Piracy is a huge problem in the video game industry; even the good games, that people rightly should buy end up getting copied, downloaded and shared. It’s a tricky thing, because while it obviously leads to loss of income for the developers it’s not quite as simple as saying it’s a lost sale for every pirated copy. Piracy (and to the same extent, second-hand sales) can have even have a positive effect in creating awareness, something Super Meat Boy developers Team Meat seem to not only understand, but almost embrace.
“Our game was hugely pirated,†admitted Super Meat Boy creators Tommy Refenes and Edmund McMillen in a podcast “we don’t f*cking care. If there are let’s say 200,000 copies of SMB that are getting passed around for free, that’s 200,000 people who are playing the game. If they like this game there’s a really high probability of their friends coming around and seeing it or them posting about it on their blogs. And it’s not cool to go round and say I really like this game that I stole, so they’re not going to say that. So it’s going to come around to sales.â€
We at Lazygamer do not condone piracy in any way, shape or form but In a way I wish more developers and publishers would care a little less about the piracy problem. For a starters, they’d spend much less money and time implementing draconian anti-piracy measures and DRM that serve to only infuriate and inconvenience paying customers, only to be removed or wholly circumvented by pirates. It’s a bit of a circular argument – because without pirates it wouldn’t be a problem in the first place.
Back on topic; if you haven’t played Super Meat Boy you really, really should; it’s a tough-as-hardened cement platformer with ingenious level design. super Meat boy is available for PC and Xbox Live.
Source : Rock, Paper Shotgun
Last Updated: July 19, 2011
