Pirates Booty: World of Goo, AAAARG!
- Scribbled on November 14th, 2008 by Derrick Schommer
- Filed in Casual Gaming, Industry News, Mac, Off Topic, PC, WTF, WiiWare, Xbox Live Arcade
Disturbing figures coming out of 2D Boy with their latest hit game World of Goo, saying 90% of their distribution channels are torrent sites. While World of Goo is available on Steam, WiiWare and their website, the biggest distribution seems to be coming from the 500 seeders on torrents.
Sometimes people like to see “the man” take it in the wallet but this is a small independent game developer who has found their niche by producing a quality title on multiple platforms. The reward for their effort is mass piracy? How sad.
Goo Designer, Ron Carmel said, “we’re doing ok, though. We’re getting good sales through WiiWare, Steam, and our website. Not going bankrupt just yet!” The fact is, they have no choice and would love to get the game in the hands of customers legally, especially considering it’s only USD $20.00 to buy.
2D Boy states, right on their site, the game is “DRM free” and this will indeed make it easier to pirate when you’ve got no protection. This is the price you pay for being kind to your audiences and, as long as their doing okay, 2D Boy will receive praise for a quality DRM title even at the risk of pirates.
Beyond those evil pirates, 2D Boy will receive some fame from their efforts in the industry and will, no doubt, find outlets to sell future games DRM or not. Congradulations on the success guys, hopefully readers will take the time to go to your website and actually buy the game rather than steal from an indy developer.
(Thanks, Joystiq)
October 20th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
[...] to October 25. Keep in mind, the game has no copy protection, and they estimated 11 months ago that 90% of the people who own it had pirated copies.] Share and [...]