I honestly think they made the biggest mistake putting DRM behind the game, Patreon is already paywall system but soft one, imagine if Patreon would make something similar? Peeps simply break the whole website in response. There are plenty of websites that grabbing Patreon posts and allows anybody to view it and download any content inside locked posts.
I believe Patreon well-informed about that, but surely they won't do anything about it, because you need that small hole to release steam from somewhere.
But when CCs puts their DRM inside their product and people simply cannot even test it, It's quite the opposite effect.
"I want to pirate this game" -> "Wow, this game is cool" -> "I will buy this game because developers did great game"
VS
"I want to pirate this game" -> "I can't pirate this game" -> "Devs are assholes" -> "I will wait for crack and never buy the game"
Forcing you to buy the product and not letting even have first test has negative and repulsive effect for future and current players.
Statistically leaked games attracting more people, and with word-of-mouth everybody advertising it further and further, so I guess many developers should thank pirate bay in first place.
Want some local examples?
Hotel Elera/Project Elera - At first dude was incredibly greedy, he made similar DRM system for his previous (Not Elera) game, where it's scene based (There were 3 scenes for free and the rest is locked behind paywall), also constant checks whether you're logged in Patreon or not.
It was $700 at best times.
The author was mocked several times here and on e621.
Rebranded Hotel Elera/Project Elera - cheap knock-off Heat:The game, weird character models, similar interactions and the game... is completely free, by donating you're getting additional cosmetics. And everybody liked it.
According to Graphtreon Project Elera makes around $3.5-5k
One more time, this game is completely paywall free.
I'm not saying everybody should make their products completely public, but this is rare and outstanding example of "How this game is free? It deserved my money"
Of course paywalled products like Rack 2, Wild Life, Heat, Hunt & Snare - are easy to launch/cracked in matter of days.
And word-of-mouth genuinely helped those titles to gain traction and definitely not known because of worst DRMs.
So think yourself, will it gain more traction because "Wow, this game is cool", or because "I will wait for crack and never buy the game"
I believe Patreon well-informed about that, but surely they won't do anything about it, because you need that small hole to release steam from somewhere.
But when CCs puts their DRM inside their product and people simply cannot even test it, It's quite the opposite effect.
"I want to pirate this game" -> "Wow, this game is cool" -> "I will buy this game because developers did great game"
VS
"I want to pirate this game" -> "I can't pirate this game" -> "Devs are assholes" -> "I will wait for crack and never buy the game"
Forcing you to buy the product and not letting even have first test has negative and repulsive effect for future and current players.
Statistically leaked games attracting more people, and with word-of-mouth everybody advertising it further and further, so I guess many developers should thank pirate bay in first place.
Want some local examples?
Hotel Elera/Project Elera - At first dude was incredibly greedy, he made similar DRM system for his previous (Not Elera) game, where it's scene based (There were 3 scenes for free and the rest is locked behind paywall), also constant checks whether you're logged in Patreon or not.
It was $700 at best times.
The author was mocked several times here and on e621.
Rebranded Hotel Elera/Project Elera - cheap knock-off Heat:The game, weird character models, similar interactions and the game... is completely free, by donating you're getting additional cosmetics. And everybody liked it.
According to Graphtreon Project Elera makes around $3.5-5k
One more time, this game is completely paywall free.
I'm not saying everybody should make their products completely public, but this is rare and outstanding example of "How this game is free? It deserved my money"
Of course paywalled products like Rack 2, Wild Life, Heat, Hunt & Snare - are easy to launch/cracked in matter of days.
And word-of-mouth genuinely helped those titles to gain traction and definitely not known because of worst DRMs.
So think yourself, will it gain more traction because "Wow, this game is cool", or because "I will wait for crack and never buy the game"
Look, the main thing is not about "We are poor and not paying for pre-alpha", It's all about presentation - Devs showed large sign of greediness and everybody noticed it. You can't fight with human psychology, what breaks first impression, breaks overall appearance completely and the rest is just principle.But for are the people who is saying that "they are milking", "their time spent to crack", "paying for a pre alpha", "spent the money on better things", "spend money every moth" and things like that, please, as I said, it has been the disappointment to discover that we had to wait more. You can say whatever you want, but I am sure if it had not been´t cracked, you would not paid anything anyway, so please, stop arguing and blaming the creator.
They have taken too much time in release the game? Of course, they could have given people more updates or a little demonstration. They could have advertised the project better? Absolutely, they have been losing money over the years and saying that the project was in crisis. I can agree that they have done things bad, but protecting their game? For people like us? Who is always criticizing them? Really?
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