In a thread related to the last game this dev has worked on i praised his work ethics and his ability and commitment to plan ahead and said that a lot of other devs could learn a lot from him. Unfortunately i also brought up the fact that if he is leading the development of something, then the end results are ultimately his responsibility. For this he called me a petty idiot and tried to challenge me.
Regardless, i still held my respect for him for the things i complimented, so i wasn't planning on posting to this thread until i can give an honest praise without stirring any drama. But due to the nature of our past brief disagreement, i just feel compelled to comment on his new "anti piracy"plan.
And fourthly and lastly, and this is the most important point, from v0.10 onwards, I'm starting an "Up to you, hero..." reward policy.
That is, if v0.10 doesn't get leaked before the pitiful month I was just asking for, I'll add a special dream scene in v0.11. And if v0.11 also doesn't get leaked, v0.12 will have another, and so on.
First of all, any dev has every right to do any lawful action to protect his product. There is no debating that. But every action has it's consequences too.
This plan is about blackmailing the leaker with public shaming and also to foster an infighting among the fans. I'm not an especially moral person, but i'm still certain that blackmailing and intentionally fueling mob mentality is a bad thing.
This plan also has it's weak points, since the idea is to shame a pirate on a piracy forum for pirating a patch. I will not insult the intelligence of anyone by explaining this any further here.
But even more than this, it seems to me that the dev is planning to create a scenario that can only hurt him, his game and consequently the people he tries to support with the income if he is so quick to bring them up at any opportunity.
Let me explain:
v0.10 comes around. Smart money bets on the update getting leaked before the month is over. Dozens of devs tried this, the result is almost always the same. Personally i don't even know an exception, but there might be.
The dev makes a post claiming that due to a leak, nobody gets a cookie now, i hope you children will learn.
Multiple things can happen here, depending on the public's reaction, but some facts will remain indisputable:
1. Everyone will get punished for the action of a single individual that they can't control. (This might encourage trolls to leak further patches btw)
2. After all is said and done, the juicy scene will not be in the game due to the dev's decision. He can try to redirect the blame, but he still has total control over the content and it is still his decision if something is not implemented.
3. The status quo will remain at "no sex in the game" so most people will not even see the suggested, possible, maybe "carrot", just the stick.
And even if the rare occasion happens and nobody leaks v0.10 at all and everyone just waits for their time or the free version, then what? A single juicy scene will be made per patch. Let's be honest here, a game with a single non-cannon scene is hardly the amount of content people are waiting for and what is worse, it can spoil the slow corruption aspect for those who have been patiently waiting for years to get to that point.
That's hurting the loyal costumers in order to punish piracy.