Post #3475531
2026-06-29 16:06 UTC
Replies (26)
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@tasket@infosec.exchange 2026-06-30 05:32
@airavn@eupolicy.social s/game/AI :blobcateyes:
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@fell@ma.fellr.net 2026-06-30 07:40
@Tijn@dosgame.club I worked on two indie titles in a small team of 12. We always measured a piracy rate of about 25%. Which means we were seeing 25% more players than we had copies sold. We didn't do anything about it. Worrying about DRM takes time away from making the game better. It's an endless cat and mouse game. We needed more people to know about the game in the first place. In the end, it wasn't enough, and 25% more sales probably wouldn't have saved the studio anyways.
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@ratking@mstdn.io 2026-06-29 16:19
@Tijn@dosgame.club Or: "A kid with pirated games will however grow up to be into videogames, and pirate a whole lot of them later in life." ;-)
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@g@irrelephant.co 2026-06-29 16:34
@Tijn@dosgame.club 100%. I used to play games I didn't pay for, now I pay for games I don't have time to play!
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@PurpleJillybeans@kind.social 2026-06-29 16:46
@Tijn@dosgame.club Can confirm; was that kid, now that buyer. Even been making a point of going back and buying games I bootlegged in the past.
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@jake4480@c.im 2026-06-29 16:46
@Tijn@dosgame.club
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@geonz@mathstodon.xyz 2026-06-29 17:14
@Tijn@dosgame.club If purchasing isn't owning, then pirating isn't stealing (cn'at remember where I saw that).
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@landelare@mastodon.gamedev.place 2026-06-29 17:40
@Tijn@dosgame.club Game industry: sorry, we couldn't hear you over pumping up our budgets, forcing more AI everywhere, and laying off people at the same time. We're businesses here, very rational actors doing very sensible things!
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@glutto@mastodon.social 2026-06-29 17:44
@Tijn@dosgame.club They will buy more games than they have time to play.
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@bituur_esztreym@pouet.chapril.org 2026-06-29 17:48
@Tijn@dosgame.club always has been (and same for music, books &tc..)
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@mark@mastodon.fixermark.com 2026-06-29 17:58
@Tijn@dosgame.club My "what radicalized you" story was getting into a grad school game design class at a decently-big-name University and learning 100% of my classmates who knew how to do 3D modeling and animation had taught themselves on cracked copies of 3DSMax or Maya. 100%. Total students who started out with Blender: zero. This was back in the early '00s, I think things have gotten better (or at least more cloud service-y).
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@cy@fedicy.us.to 2026-06-29 17:50
The game industry runs on the creativity, ingenuity and hard work of programmers, artists, and game designers.
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@arratoon@beige.party 2026-06-29 18:39
@Tijn@dosgame.club @alicemcalicepants@ohai.social Home taping is NOT killing music.
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@gilester45@twit.social 2026-06-29 18:50
@Tijn@dosgame.club Yes. It's also how I learned Photoshop and from there got into Adobe's products. Where I still am; they've done well out of me all because I was able to learn for free whilst a kid.
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@TerryBTwo@ohai.social 2026-06-29 19:46
@Tijn@dosgame.club A kid- even an adult- who could afford and bought a game and shared it with their friends was a sale. If each member of the group did that each member had n games, and the publisher had n sales. If they can’t share they still have one game each. i.e. if buyers buy what they can afford it doesn’t matter if they share. Copying loses sales, of course. But not as many as the companies claim. i.e not all or even most copies are lost sales.
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@DekaBlack@mastodon.social 2026-06-29 20:01
@Tijn@dosgame.club As a former pirate kid, i can testify about that
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@phl@mastodon.social 2026-06-29 20:20
@Tijn@dosgame.club This reminds me of the Powers That Be going after people, kids, for a bunch of MP3s, and now, somehow, it is perfectly okay to steal and deface the exact same IP without any compensation, but also without the social investment that the enjoyment of the pirated goods induced.
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@reallylazybear@mastodon.social 2026-06-29 20:54
@Tijn@dosgame.club Same with music industry really. I even heard some people who actually make music themselves don't mind people pirating.
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@mrgrumpymonkey@mastodon.social 2026-06-29 21:17
@Tijn@dosgame.club As someone who frequented a lot of LAN parties, I was given copies of games & software all the time. And I'd end up paying it forward when I could. Some things never change.
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@bondolo@mastodon.social 2026-06-29 21:53
@Tijn@dosgame.club I was about 15 when I decided that for ethical reasons I would pay for my software development tools, starting with Brad Templeton's PAL64 assembler. My rule was that if I used something for longer than it took me to earn to buy it I was obligated to pay. Of course, since then, sticking by that rule, I have basically no excuse but to buy everything I consume. The last media I "pirated" was a Stargate episode in 2006 because my ReplayTV recorded at wrong time while a DirectTV subscriber.
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@mast0d0nphan@beige.party 2026-06-29 23:01
@Tijn@dosgame.club I only buy games if I can't launch their *ahem* "free" versions, or if games are at risk of becoming lost media with *ahem* no "free" version.
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@flipper@mastodonapp.uk 2026-06-29 23:17
@Tijn@dosgame.club Piracy used to be Adobe's marketing strategy for Photoshop. They didn't admit it publicly, but it was how they got to be so dominant.
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@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social 2026-06-30 01:59
@Tijn@dosgame.club Seriously, why don't they get that only real sales are sales and they don't get them by chasing people away and terrifying children...
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@luna@lunar.place 2026-06-30 13:42
@Tijn@dosgame.club literally the adobe playbook, for years it's been trivial to pirate PS, so everyone grew up using it and now they're absolutely raking in the money since it's THE software everyone uses
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@sillyCoelophysis@hachyderm.io 2026-06-30 13:59
@Tijn@dosgame.club I have bought Stardew Valley 4 times, Cave Story twice, and Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 like 3 times each. I might be one of the nuttier ones, though.
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@phantomkitty@furries.club 2026-06-30 17:30
@Tijn@dosgame.club This is why I liked shareware games back in the 90s and Steam demos now: try out a portion of the game, get sales for the full game. Wolfenstein 3-D, a complete free game, was part 1 of a 6 part game series, and this lead to Doom and other successful games. The concept works, it needs to be brought back and expanded.