As an indie gamedev, I have a question for you gamers. What would

kys maker of shit b8 threads

>>389324739
>INDIE GAMEDEV
>>>/t/umblr
>>>/r/eddit
>>>/n/eogaf
Literally anywhere but here.

>>389324739
Most pirates: nothing. You'll never convince them not to pirate.
Some pirates: make a game so good they feel guilty about piloting it

>>389324739
>What would stop you from pirating a game?
Nothing, but if the game is actually worth money I'll pay for a legit copy after I've played enough of it to decide it's worth money. People bitching about pirates are just people who can't admit their game is shit and can't sell on it's own merits.

>>389324739
Stopping people from pirating your game won't make them buy your game.

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>>389324843
>Some pirates: make a game so good they feel guilty about piloting it
>they feel guilty about piloting it

>>389324739
Make a good game or alternatively make a really shit game that no one will even bother to pirate.

>>389324739
Nothing, but if the game was good, I'll buy it after pirating aka demoing.

nothing but if it's good I may send a dollar your way during a steam sale.

Nothing. You just have to make a game good enough that people want to support you.

>>389324739
>cloud saving
>steam workshop aka make sure shit can be modded
>some sort of netplay connectivity if it's new content by the devs, challenges, or some possible pvp or co-op

>make a good game
then why did games like Hollow Knight fail?

>>389324980
>>389325023
>>389325090
/thread
nothings gonna stop piracy

>>389325159
Got any source on that claim or are you just making shit up to fit your own narrative?

>>389325159
Because Hollow Knight is a derivative repetitive piece of garbage who's setting couldn't make up for the simplistic easy gameplay.

Denuvo.

It'll stop me pirating it and also stop me from wanting to buy it.

>>389324739
Make the best game you can.

If people like it enough and you build enough good-will, people will buy it even if there's zero DRM.

There's a few reasons people pirate:
1) They are poorfags and can't afford video games
2) They are curious about a game but not curious enough to pay for it

These two options are not "lost sales" due to piracy. They are simply people playing a game they otherwise would not have, thanks to piracy. Indeed, many people from (2) may end up actually buying the game if they liked it, or failing that, its sequel.

See: CD Projekt RED

It's also worth noting that anti-consumer DRM such as Denuvo can lead to people NOT buying your game. I pre-ordered Agents of MAYHEM, but when they updated the Steam Store page to show that it uses Denuvo, I cancelled that pre-order fucking instantly.

Also, some games that have added functionality for legitimate copies will encourage a purchase, this is especially true for online multiplayer games, but can also be seen in some single-player games like The Sims 4 (which has an easy to use in-game Custom Content browser for legit copies)

TL;DR version - make a good game and people will want to buy it.

>>389324739
-Convenience
-Ease of access
-Type of developer.

If you do what most japanese games do and only make the game available to your friends-of-friends at conventions and maybe on a digital distribution site that requires my telephone number and a picture of my face; then don't be as surprised as they are when I don't go through the trouble of obtaining it legally.

Same goes for Indie developers who do retarded things like trying to make your own digital distribution platform with your own hard-coded DRM: That's not going to stop anyone, and also you just made a shittier version that I will have to buy in order to play your game.

Basically, if the pirated version is the superior version, no one should be surprised when people get the superior version.

If you release on Steam for a decent price (too expensive and I'll just not play it, nothing kills my interest in a game more than some indie pixelshit costing twenty or thirty dollars, not even worth a pirate) or on GoG for that matter, then people will play. Steam and GoG have done more to kill piracy than any DRM has in the past twenty years.

Make a good game and support it. If you're going to release DLC (which is fine) actually make it worth money.

>>389325159
>Over half a million copies for an indie game
>Failure
http://steamspy.com/app/367520

Do you have a statement from the devs saying they're disappointed with the sales?

>>389324739
not being worth a pirate.

it being on steam or GOG.

make something worth buying you cunt.

>>389324739
>what would stop me from torrenting a game
you're asking the wrong question. you should be asking
>what will help ensure you buy a game

>>389325159
Because it released in a market of 2D metroidvania platformers during an era of other metroidvania platformers.

>>389325159
Bullshit

http://teamcherry.com.au/huge-hk-one-month-update-over-65000-copies-sold-holy-moly/

>>389324739
A good game. I still buy most of my games because I'm too lazy to pirate. But I specifically pirate games that are channeled through NoA because fuck NoA forever

Is it a good idea to use Denuvo if you can afford it?

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>>389324739
Make a good game and sell it at a reasonable price on GoG.
Don't signal about your politics unless you're right-wing and even then don't be too obnoxious about it.
Never use Denuvo for any of your games or any future addon DRM beyond shit like Steam, even if it becomes affordable.

If you do that I'll probably end up buying your games.

>>389327160
what games signal right-wing politics non-obnoxiously?

>>389327330
Absolutely none of them to my knowledge. If I can determine your politics from your game when I'm "demoing" it, you've failed.
If I see a screencap from your Twatter on /v/ and it's kvetching about some prog cause though, I probably won't even bother downloading it.

>>389327457
time to make fake Twitter screencaps for indie game developers I don't like

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>>389327457
Oh no, anon, you're truly hurting the sales of those poor leftist indie devs!

Is the self-aggrandizement and entitlement complex a symptom of the autism?

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>>389327703
>I don't want to give money to shitlibs
>"wowwww you must think you're so important, huh, well I didn't even want your money"
wew

>>389324739

1 of 2 main options that I see.

1) Make a memorable, unique, fun game with semi-decent production value.

2) Make a game that's fun enough and sell it for cheap as fuck, like $2 max.

Just use vmprotect, it's cheap enough for you to afford it, works well enough that it wont get cracked unless people who sort of know what they're doing show interest
If you reach the point where people actually try to crack it, it means you've made a lot of money anyway

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Just make a game 100 gb in size. It would take forever to torrent with the uploading rate being reliant on seeders compared to just downloading on steam.

>>389324739
Making a game. An Actual Game. With good Gameplay. Not a cash cow, not a yearly milking of a brand for the sake of doing so.

If you add Denuvo, I will not buy. I wouldn't even pirate it. I don't really pirate much if at all these years to begin with. If a game looks fun, I'll buy it. If it has a demo, I'll try it then buy it if it's for me. If it's got no demo but is on Steam, I'll buy it, try it, and refund it if I don't like it.

Tl;dr make a game because you like making games and it will show and get a good enough following. You'll never stop pirates because some people are lazy and uncaring fucks, but you can prevent some pirates by simply making a good game and NOT adding shit like Denuvo that is more of a hassle for LEGITIMATE BUYERS than it is for pirates.

>>389324739

Nothing. Because your game isn't gonna be good enough to buy.

If I could not pirate it, I just wouldn't play it. Maybe in three years when it's $1.99 on a steam sale. Til then, I'm not interested.

>>389324739

make a demo

>>389324739
Respect for the game and respect for the dev.
The problem with me isn't money, it's about whether I want to support shitty people/practices/games.
Imo any game I would rather pirate than pay for isn't worth it anyway.

>>389328228
how do I accomplish this with a 2D game?

>>389324739
As an actual indie dev,
Fucking kill youself, OP.

>>389324739
>An indie gamedev
>I want to make a living off of developing games
Sorry, to disappoint you anon, but you won't make a living by being indie gamedev, denuvo or not.

>>389324739
>What would stop you from pirating a game?
the developers
the age and availability of the game

>>389324739
Make a good game, you twat.

The vast majority of people only steal/pirate as a last resort, and prefer to pay for their goods even when piracy or theft are trivially easy or carry no risk. A good portion of pirates will even go out of their way to pay if they feel their 'test drive' was good enough. The die hard

>LOL WHY WOULD I EVER PAY FOR ANYTHING, FAGS?

losers are an incredible minority compared to those that not only will pay.. but WANT to pay. It's just a regular facet of human psychology. I think it has to do with the sense of truly owning something as your own property.

Piracy being a problem means your quality is bad, your service is bad, or both.

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>>389329295
You don't. Try looking up some obscure indie games on steam and then find a torrent on pirate bay. There's literally no torrents for them most of the time because no one cares unless you make an amazing game.

>>389324739
Make a good game.

And don't bother listening to the fags that say "I'll buy it if it's worth it".

They're filthy fucking liars that can't accept they're commiting crimes. You can also put out a demo I guess.

a lot of the games I pirate I want to check out to see how they are because they are getting a lot of attention so I'm curious just to play it for myself
sometimes I am pleasantly surprised by a dope ass game and add it to my wishlist to be notified when it goes on sale

perfect example is cuphead
it looks cool, I like megaman type jump and shoot games but I dont really know these developers so I dont want to spend money on an unproven game I might not enjoy
I'll pirate it, play around with it, and if I like I'll buy it on sale
if it really blows my hair back I'll buy it right then and there
I only buy games at full price from games I am super excited for and even then that is rare that I buy games at launch prices

also helps when the devs are cool as fuck
like when I heard the hotline miami guy was helping pirates get the game running on pirate bay I thought that was dope and bought it
or the witcher guys, they were super based and made me feel good about supporting them

>>389324739
Make a good game, sell it at a reasonable price and don't give me the feeling that you're trying to fuck me over. I was on board with Paradox and their games because at the time I really liked their games and they felt like a small studio catering to a niché audience so I wanted to support them, then they switched gears to that abysmal DLC model and their games got progressively worse so I started pirating everything but the basegame.

>>389324739
>What would stop you from pirating a game?
A decent free demo. Minimum of two levels, preferably not the first two or the best two.

Pay what you want model

>>389330830
Oh, and to add to this: the full version should not have any form of DRM or anti-tamper. If the legit game comes bundled with malware that hurts me as a legit customer then I'm not going to choose to pay for an experience that is worse than the free alternative.

Honestly, you're not unfortunate for not being able to afford Denuvo, it would only make you lose sales.

>>389324739
People are going to pirate regardless of what you do, and trying to stop them is an uphill battle that you have no chance of winning.
So first step, don't fucking bother with DRM beyond the bare basics of whatever platform you are publishing to.
If your game is good, and you manage to get word out, it will have buyers, and they will outnumber the pirates, but you will never stop pirates as a whole.
One thing to consider though is a good demo. Some pirates do the whole try before they buy thing, so if you don't want them to do that via piracy, you can put out a solid demo and potentially curb that, while also giving general consumers a taste of the game to inform their purchases.

>>389324739
Making a good game for starters. I've bought plenty of fucking games, my shelves can't contain the fucking physical releases I've acquired. Undertale would never have gotten as popular as it did without the free demo and then the pirated rar copy of the game itself that was uploaded on /v/ on the day of release. Be simpler and people will reach out towards you.

>>389324739
>What would stop you from pirating a game?
Living in a country where you can actually afford to pay bills and eat food from your average paycheck, instead in a country where debt is the status quo.

So basically a miracle or a marriage proposal from a westerner female.

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>>389324739
Silly OP, the answer to your question is simple and well-known. First you take the money, then you (maybe) make your game.

>play game for 20 hours
>enjoy the hell out of it
>"wowie wow that game was fun, but i'm not sure the dev deserves my ten bucks, i mean 20 hours is a little short, and there's no replayability so it's not like i'd play it again, and there's no point in getting cheevos and-and-and"
>see new game
>"hee hee well golly gosh i guess i'll just pirate it and see if it's worth buying before i waste any money :)"
>repeat
No piratefag will ever post their steam library because they talk the talk but do not under any circumstances actually buy games that they pirate. They will make excuses until the cows come home about "oh if the game had had THIS feature then MAYBE it'd be worth the money but only 15 hours of gameplay for 5 bucks just doesn't seem fair to me, the '''''consumer''''''

>>389324739
If it's really good, bonus points for no BS counterproductive drm.

bought Witcher3 on GOG also telltale games. bought gunpoint on 3 different steam accounts and played through it probably around triple that amount because gunpoint is just THAT good.

We should bring back the death penalty for pirates.

>>389324739
reasons i pirate:
- shit devs / publisher (EA, Ubisoft, Konami, etc.)
- curious about sub-par to badly reviewed AAA games
- hard to find digital copies / not sold in major & popular retailers (i.e; the Deadpool game, for a time)

as long as you're not in any of these categories, I MAY buy your game if it garners enough attention. but if it's just one of those shitty student/amateur project capitalizing on the horror/MUHJUMPSCARES genre / FNaF craze, yeah, you're not seeing a single penny from me.

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If all games were free I wouldn't pirate.

Honestly just don't release it on pc.
For some reason every time I pirate a game is always on pc, even though I will still buy it for consoles.
Case in point Gurumin, I just bought it pn the 3ds after pirating it for pc. It just feels good to purchase your games, bit no way I'm spending money on something I can pirate literally a click away

>>389325159
because it wasnt good

>>389324739
Maybe if you put Goofy stuff if the game is Pirated might be a good idea.

Also the game must feel worth it's price ya know...

>>389331604
>reasons i pirate:
>shit devs
how is this a reason to pirate
if the dev is shit, why are you playing the game

Teh pirates lyfe is a lyfe for me lololol and a bottle of win.
Nothing's stopping me. There is no way to stop a pirate other than always on DRM. You can only convince them to buy the game. That's what happened to me with morrowind, thief 2 and gothic 2.
Just make the game good enough to convince a pirate to get it.

>all this underage itt

>>389331737
Because every pirated game is a lost sale and if you pirate enough games they will go bankrupt, isn't that the angle you idiots keep pushing?

>>389324739
These days I either pirate to demo a game or out of spite. Put out a demo and don't be a jackass on social media all day long and I'll gladly buy your games.

Minecraft is so easy to crack, most people, who played it, have never paid a penny. Good chunk of players (even today) are using stolen accounts to play official servers. Notch is a pirate himself, so he didn't invest too much in protection of his own game.
Yet the game was very successful. This is a proof that piracy hardly affects the sales.

>>389331818
No it isn't. Most people, who pirate, would have not buy the game anyway.

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If I want to play your game and I agree with your political views I'll buy it. If I want to play your game and don't agree with your political views, I'll pirate it. Simple.

>>389324739
it appeals to my niche interests rather than just being something that might amuse me for a few hours
but the thing is that the more you try to win over the pirates, the more you end up alienating your potential non-pirate cosumers.
in a more general thing, you want to price your game at something which won't cause people to hesitate when they get the urge to impulse buy. one or two hour's worth of minimum wage in your country, typically.

>>389332271
i need sauce

>>389324739
I usually don't pirate games, but if someone puts crippling DRM in a game I won't even think of buying it at all. Most of the time I lose all interest entirely at that point and don't even bother pirating it once the crack inevitably comes out.

If you want people to not pirate your game that's just too bad because it's not going to stop no matter what you do. Unless your game is so fucking awful nobody wants to play it in the first place people are going to get something free instead of paying for it if they can.
You're better off trying to get people with money to buy your game rather than prevent other poor people who will just pirate it from doing so.

>>389332417
I'm sure you taste just fine without it.

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Make it free, faggot

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look at it this way, if enough people pirate your game for it to be an issue at all you've already won as an indie dev. more people pirate a game that's talked about a lot, and unlesd you've done something monumentally retarded to get your game talked about that means way more gained sales from publicity than sales "lost" to pirating

>>389324739
>What would stop you from pirating a game?
Make it good and I'll buy it.

>>389325159
I didn't even pirate it to try it

>>389333225
thanks

>>389325159
>fail

It doesn't need to sell AAA figures to justify a sixty million dollar budget in order for the executive board not to can it. It did not fail.

Pirates don't like to spend money. They'd pirate a house and food if they could.

>>389324815
no, you're the one that should get the fuck off.
we have /agdg/ and occasional gamedev threads here on /v/ too.
Fuck off or lurk more, fucking newfag.

>>389324739
Firstly games are selling less with denuvo than before, so Denuvo isn't helping as much as some think it is.

Most people who pirate simply are too poor to buy games, no matter what you do this won't change unless the game is cheap enough where they can afford it.

People will always take the path of least resistance, buying on steam and getting all updates for free is easier than pirating for most people. They do it because they can't afford the games.

What you're doing is like asking how you can convince someone who is stealing an apple from your store to not steal apples anymore.

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>>389324739
>What would stop you from pirating a game?

>>389324739

Undertale has no denuvo and sold millions

There is literally nothing you can do, I'm gonna pirate it regardless.
Even if you get Denuvo that will just delay me for a week or two, I have no problem with waiting.
Fuck you.

>>389324739
You could choose the Acid Wizard route. They've recently released their game fully on Steam, but they also uploaded it to the sailor site as well.
Even if your game is half decent, you can get some publicity for it.

>>389324739
Making a decent fucking game will. All those stupid fucking threads about pirating and the retards that post "lel still paying for stuff brainlet" are one of the worst things on this site.
You think most people want to pirate? No. Everyone that I have takjed with either doesnt have the money to buy a game on release or just doesnt want to spend them on a game he doesnt enjoy.
"If you cant buy the game dont play it lol" FUCK YOU
If you dont want your game purated then dont make an unispired boring piece of crap.
Im falling for the bait here but dont blame pirating for poor sales on your shitty games god dammit

>>389324739
you release it DRM free for 5-6$
the only indie I bought was besiege for 6$, literally couldnt be hassled to pirate every update especially if price is so low.
yeah, it has steamworks but justified by the workshop integration and machine sharing, any more than that is a no.
it also has to be a good indie, your meme unity turd most likely isnt

sure as hell I wont buy your 35$ denuvo embedded shit, but dont worry, setups fee is just 1.2K € for indies, so you can afford it

>>389324739
either begone you scum, or just make good game so somebody would pay you for your 1s and 0s

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>>389324739
>What would stop you from pirating a game?
Nothing. I mostly don't bother with multiplayer games so even if you made a game you can't pirate it wouldn't be a game I would pirate even if I could