So since we don't have anything to talk about, let me go over our policy on piracy.
As in, the Future Fragments team.
We know people pirate the game but believe it or not we've never DMCA'd a link nor will we ever. We won't to be putting DRM on the final game, either.
This is because we believe people who pirate games/don't pledge on Patreon generally fall into one of four situation.
The first three are:
Situation 1: They have no interest in supporting the game financially prior, then they play the game, and it's not to their taste, so they don't support it.
This is a neutral out come to us; it's not a financial lost as they wouldn't have financially supported regardless.
Situation 2: They have no interest in supporting the game financially prior, they play the game, enjoy it, but they don't support it anyways or they're waiting for final release, or they CAN'T support it because they can't afford it.
This is a win for us, because it means they had fun playing the game, which is a positive in our book, and they might support eventually.
Situation 3: Have no interest in supporting the game financially prior, play the game, enjoy it lots, and end up supporting it.
This is obviously a financial win for us, and it makes us happy because another person enjoyed playing the game, as well as then being able to "try before they buyed" so to speak (and this is why we do public demos too).
The fourth situation is the only time that piracy results in a loss, but the fault in this situation is not on the pirate, it's on the DEVELOPER.
Situation 4: They have an interest in supporting the game prior, they pirate it, realize it's not something they think is good, and they don't end up supporting it.
Assuming the player was well-informed of what the game's content was beforehand, and they didn't like it anymore solely because of the quality of the game, then that's entirely on the developer to make a better quality game. This is the only situation in when piracy is an objective loss.
So taking all of that into consideration, our general thoughts with piracy are:
There's no point in fighting it by spending time DMCAing things and putting DRM on our stuff, because it's an unwinnable situation and just a huge waste of effort/time especially if we were to do it for every monthly demo.
Additionally, some people are in parts of the world or in situations where they simply can't use Patreon to get the latest build, and we want as many people as possible to be able to enjoy our games (legally, of course, we don't want anyone underage playing our stuff or people getting arrested for playing due to their country's laws!)
That said, we would like to ask that when the full, complete game comes out, for you to hold off on posting it on pirate sites or pirating it at least for a month or two.
This is because the first month or two of a game's release are when the majority of sales are made, and while we're not trying to be greedy, we do want to continue to make games of this quality and given that we sink most of our profits back into the games to pay for voice acting, music, sound effects, and keeping roofs over our heads, we do need at least a fair amount of money.
