation. especially for some upcoming games. i'm often downloading like 20 demos every "indie fest" and pick the games that hook me to wait and buy on release. even if the demo is short, but does not require any movements other than "play" and "uninstall", it's already a lot better than buying and refunding a lot of games.

[@edhahaz]

For key beggers aka youtubers you can setup a simple automation to check if the email in the channel's description matches who emailed you. It doesn't event have to be exact you can also use the domain name if it's their own, not gmail obviously.

[@gamedevjourney4231]

That sucks to hear that your game was pirated. Although I heared that pirated games make the game more popular and so in the end could in in more sales. Maybe that could be a positive way to see at it. But maybe this only apply to big studios and for a small indie studio it's really not that good. Hope it all works out in your favour.

[@cyqry]

Honestly I think that only really applies to the big studios. Its word-of-mouth in a sense, but you don't often hear of people who pirated something legitimately buying it later on, unless they actually needed to buy it because of DRM or something. For a small studio where every sale matters and piracy can cut deep into that, it can break a studio.

[@christianknuchel]

@@cyqryThat assumes that a significant amount of people who would have bought the game instead opted for pirating it. Also, I'd argue that big studios are the ones who benefit the least, because they have a lot of publicity anyway, but they're also the ones that tend to riddle their games with DRM, which makes piracy more attractive.

[@coaller1]

@@cyqry games dev tycoon, the game i repeated played on pirate as that time i was a students, nw im working, the first game i bought on steam with full price is games dev tycoon, guess what? i know piracy hurt, but dont expect people who go piracy will buy the game even if it using DENUVO, they wont, so convert the piracy into sales is stupid, people who dont buy, wont buy. another example is Persona 4 Golden, once i thought this game is quite complicated so i skip it even i saw the gameplay, it using denuvo, but pirated, then i was boring and tried it out, turns out to be one of my favorite, bought it already and finish the game on steam with archievement. for me, thanks to piracy to let me play a lot of games and make me becomes a fans of game, rather than spending money and time to go cinema or drama, now my game are bought on steam (no other way whatsoever), so piracy isnt really hurting in this era with people start understand the importance of legal version, and thanks to steam for provide the simplicity to bought a game.

[@SentientNr6]

That was very interesting and well explained. Thanks for sharing. Don't worry to much about pirates they are people who would not have paid for the game whatsoever. So don't see it as lost revenue, just ignore it and focus on the good stuff.

[@megasupernewbie]

so we need curators for curators gotcha :)

[@donaldwheeler5989]

Sorry that this happened guys - thank you for the suggestions. I have always thought that the curator system is somewhat sus ...

[@Sluggernaut]

Hrmmm. Trying to think if good ways to completely blast this away without a lot of work. I'd love for the game (until my updated version about a week after release) to need to connect to steam. I assume the pirated versions don't actually connect to steam. Interesting information!

[@nangld]

Well, if you update your game continuously with the new features, then pirates wont be able to catch-up, while the users still get free exposure to your game. So I suggest doing this: split your game in half, so the pirates distribute the first part, which shows a huge link to your site in the end, so interested people who downloaded it will know where to get a legit key to download the 2nd part update, which becomes available only after a a few days. That is how Doom got its marketing. Or well, use LLM to drive your NPC, and have that LLM on your server. Pirates will get their stuff, you will get yours.

[@Ka_muu]

damn, I never really looked into the curator system but steam's really putting that 30% to work, huh?

[@akarnokd]

What's worse is that seemingly more and more pirates show up on one's official forum/discord/steam page and demand/cry for tech support for their cracked game.

[@ImposterParadox]

Could have this piracy thing given you some kind of PR? Even if it sucks, it may provide some awareness and potentially more people know about your game. Then the newcomers ultimately turn into paying customers. While it might be soul shattering, consider it dark souls, where you respawn with more experience and beat the shit out of it. You guys are great, so just keep going and never give up!

[@jansidlo]

yes we had the same, early access version of our game vas pirated, it was great fun.

[@mdsgamingvideos]

That suck. Sorry for you guys. But a big thanks for this gold advice

[@WorldStoneChronicles]

Very informative video. Appreciate the scammer tips. Sorry, this has happened to you.

[@Novacification]

People can glorify pirating all they want but the sad truth is that the overwhelming majority of people who download games and movies illegally had the money to buy the game instead. There's some merit to preservation of media and stuff like that but pirating an indie game like this before it even releases simply has nothing to do with any high minded ideas of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

[@DS4H]

Piracy is free marketing; People who pirate cannot or will not (for the most part) give you any money in any case. But what they will do is play and then talk with their friends or in socials about your game. Free exposure. No definitive data that piracy affects sales negatively either (EU has some circumstantial evidence for positive impact? I dont remember the source, been a while).

[@BeviCall]

I watched the video and I'm still not sure how they got your Prerelease build. How were you uploading it? To a main branch or to a different branch with a password? If it's the latter, I think the curator or pirate downloaded it a while ago when it was the main branch and is just now distributing it.

[@babahaze]

they just downloaded it on steam and uploaded the game files on a cracked game website

[@Karthik-pn2yj]

​@@babahazewhat you can't just download games form steam for free like that

[@prideneverdies1001]

great video

[@Definesleepalt]

in all honesty , if you implemented multiplayer or some kind of online feature that required steam connection people would be more pushed towards buying

[@Clanps]

One thing I've noticed about piracy is that it does tend to bring more traffic to the game if people enjoy it they tend to buy it. I think of it as them using it as a demo, now some will finish playing the game without even considering buying it but I know many of them will actually pay on steam to help support the dev if they see that it's worth it. It's really hard these days to know if you are really spending 15-20 dollars on a game that you'll actually be content purchasing. Less people might pirate if you have a solid demo but either way, people will pirate and you just have to accept that and possibly provide incentives for people to buy it. Anyways I hope this could give you some more insight on why people pirate and that they're not evil people.

[@XeroShifter]

There are a myriad of reasons for people to pirate, from the entitled, to the broke, the "demo" crowd, the "burnt by DRM" ppl, and then there are the people who do it just because its available for free so.. "why not". Unfortunately I doubt that the demo crowd is actually that large of a slice of the pie there. And I'm sure that as a developer its of little comfort even if it was a large percentage. Getting the stuff pirated is an anxiety inducing experience, and one you'll never have real resolution of. I'm sure plenty of devs wonder "would we have made it if they hadn't pirated? How many sales were lost?" It feels like having your car or home broken into because something that was a thing of comfort for you just became unnerving, and uncomfortable. I personally think that if you're pirating some old shit, where 14+ years have gone by, that's probably mostly fine, you're more or less just working around the fucked system that is copyright; But if you're grabbing shit from indie devs, or brand new shit, or even worse, brand new indie dev shit, you're being pretty awful. Maybe less so if you're really doing a demo, but if the dev has a reasonable length demo there is essentially no excuse there. When you "demo" a game that way you subject yourself to the temptation of not buying even if you like it, and there is always the chance you forget as well. I know, because I did it when I was younger. At one point in my life I was really poor. I was using a computer that was a hand-me-down gift, more than a decade out of date, and I was mostly playing games from a similar era as a result. I remember buying Total Annihilation for $6 at the 7/11 on disc because my computer wouldn't run much of anything, and when the 7/11 stopped offering retro games like that I couldn't play anything for almost a year. My mom got a "new" computer for school eventually though, and as a result I could finally play more modern stuff (albeit with the graphics set to potato in most cases). Despite the computer we still couldn't afford games, and our internet was dialup for the longest time so when I managed to pirate games I had to set it up to download over night. I felt bad about it, but I knew it wasn't a matter of my mom not liking games (she loved them, and was the one who got me into gaming), it was that we legitimately couldn't afford the extra expense. The games I had been getting from the 7/11 were bought with money I would collect from change returns on the soda machines at the grocery store entrance, and laundry mat. Anyway, I made a list of the games I pirated back then, thinking that I'd buy them when we could afford them, provided I got more than a few minutes of play out of them. I had the best of intentions, and as an adult I've followed through on many of them, but it look a long time to get there, and I'm sure there are many others I've forgotten, or haven't seen for sale yet because I lost the list at some point. The situation I was in wasn't unique, but it certainly isn't common, and if I forgot, or missed some, I know others have too. These days games go on sale all the time. The selection of games you could play feels practically limitless, and there are now hundreds of free to play, or just straight up free titles. You don't have to pay for internet by the hour, and it doesn't kill your phone line to be on it. You can take a phone to a ton of places an play games on your phone on wifi now too. Even back then I don't know that my piracy was justified, but these days? Outside of owning the game legit and just trying to get around the irritating DRM, Pirating something that just cant be bought any more (some nintendo titles, Driver, etc), or pirating something that's 25+yrs old and the publisher wont stop trying to sell to you for the Nth time, (looking at you again nintendo), I would be hard pressed to accept piracy as justifiable.

[@Clanps]

@@XeroShifter I wouldn't say it's justifiable but I definitely have had my fair share of piracy, I've never really pirated video games beyond demoing them if there wasn't a demo available, I've also pirated older titles to emulate as I'm not spending 1/4 of a paycheck to buy a game for the GameCube. But I do have the means to buy games these days so I do just purchase games even if I spend only 2 or 3 hours playing as I see no reason to refund it as I might eventually pick it back up. But I have played some games that are just so downright bad that I had to refund them. When it comes to video games I will just buy them unless it's like some sort of console exclusive that released for the PS3 or something of that nature like Skate 3 being bound to console. The only media I pirate are TV shows because I refuse to spend like ~$20-30/month on subscriptions for a few different services just to be able to have access to all the shows that come out. I've completely stopped paying for subscription services besides music, I pay for a Tidal HiFi subscription because they actually pay the artists a sizeable amount compared to Spotify. But back to the topic of videos games, I was more just trying to pitch out ideas of why people do pirate not necessarily condoning it. You can't really be mad at the people downloading it if they're in a situation where they can't get anything at the moment. I've experienced my fair share of "piracy" of my own work if you can even call it that. I used to upload 3D models that I made onto Patreon but they kept getting leaked onto various piracy sites, but I can't be mad. My only hope is that one day they see the value in buying things to support the creator and pay it forward.

[@weatefood]

hey ik this sucks but at least this was a learning experience for you and hopefully this won’t happen again :)

[@BetacupOfficial]

Only 2 things can help you against piracy: 1) Making a game-as-a-service, because it's DRM by design, but makes absolutely no sense for a singleplayer indie title 2) Quality of life -> Features like Steam Workshop or Cloudsync are annoying to deal with in cracks, especially if the game has great mod support and it's annoying to manually download new workshop mods every patch Maybe it's not all bad that it gets a bit of traction from such sites, I've seen countless games sitting on 1-5 reviews for eternity. I'm sure most of the people pirating games would not buy them anyway.

[@alexwtf80]

I think that what should be avoided is sending keys. Games are going to be pirated no matter what, but the key selling market is much worse. Because more often than not the people who buys a key thinks they are supporting you, while they aren't.

[@brazenzebra9581]

Wow. I had no idea this was a thing...I'm so sorry. I guess steam curators are evil. 100% I will avoid them forever. Thank you for sharing your insight.

[@TrC450]

There is a Finnish game dev, who had experience with "curated influencers services" and it is just as bad. Probably worse since they are paid services or free version hides relevant statistics to spot fakes.

[@mic007129]

When I released my first game, I started to get hundreds of emails from Steam curators and fake KZbinrs. One of them even sent me treat (Give me 20 key or I do a bad review of your game).

[@kalamona6598]

One upsides of adult games, that you can clearly tell these emails ("oh i am a youtuber, I want to showcase your game") are fake. Not that I have ANY experience in this :)

[@owen608yt]

well i havent watched the video yet, but damn that sucks

[@LM-cc7qz]

Woah, how did someone get a prerelease key? That shouldn't be possible unless someone internally released it or your version control isn't terribly secure. Hopefully in the video you explain how this happened.

[@LM-cc7qz]

Wait, how does steam not have a verification system for curators? Like I think it sounds like keys are the way to go and because you can disable the key remotely it seems pretty good.

[@bitemegames]

I think we gave some of the curators a preview key, as well as some influencers. I assume one of them just re-uploaded. We also don't know who has actually done it from the people we contacted, so we can't really disable the key. -T

[@youtubevanced4900]

Don't stress about piracy. People that pirate were never going to buy a copy. It's not a lost sale. I've pirates plenty of games over the past 30+ years. Often because a demo doesn't exist. Sometimes I like the game and buy it, other times I don't like the game and don't bother playing it after trying it. Honestly with the 2hr steam period there is no point in piracy.

[@Mel-mu8ox]

If you buy pirate games you also pirate years of a devs life. If to much life is taken, a new game can't be made. Pirating literally takes food from the mouths of artists :(

[@glauberbispo8922]

lol talk this to us brazilians most people here pirate and call who buy a game of dumb. Anyway jokes aside, it's really sad that this guy wont profit, hope they are able to sell some copies of their games, isnt fair hard work for have ur job stealled

[@20mat]

For indie devs, sure. I'll keep pirating Triple-A releases tho. lol

[@Mel-mu8ox]

@@20mat Thats not a smart thing to say :/ Your admitting to the intention to break the law... KZbin may be forced to close your account if this comment gets flaged... I'd delete your comment if I were you. :/

[@20mat]

LMAO There is absolutely no way you typed all that out with a straight face. Yeah no, I'm not deleting shit buddy. You're either a minor or *insanely* stupid if you think any repercussions will come from a KZbin comment admitting to pirating video games. "🤓Erm, actually you just admitted to breaking the law, you should delete your comment 🤓🤓🤓" It's like admitting to jaywalking in the comments and telling me I should delete my comment for admitting to it. 😂 I'd delete *your* comment after saying something so fucking stupid. LOL

[@babahaze]

​@@Mel-mu8ox oh no

[@peaceling9826]

❤❤

[@libertarianterminator]

You know you are successful when people start pirating your game

[@l2hetoric]

If someone is going to pirate your game, they weren't going to pay for it anyway. I wouldn't take it personally - at least they're playing the game. If they like your game then perhaps once they can afford your games legitimately (or get tired of viruses depending on how the game was acquired), they'll buy them and support you. Best of luck with your projects!

[@FianoGostaDeQueijo]

Minecraft became big because of piracy. Piracy gave the publicity that they needed. But it hurts

[@SkillZoneAi]

thas why free with ingame purchases is better than paid upfront

[@peacefusion]

Piracy is a slippery slope of morality and hypocrisy. I'm sorry you experienced what a lot of devs big and small deal with. Being broke doesnt give you a reason to steal what you shouldn't be owning. It's a way of people to validate participating in the newest game or product when they should be staying at their means. If a new game that you can't afford came out, then play the ones you can. If you're broke, play some free games. But stealing someones game is a bad choice. Of course, we live in a world of thieving mindsets, so what is right and wrong is only what the law intercedes. Without laws, humanity will return to evil actions and chaos. All I know is that products are fair to be purchased for their labor. But other things like food and health should not be fully paywall because no one should steal to stay alive in a human world where we can develop means to help the weak. But videogames aren't a right, they're a product of work you need money to participate in. There are always plenty of free games and charity.

[@AuraJewel]

I would suggest releasing a free demo version to counter pirated version, I’m a pirate, but i also buy games if i like them, i have bought over 20+ game in my lifetime which isn’t lot but i rarely play games due to my work. In the end i will say your game was that much worth some people thought to pirate it, have a good luck and don’t be discouraged

[@bitemegames]

We actually do have a pretty solid demo on Steam, which is why I'm so surprised there's that much interest from pirates. -M

[@samhblackmore]

Wait so what was that guy on KZbin doing his curator scam for? Was he like some kind of whistleblower exposing how the scam works? Or was he just doing it for the lolz to see how many games he could curate?

[@bitemegames]

He did it for the lolz mainly, to get his number of games go up, and less to resell them. But I guess he decided he would expose the rest of the system as well. -M

[@ok-consumer]

In summary: Trust, but verify.

[@abdoobaset6100]

As long time 3rd world pc shop I well tell you people the Pirate games usually they never buy games But if they like your game they will be very active in the community, most pirates can't afford to pay for games on the other hand people are afraid of getting there steam account hacked so usually don't pirate games on their steam gaming pc. P. S : your color palette of the game is really grim and dark.

[@edhahaz]

OH NO... anyway...

[@draxx85]

I would actually consider releasing your own pirated version where you can insert a message asking the user that if they like the game to please support it by buying it on steam. Also i would consider an alternative for Russians who are no longer easily able to buy games from Steam if I remember correctly (due to War in Ukraine). Pirates come in 2 forms, poor people who can't afford your game (Or simply are unable to prioritize their disposable income in healthy places eg. they blast it on drugs) or they are people who had no intention of buying your game in the first place as they just don't buy games in general and have no care to support the developers. By controlling the messaging, you can kind of guilt trip people with a call to action if they like the game. You also can maintain goodwill by keeping those versions up to date and so making sure that even pirates get the best version and perhaps might advertise the game through word of mouth. Personally i think people who pirate indie games are the scum of the earth (if you have access to buy the game legitimately) but you can't stop dishonest people from being shitty. I really hope your game does well and you can maintain your business! Good luck!

[@Mel-mu8ox]

You dont need to pirate you own game to give it away for free and ask ppl to donate :/ I think your harts in the right place, but most people who act dishonest will not care about a guilt trip message on something they got for free. Movies already tried it, and ppl would laugh through the message about pirate movies being bad while watching a pirate movie :( Was a big joke with VCRs, not much has changed. Thankfully most ppl dont pirate games or support the pirates... And there are ways being tried and looked at to help those who have less enjoy games, as well as support for Game Devs that release free/low price games :D

[@glauberbispo8922]

@@Mel-mu8ox peharps they can put a pic of their dog and families and put a text saying, "THANKS FOR BUY OUR GAME, NOW MY POOR DOG AND MY 12 CHILD WILL HAVE FOOD TO EAT" XxxP3ssyDestoyer12Xxx will feel guity and peharps buy the game

[@bitemegames]

I do understand that there are people who simply can't get the game. I do understand the reasons behind it as well. Everything on earth will be pirated at some point, I just was surprised that our game was that interesting that someone decided to pirate the pre-release version already. I do think that the best implementation of anti-piracy has to be Game Dev Tycoon, where a few hours in to your playthrough, your studio will always go under because of people pirating your game. -M

[@piarcss]

Russians buy games on Steam as before, it’s just that now everyone replenishes the Steam wallet through third-party services, since the problem is not in the purchase, but in the fact that it is impossible to pay with a regular Russian card. (therefore, regional prices for games in Turkey and Argentina have increased significantly) Piracy is bad, of course. But many people buy games after they download a pirated version and realize that it works well on their computer (although I think this works mainly with AAA releases, since they often do not have demos). On the other hand, you can treat this with irony, like the developers of Kingdom Come.

[@Mel-mu8ox]

@@piarcss saying its ok to steal because some ppl may decide to pay for it is a terrible argument :/

[@archip8021]

I was quite proud when my little game got pirated

[@bitemegames]

It does mean at least one person thought "I really want this game", and I see it a bit like your coming of age ritual as a gamedev now. -M

[@ImPDK]

Steam DRM is incredibly easy to bypass. It was bound to happen. If anything it shows people are actually interested enough to pirate it

[@Kruonen]

bro its like the same price as the good games like gta 5 bro im pirating this

[@Kruonen]

jk id buy

[@XoADREADNOUGHT]

Most of the jerks that pirate your game never would have paid for it anyway. So hopefully the financial loss isn't as large as it might seem.

[@Dianaranda123]

Interesting watch, but if you think about it Piracy might actually be beneficial. Seeing as it would make your game be more known from the get go. There was this rather burried EU study that proved this btw, where pirates actually helped in sales.

[@zokerinodev7267]

My solution to pirated versions of my own game is just to not care. People that pirate it don't have the intention to buy it anyway and never will. They're also, mostly, people that don't appreciate indies and would just throw in a negative review just for the fun of it, if they were to buy it.

[@mrjshzk]

This is just not true. Plenty of people (I've done it) pirate games and if they like it, they but it.

[@glauberbispo8922]

@@mrjshzk lol most people just pirate the game, if it's easy to find online, and after they beat the game they dont even buy the game. Such a shame u arent a inde dev, I would love to see ur reaction if a game that ya spend like 5 years making was just pirated and u didnt profit almost nothing

[@archangel4747]

@@mrjshzk I agree with you. Pirating has let me try out games I possibly wouldn't like anyway. I would most likely refund on steam anyway had I spent the extra effort paying for it.

[@bitemegames]

Indeed, at this point I'm over it as well, and it's just a unfortunate thing you can't get around. It's just when it first happens, it does sting. -M

[@HuzaBird0.2]

Maybe somone will buy it behause pirated games can cointain virus and probaly in 80% cases will stop get updates if u want sumport dev and have full sumport of dev u will buy game if u like it and if game not have demo piracy is for me for expect. I not trust modern pirated games i before will buy game behause virus posability

[@lipsach]

Thanks for your insight. But I wouldn't think about the piracy as a too bad thing. The people who downloaded the pirated version are most likely never going to buy it anyway, so it is not like you are losing any money because of it. I think it is mostly people who don't have the money for games.

[@zhulikkulik]

I think this might actually work in your favor because some people buy the game after they've pirated it. I downloaded Life is Strange ep.1 from torrent when it came out and ordered the entire season literally as soon as I finished the game. And also bought both BTS and LiS2 when they released. Another issue with pirates is that if a pirate didn't buy your game after he downloaded it - he'd never buy it anyway. It's a very weird mindset these people have. They don't see any value in something they can't physically touch.

[@MrRickshawed]

Pirate your own game but with a bug that makes it break a 2/3 of the way through. It's very unlikely that youtubers will finish your game. Children of Morta did that.

[@Soleya9]

Game Dev Simulator did something like that. They pirated their own game, but in the pirated version your game studio would eventually go bankrupt due to piracy.

[@edhahaz]

You didn't even touch the MOST important part G2A reselling keys BOUGHT with stolen credit cards. I guess you don't care because you get the money?

[@bitemegames]

G2A is a seperate story, and doesn't happen when you only sell on Steam, as no keys are being sent. Yes this is a problem, it occurs when you sell through platforms like Humble, Gog, itch,... We don't have this issue (for now?) so it wasn't the scope of this video. -M

[@dagamerturtle]

Even though i pirate games a lot, i still follow a moral compass, i would never pirate indie developers as theyre pretty much the only ones who arent creatively bankrupt and they usually make really awesome games. Sorry for this man.

[@Clanps]

Some games are a hit and miss but I do agree to a degree. A game I got the other day Vintage Story has many links for pirating but I really like the concept of it and want to see the game do well so I went ahead and purchased it

[@Nimiath]

Heads up! The majority of players doesn't even think about playing pirated versions of games, and the ones who do - just f*** them. 😉

[@raxacoricofallapatorius8484]

don't sweat the pirate industry. Sure it sucks, but understand that none of those people would have paid for your game anyway. That's the kind of people they are. Its a minor portion of the market, and if manipulated correctly, can actually be a gateway into the paid market. So, don't hate them, find a way to "use" them.

[@coaller1]

I was one of them though, reason? Poor. Now im working, try saving money to buy the game i like, or even can wait for steam sales to buy 1, at least im becoming the legal player, thanks to pirate game that allow me to play a lot, understand the charm of game, and become a gamer, rather than take those money and go cinema or netflix or doing other hobby.

[@After_Pasta]

I don't buy a game unless I can pirate it first -- people who are anti pirate get upset for the wrong reasons

[@daemonscorpion3095]

YEARS OF ACADEMY TRAINING WASTED