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Dev Blog / Re: Feb 26, 2016 - What I learned from developing Windward

« on: March 02, 2016, 10:05:22 PM »

Embrace the piracy
Your game will be pirated. You can fight it, but you can’t stop it. Worse still, when you fight it, chances are you will end up harming the experience of legit customers either by making your game slower or by inadvertently causing stability issues with the game itself. My suggestion to fighting piracy is simple — just don’t. Simply accept the fact that your game will be available for free somewhere and work to enhance the experience of legit customers instead. For example in Windward I was releasing frequent updates that would add new content, but would also have a side effect of preventing older versions of the game from connecting to updated multiplayer servers. Those that chose to pirate the game could still play it solo — but to play online they would need to go legit first. Also keep in mind, even without such incentives, every pirate is a potential source of free advertising. They may not pay for the game, but if they like it they will tell their friends about it — and their friends might just buy it!

Made an account just for this section. So many think that someone pirating their game is a lost sale, when honestly, at least in my case, I wouldn't have ended up buying it for one reason or another, either not being able to afford it, or not wanting to actually risk my money on it, if it turns out to be crap. If I like it, I try to buy it when I can, but won't stop me from recommending it!