RedLynx, developers of the Trials series, has admitted that it uploaded some copies of Trials 2: Second Edition torrent sites on the same day that it released the game to customers.
The pirated version wasn't the full game though, according to GI.biz, who revealed that it lacked leaderboard support. RedLynx CEO Tero Virtala said that the idea was to encourage pirates to then upgrade to the full, legit version.
"Piracy is here, so how can we take advantage of that? What we did actually, on day one, we put that game immediately on all the torrent networks ourselves," said Virtala.
"That game relies really heavily on the server side - the leaderboards are the soul of the game. I don't know if it's helped, I'd assume so because even though the version that we put on the torrent networks wasn't the full version, it's the version of the game without the actual soul, without the leaderboards to play against other players."
The game has gone on to sell 150,000 copies on PC, though RedLynx isn't sure how it piracy affected sales.
"When we compare that hacked version with those who have access to leaderboards and are accessing our servers they match. So at least people have not cracked our leaderboards yet," he added.
Following on from that same point, Torsten Reil of NaturalMotion lamented the piracy rate on iPhone title Backbreaker even though the game is sold at the lowest AppStore price point - just 59p.
"At 59p it's pretty fair to assume that a lot of those pirates would have been able and would have bought the game, but there's an overall attitude that it's fine to pirate."
"There is in general a feeling that IP and content should be free. That's fine to say, but if you have to pay all the people that actually put their heart and soul into a game - who have to pay a mortgage off and have children - it becomes much more difficult. Yes, you can limit [piracy] with technical tricks, but there needs to be an overall change in the perception of IP and the people who create it."
Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
The pirated version wasn't the full game though, according to GI.biz, who revealed that it lacked leaderboard support. RedLynx CEO Tero Virtala said that the idea was to encourage pirates to then upgrade to the full, legit version.
"Piracy is here, so how can we take advantage of that? What we did actually, on day one, we put that game immediately on all the torrent networks ourselves," said Virtala.
"That game relies really heavily on the server side - the leaderboards are the soul of the game. I don't know if it's helped, I'd assume so because even though the version that we put on the torrent networks wasn't the full version, it's the version of the game without the actual soul, without the leaderboards to play against other players."
The game has gone on to sell 150,000 copies on PC, though RedLynx isn't sure how it piracy affected sales.
"When we compare that hacked version with those who have access to leaderboards and are accessing our servers they match. So at least people have not cracked our leaderboards yet," he added.
Following on from that same point, Torsten Reil of NaturalMotion lamented the piracy rate on iPhone title Backbreaker even though the game is sold at the lowest AppStore price point - just 59p.
"At 59p it's pretty fair to assume that a lot of those pirates would have been able and would have bought the game, but there's an overall attitude that it's fine to pirate."
"There is in general a feeling that IP and content should be free. That's fine to say, but if you have to pay all the people that actually put their heart and soul into a game - who have to pay a mortgage off and have children - it becomes much more difficult. Yes, you can limit [piracy] with technical tricks, but there needs to be an overall change in the perception of IP and the people who create it."
Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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