- Aug 21, 2018
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Ah yes, the middle ground with a pirate site being NO PIRACY WHATSOEVER. A completely reasonable expectation to have.
We all can cite our own middle grounds. We'd all have some valid points.
One can argue that another middle ground would be for Selebus to live with the fact that piracy exists and that it might at least be bringing him exposure that he otherwise would not have had.
At the end of the day this is a pirate site. Selebus knew that before he posted his game here. He still knows that today. That probably brought him some early exposure that he would not have had. He has even acknowledged that the high ratings on this site were corelated with subscriptions and in the past had asked his discord followers to leave 5 star reviews of the game here.
But fine, all of us have some cognitive dissonance eventually. But ultimately, even if he never uploaded it here, if his game somehow ended up getting as popular as it is today, it would have eventually made it to this site anyway. Piracy tends to be a symptom of popularity. The games I see here that don't get posted quickly are games that are much less popular. Wasting so much time and energy an an eventuality seems pretty pointless.
He is also free to try to implement DRM. I don't think he'll be successful if he tries it himself. If he pays someone else, I don't think he'll get back the money he's hoping too. Short of going with denuvo or something (which costs $25k per month), the game will be cracked very quickly - especially if he sticks with renpy.
Ultimately the reason he's pissed off is he started spending more money and his income growth has stagnated. He blames it on piracy. It's probably a lot more complex than that. I'd say all of the following are much bigger factors than piracy: It's a very niche game that has probably reached most of its potential audience, the game tends to be unforgiving to new players, global economy slowing causing people to cut back on unnecessary expenses, and a general reduction in quality long term. His public attitude also will not do much to attract new players.
- Sep 5, 2021
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I can say with great confidence, if i just discovered this game and saw Selly's recent behaviour i'd have kept on moving. I say this cause i've done this. Soon as i see this level of drama about a game i haven't played yet i just end up rolling my eyes and think 'oh, one of those dev's' and flick the game into the ignore pile, the game might be quality despite the drama but i'm not going to waste my time on a maybe with such a red flag displayed so prominently. You have to wonder how many people quietly dip in and quickly bow out when they see Selly have another public meltdown.
- Sep 5, 2020
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His stance was, and still is, that while piracy is inevitable, instant piracy is a pretty shitty thing to do.It's interesting how in two years it went from this to the latest war.png, mainly in the attitude and tone.
I mean it sounds much more honest and down to earth, while being roughly about the same. I remember being sympathetic back then. Can't say that now.
A two day delay before leaking it would have prevented ALL of this. That was the reasonable middle of the road solution.
- Sep 5, 2020
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See, maybe I've just gotten too cynical in my old age, but I honestly expect EVERY creator to be crazy in some way.
The better authors almost always have at least one thing going on inside their head. Poe was depressed and addicted, Dickenson was prone to panic, fully half of all authors are addicts of some sort, and that number is probably closer to 2/3, a lot of them are also on the spectrum to some degree, so meltdowns are going to happen.
So all this? It's on-brand.
I literally had a creative writing professor tell me the the best advice he could give me to become a better writer was to become an alcoholic. His final had a two-drink minimum. "You don't have to be an addict to be a good writer," he told me, "but it sure does help. The suffering gives you a lot to work with."
I'm more suspicious of creators are act well-adjusted, to be honest.
- Sep 5, 2021
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Oh no doubt, i am of a similar mind, but i find the ones that lash out all over the place are not worth the time investment, better to be safe and risk missing out than get stuck with... this...
I'm invested now so there's no going back and at least it's rather decent popcorn for my tastes, but i just got lucky with this one, been caught in an actually frustrating situation a couple of times in the past where i wished i could've just never gotten involved in the first place, like realising Zimon was too much of a douche for his kitchy game to be worth sticking around for as one example. Part of my mind still drifts back to that world and i find myself curious how the story has developed but it's just not worth it. Wish i could scrub it from my brain all together.
This game was translated into other languages by pirates
- May 4, 2020
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Don't worry mate, i made a very similar point a few pages ago and i'm canonically 14 now. I'm definitely a cynic but eh, age is just a number amirite ?
If i were
- Apr 16, 2020
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a very small part of me thinks this, i know its wrong, but paranoia plagues me regurlarly which makes me think of hundreds of alternative explanations for things.
this thread was pretty much dead...
selebus wasn't getting as much publicity as he wanted
'all publicity is good publicity' low IQ mindset develops
starts shit
thread be poppin now
this thread was pretty much dead...
selebus wasn't getting as much publicity as he wanted
'all publicity is good publicity' low IQ mindset develops
starts shit
thread be poppin now
- May 4, 2020
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So...Your theory is that Deleted member 1697433 leaked the CP himself with an alt account so that he could then pretend to be mad about it, creating drama for publicity ?
That's not paranoia, that's retardness.
- Mar 31, 2020
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He literally states he is selling this, he can't do that with a game made with KK, or does he think he's the exception that's allowed to do whatever he wants?
I can post the link here for those renders, if anyone wants it, I got them all nicely packed in a zipped file.
You must be registered to see the links
Done, leaked now, I don't know if it's completely up-to-date, but it was when I downloaded them all.
- Sep 15, 2020
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That was it, there was no compromise allowing free early access, that's my point. I wasn't addressing reasonability or the piracy aspect I have been known to defend against here, I was addressing the fact that there was and still is a free option given that can't really be called compromise, but that would have served the purpose of a middle ground option had it been used by the people it was offered to by the developer himself.
No developer selling their game, so as to exclude those giving it away for free in the first place, is going to just lie down and accept that, the difference is that some are more hostile against it than others. I've seen some take some serious steps to combat it, far worse than anything Sel has done so far in terms of the severity of the action, though usually actions in the game itself or in the distribution.
You may have given him an idea, make the game so unpopular that users on sites like this avoid it like the plague. This would drive the will to upload the game through the floor simply by virtue of no one wanting to play it outside of the patrons that are already committed to playing until the end.
I have seen other methods used that keep the patrons in line. He could implement distribution tracking and ban those who are recorded as in violation. He does have the potential for volunteers on the DRM thing, we saw firsthand on this thread how willing some patrons are to come to his aid, there's no indication that none of them are capable of implementing DRM, I can tell you that right now even from an internal perspective. The only indication is that there are some decently tech savvy people in the patronage, not how tech savvy they are.
That would risk doing far more than getting it banned on pirate sites, it could get it banned across the board on his official third party pages and quite possibly put him in legal hot water if he goes too close to the forbidden line. That's like Icarus playing with fire in one hand while not only flying too close, but directly into the sun. This is not worth his entire revenue stream plus the potential for legal trouble.
He's in a grey area with SubscribeStar, which a lot of people seem to consider selling the product even if it normally isn't seen that way legally, leading to some discussions of other games in other places devolving into arguments over the issue when some players don't get what they want.
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- Apr 16, 2020
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one: not what I said
two: I have seen major corporations do stupider shit than that for publicity
three: I said I know its not true before saying it
four: I don't mean short term dead, I mean long term dead. it got some traffic for a week maybe two if lucky after an update then nothing pretty much till the next one. It is literal retardation to not think the care package would be leaked and put somewhere even if it is not HERE. (but this is deleted member 1697433, we are talking about, i'm giving him to much credit to underestimate those levels of retardation)
so back to the idea. you design something with the full intent of antagonizing a community to generate a shit storm (this is like 90% of advertising current year) in hopes people will throw money at your product just to not be 'one of them' and then you wait for the inevitable response to your predesigned time bomb (in this case leaks) before going full ham staged incoherent rage fit over it
this does happen, it happens a lot nowadays sadly
in this specific case we were not even the target audience for this spectacle.
it would have been the freebies in the discord that now get plagued with the propaganda...
that and this thread now has more eyes on it and more comments made.
the problem with this method of advertisement is that it is a double edged sword that can cut both ways
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- May 4, 2020
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It depends on the site, there are a decreasing number that accept it in general and those usually have a specific no tolerance policy that doesn't allow a certain degree of realism or higher. SubscribeStar will be relatively safe unless they get hit with something that forces their hand, they were formed as an answer to Patreon's censorship after all, part of which was this kind of thing. Other sites I cannot guarantee to any degree will remain open to it or that they would allow the more realistic imagery of these other games.
This is an especially big issue for upload sites, like MEGA.
- May 4, 2020
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I can't see the future but as of right now it's perfectly fine. Even if some of the options currently available disappear there is a decent chance more will rise from the ashes, just like SS after patreon went to shit.
- Mar 31, 2020
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Okay, which asshole reported my Mega account?
It was the French
- Mar 31, 2020
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I made a new account already anyways, sharing the care packages didn't matter, but the custom renders do?
This folder or file was reported to contain objectionable content, such as Child Exploitation Material, Violent Extremism, or Bestiality
Is the reporting system just as bad as YT's, where as long as someone reports it it gets removed, without any proof?