While at times pirates can be nothing more then a leach the can also be a beneficial to indie developers.
How much does it cost to advertise a game?
It costs about
$50,000 to market an indie game. Branding takes about 2 weeks to complete, it will cost you about
$7,000 to do yourself, or about that to outsource. A trailer takes about 1 week to produce, costs you about
$4,000 to do yourself, and maybe less to outsource
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One of the hardest things for an indie developer is getting the word out. Often times its a question of how will this unknown person with a good idea get people to not only try there game but also spend money on it. Even with a good video you still have to get people to watch it and even if they do theres no guaranty they will pay for your game.
When People see the video no mater how great only a percentage will checkout your content and even then only a percentage will try the "demo" if there is one and finally only a percentage will actual spend money on your content.
Thus one of the biggest boost is exposer the more people know the more people added to your base number. 20% of 10 is 2 but 20% of 10,000 is 2000 and whether paid or pirated if someone likes something the talk about it and in turn that adds to your base number.
One other point beta testers there was a time developers would pay teams of players to test there games and fined all the bugs. Golden playstation 1 and playstation 2 era. In recent yours not only do players beta test for free I see a lot on patrion paying to beta test. Some developers worse then others.the more player Paid or pirated as long as there providing feedback it is a benefit to the developer.
Non of this is in any way mint to be an attack against the developer
Team Monolith in fact they took things with more grace then a lot of developers I've seen on this site over the years. But for any who think pirates are only a leach think there is a reason many developers chose to stay active in the forms and as this is a pirate site it is hardly the place for anti pirate speech. It's like going to a nudist community to complain that people are naked.
Some big doners on patrion are pirates here not everyone is willing to spend money before there sure of what there purchasing and from one build to the next there are many games that become unplayable or sometime lose what brought you to pay in the first plays. With the way people are struggling after covid some now more then ever want to be sure before the invest there hard earned money. Not all but if you assume that everyone who pirates those not support the developer or that the developer lost money. There are always those who would never have tried if not for the pirated version and just like with the video example a percentage of them will pay and more often a larger percentage will give much needed feed back.
PS the main topic was peoples inability to wait but again its a pirated copy on a pirate site gofigure. But at the least the pirates are giving back to the developer with feedback and that for any indie developer is extremely valuable especially for one that plans to go commercial. I look forward to where this game will go in the future I feel the developers head and heart is in the right place.