Hi there!,

Very nice game you have developed, thank you for making me not to lose my faith in the video game industry (at least for a while). I'm in that part of the game where you start dreaming with high towers that collapse again and again and a supersecret up in the stars that you'll never discover (I hate you for that). Just some OCDs more...

I have recently read about you "experiment" on DRM and pirating and I think you are heading for a wrong direction there. In fact, I intend to share the linux version of the game for various reasons. First, I discovered the game that way. It's quite difficult for me to get interested in 2D games by now and I don't think I would have given the game an opportunity even by playing the demo (they usually put the best part in the demo, so it is not very representative). And, of course, I have recommended it to all my friends who wouldn't have played it if they have had to pay for it.

Second, it is a high quality game for the price it has, which gives it an advantage over the average mainstream games. Mainstream games are sold through marketing, while a quality game can reach the people through other means, that is by mouth to mouth and by peer 2 peer. In fact, many people only play games that can download and barely even play them. Discovering this game through P2P may be a very good surprise for many people and a huge fan base for your games. And many of these would consider to finally pay for it. And this way is much more ethical as you don't trick the gamers to buy your game, they buy it because they actually like it, not because of the overwhelming marketing. This also leave you more time and money to spend on the actual game.

Finally, this is the first commercial game I played on GNU/Linux and I want this to happen to more people. Even if I'm using Ubuntu for the last 2-3 years, I have never been able to use it for games apart from some free ones and some emulators. This game has come as a kind of messiah for me and I would like this to happen to more people in my situation. If indy developers bet more on Linux, this could be an important boost for free software.

I know that my arguments are quite weak and not applicable for most games, but since you are starting in the industry and with some advantage over more slow and larger companies, and bigger and crappier games, you should consider if you want to waste your effort in monitoring and battling the sharing of your games, which can be too much for a small company and most likely useless and can eventually backfire you due to nuisance on customers. Or you can try to foretell the trends in gaming and adapt to it. And, please, forget about DRM, I'm sick of watching games telling me how do I have to play them or use them.

Just look at the music industry and try not to let the bigger companies dictate how you have to treat your gamers. I also remind you about the economic crisis we are in, so don't expect piracy decreasing any time soon.

[EDIT] Thanks Mr. Carmel for your GDC 09 conference. Thanks a lot!!

I'm glad you admit your arguments are weak. I'll start by saying that, and I'll finish with, having a huge fan base doesn't pay the rent but first:
Where the h*ll do you see this ("And, of course, I have recommended it to all my friends who wouldn't have played it if they have had to pay for it.") as a compliment? Do you think that alone makes up for not paying for the product? Blaeergh...

What I wanted to say is that, there is a lot of people out there, including me and my friends, that wont give it a try to these kind of games (indie, "retro", etc.) unless they can do it for free. Once they realize it's a quality game they will consider paying for it. Even if only a 10% of them buy it, it's an amount of buyers you wouldn't have existed if the game hadn't been shared through the Internet.

The bottom line is that, if a game has quality, the P2P and mouth-to-mouth will increase its revenues, while big companies rely on marketing which deceive costumer to sell their, mostly, crappy games. Therefore, good games can save on marketing which benefits nobody and rely on P2P to increase popularity and revenues. And, therefore again, learning to use this tools, respecting the gamers and teaching them to respect the art is a good way to go.

i agree.
it's also my first commercial linux game.
of course i wanted to test it before i buy it.
first i thought about a 'pirate version'. but then i saw the demo version. the demo was fun and ran on linux without problems. so i decide to pay for the full version.

i'm not quite sure how far i may share the full version with friends and relatives. but earlier, we have bought games on cd and shared them.

i haven't paid for the game, because i have to, but because i want to support it.
i would have done it even if i get the full version from someone.

(sorry for my bad english)

Don't think it's cool to come to a developer's board and say you're going to pirate the game :| But whatever makes you happy late at night... World of Goo was a great game and one that they deserve to be paid for

There is a free demo people can try if they want to do if they'd like it or not. That'll last them a whole hour or two to play through it

[quote author=GooLover link=topic=1670.msg11359#msg11359 date=1238780408]
Don't think it's cool to come to a developer's board and say you're going to pirate the game :| But whatever makes you happy late at night... World of Goo was a great game and one that they deserve to be paid for

There is a free demo people can try if they want to do if they'd like it or not. That'll last them a whole hour or two to play through it

True dat.

[quote author=MichaelPalin link=topic=1670.msg11038#msg11038 date=1238056436]
What I wanted to say is that, there is a lot of people out there, including me and my friends, that wont give it a try to these kind of games (indie, "retro", etc.) unless they can do it for free.

That's what demo's are for... ::)

[quote author=MichaelPalin link=topic=1670.msg10912#msg10912 date=1237805173]
you should consider if you want to waste your effort in monitoring and battling the sharing of your games

Wait, what? WoG doesn't include any DRM whatsoever, and I believe 2D Boy has said they're only monitoring the game's piracy rate as a fun experiment, not in any serious effort to combat it.

And +1 to what was said above. There's a free demo available that includes more than one fifth of the entire game. Feel free to pass it on to as many friends as you like, it should be more than enough for them to decide whether or not they like the game. Personally I bought the game after playing the demo for 15 minutes.

You said yourself that you're tired of the various copy protection schemes in modern games. But by pirating one of the few games to come along that doesn't have any, you're working against the goal of this sort of trust-based distribution becoming more popular. You should seriously consider the ramifications of what you're doing.

I loved the demo. I played it for 6 hours and realized i had to buy the game. It was worth every cent, especialy considering it was better then most retail wii games.