Indie Dev Releases 'Pirated' Version Of Game On Torrent Sites

Indie developer tinyBuild has attempted to use piracy to its advantage, by releasing a special build of its latest game No Time To Explain on a torrent site for free. Developers Alex Nichiporchik and Tom Brien released the game last month for purchase, and also released a version of the game on torrent site Pirate Bay that included pirate hats on all the characters in the game. However, the version on Pirate Bay was not updated further than this, and hence all of the day one bugs were left in this version, with the hope that those who downloaded it would then go on to buy the full version. "Basically, on release day, we rushed to make a version of the game that is actually all about pirates," Nichiporchik told Gamasutra. "Everything is pirates and rum. We're using piracy to boost sales and get the word out." He continued, "People were going to pirate it anyway, so we figured if we make something funny out of it (give everyone pirate hats in a pirated version of the game), gamers would appreciate that and start talking about it." "So some people won't buy the game either way, but if some appreciate the humor, they might just support us indies." "Plus, we think it's a great distribution channel that just hasn't been monetized properly yet," he added.