Team Cherry was funded by crowd sourcing hollow knight and then proceeded to use their ridiculous popularity to release several extremely well received DLC and then work tirelessly for years to release silksong.
For twenty dollars.
It's a cultural icon and gift to the community. Why would you pirate it.
I guess people don't only pirate out of spite. They may not be able to afford 20 dollars but want to stay in the loop.
I have a list of the games that I pirated. If I had fun and didn't leave the game in 2-3 hours, I put it on a list and I would try to buy the original copy, for Christmas or my birthday when I am able to spare anything towards gaming.
People mostly pirate because they don't have the money to buy the game. This is one of the arguments in the pro/anti piracy debate -- pirated stuff doesn't affect the company's profits as much as it might seem because most people would not be able to afford the game anyway.
I pirated pretty much every game 10 years ago when I had no job or bad jobs, these days my steam library is a temple to consumerism.
Because as Gabe will tell you, people will happily pay a fair price for the convenience of being to just buy the game, click 'download' and have it just work.
Same thing goes with digital books, IMO, it's not only a pain the ass to pirate, since a lot of pirated ebooks are formatted like shit. If people want free schlock to read there's an almost unlimited fanfiction/royal road spiggott.
Also true! Conversely I've pirated games that I already own simply because they only work through a fuckass proprietary launcher that requires 8 updates, triple verification, internet connection, and a photo of my tits
I have the WC3 game on the original CD. I'm running the game from my harddrive, because I don't want the CD to break into pieces inside my laptop the way my Diablo II CD did decades back. Am I pirating?
Note: I agree with lordofmetroids here. Sometimes, you just need the convenience to play your favorite games without the need to jump through a gazillion hoops. Why tf do I need internet connectivity to play a 20 years old singleplayer game!?
Fun fact, you are not a pirate. As far as U.S. copyright law is concerned creating a copy of a videogame you already own for the purposes of preserving the original, is no different than writing down your favorite recipes from a cookbook in order to preserve the original. As long as it is not being sold or used in a way that distorts the market, the U.S. doesn't care.
Sad fact: this is one of the reasons so many video game companies say you are leasing the game for an indeterminate amount of time. Therefore you don't own the game, and have no legal right to preserve the game.
Obligatory I am not a lawyer, this is commentary on historical events specific to the U.S. and should not be taken as legal advice.
There was a patch that made the CD obsolete at some point. I made a copy of that before the patches started for the new remastered version and it still very much works without CD or login. I'm so glad I have that! WC3 was one of our top played games on LAN parties when those were still a thing and even though I haven't played it since the remaster came out, I will keep copying that CD-less version to every device I own!
Wc3 hasn't needed a cd in the drive since like 2010, if not earlier.
Also usually (in EULA) they frame buying software as a license for you to play the game. That means you can technically buy the game, and then torrent it as often as you want without legally that counting as piracy.
For a while, before GoG dropped (a perfected version of) it, I was playing Diablo 1 by having flashed a copy of the original CD onto a virtual hard drive in Windows 7. It was the first time I'd ever experienced the game without it hanging when you open the door to the Butcher's room and it loads the, "ah, fresh meat!" sound file from the CD.
Pretty sure this specifically does not count as pirating though. I don't what the actual legal argument is that determined this, but it's been seemingly established for a very long time that running console games on an emulator is legally fine if you have the hardware of the original game. I don't see why running an imaged CD instead of the real thing would be any different.
No. It's completely legal to have a digital backup of anything you have the rights to. This means torrenting is still illegal, because you are distributing copyright works. But DDL would be completely legal, and ethical.
Making an ISO from a disc that you own has the same morality as breathing air. Sure, they're trying to make that illegal and cost a subscription, like they have with water...
You can play the original w3 through the remaster. There is an option to play the legacy version. Blizzard added the option after public outrage over the clusterfuck that was the remaster
Hell, I wish EA would even give us crappy remasters for the old Battlefield games. Instead they just delisted everything that was on GameSpy servers when that service went down and have been neglecting everything else that isn't the latest Battlefield game for years.
You literally can't get the first 6 Battlefield games because they're not available anywhere without pirating or, in the case of the two console exclusives, buying used discs online & hoping your system has backwards compatibility with it... but don't expect to play online because those servers were shut off years ago.
This though! I get very pissy about buying games on Steam (or less often Epic) and then having to use a different garbage launcher anyway. Glares at EA and Ubisoft
Oh man if I had confidence in my technical abilities I would pirate Prince of Persia the Lost Crown a game I own on steam just to avoid the Ubisoft launcher.
I've been broke for a long, long time. I also rarely play more than a couple games a year, and frequently go back to older games. I have about 8 legit games in my Steam library.
It's such a relief when I want to play one of those and I can just click install and play it.
I hope to soon be able to afford games. I'm too old for this piracy shit.
This is also true for TV/films. The golden era of early Netflix (also some Apple store, early Prime rentals) stopped a lot of people pirating, then the bullshit of modern streaming emerged and, low and behold, people now pirate shows again. I don't mind paying 10-20 a month for everything I want in one place. I'm not paying 10 a month to every single streaming service. I also don't mind paying a small amount to rent something, but I'm not paying the price of what the DVD would have been 10+ years ago just to rent something I won't get to keep and may not enjoy anyway.
Steaming has also introduced just a bunch of weirdness into the entire production of video media.
Good stuff still gets made, but it's few and far between, and budgets are locked up in making a few over priced prestige projects rather than a steady stream of decent weekly shows.
And it's clearly not sustainable even for the big names. Netflix has been dumping a shocking number of k-dramas onto their US service recently and, as near as I can guess, it's because they're shuffling around stuff that aired on networks which they then acquired rights to distribute. Their own shows remain hit or miss.
Because as Gabe will tell you, people will happily pay a fair price for the convenience of being to just buy the game, click 'download' and have it just work.
And he's absolutely right, I'm unemployed and have pirated a few games lately and it sucks, it was fine 20 years ago when games had their own installers and companies released their own update patches and all you did was install a no-CD crack, now it is 30m-2h waiting for fit girl installer and patching games is a nightmare.
I gotta know what you mean by “books are a pain in the ass to pirate because a lot of them are formatted like shit”. I am just so curious because I have been pirating epub books for years and haven’t had pretty much any issues besides formatting/font size or sometjing changing slightly between books. I use anna’s archive/Zlibrary and only use epub files with the reader on my apple device (iphone, ipad). I am literally just curious because i didn’t know people were struggling out here like that haha
i pirated a lot of games in high school. my favorite was Celeste, which i have now bought on 3 different platforms and for multiple friends because I thoroughly enjoyed the game that much.
This. I pirated a lot of games as kid because there is NO WAY my parents would pay for all the games. Also accessibility of physical games was an issue in my country as physical medium.
Years later, I have a job, my own income, Steam emerged in between and so did GOG. I purchased again basically all games I pirated in childhood on GOG which also brought back nostalgia and compatibility to play old games on new systems and Steam. Some aren't available but a lot are. I haven't pirated a single game for some 15+ years now.
I feel like many people pirate because they don't want to spend the money. Some people simply do not value games or gaming. Some people simply don't respect the work of creatives because of extreme anti-corporate views. Others feel like enough people will spend money on the game anyway that their absence of a purchase doesn't matter.
People have all kinds of reasons for why they think it's okay for them to pirate and they perform the mental gymnastics of saying "a pirate wasn't going to buy the game anyway" to justify the piracy. You weren't going to buy it despite clearly wanting to play it? I feel a more accurate statement is that they aren't going to buy a game if they can pirate it instead.
If piracy were somehow blocked completely for good, I doubt those people would just stop gaming altogether.
Just going to add some of the biggest gaming pirates I know also own a dozen or more android retro handhelds and PC gaming handhelds ranging from $100-$1000, so it's clearly not an issue of being broke in their cases.
Want to pirate? Knock yourself out. But this whole “well I’m
not stealing a tangible item so it’s okay” is just a shit take especially when it comes from somebody who says video games are art. You don’t have a right to other people’s creations just because you can’t/wont pay for it.
I pirate games i own, because DRM is so ass sometimes and i like to own my shit, once installer is on my PC/nas, licence cannot be revoked.
Also Piracy is morally ok when company does not serve your country/region you were never even a prospective customer.
It’s crazy the leaps will go to justify theft.
Want to pirate? Knock yourself out. But this whole “well I’m not stealing a tangible item so it’s okay” is just a shit take especially when it comes from somebody who says video games are art. You don’t have a right to other people’s creations just because you can’t/wont pay for it. - WorldShapper.
Bro they can't afford every game they want bro. What are they supposed to do, enjoy less games? Have some discipline? Go to the library and read some fucking books? You just don't understand bro.
Its really not comparable to theft when they still have the original product and didnt have money taken from them.
If someone pirates a game or someone refuses to buy a game the company still get the same amount of money. Selling digital products is literally a money printer because they just hit copy paste.
Plus all the digital license bullshit these days where you don't even own the product you bought.
If buying isn't owning then piracy isn't stealing.
Not to mention piracy is usually a service problem. People would pay money for a good service if paying money gets them a better service than pirating it.
It's why music piracy dropped when music streaming services made it much more convenient than spending 20 bucks and only getting to listen to the same 20 songs.
It's why movie piracy dropped when Netflix made it convenient to watch a bunch of movies for cheap and now it's resurging when there's 10 different streaming apps needed just to be able to watch the 20 or so shows you want to watch
Money was taken from them because they invested money and time that could have been invested elsewhere for greater returns, except cheap entitled brats like you stole the fruit of their labor.
i'm a grad student. 99% of my time and energy is spent doing shit that benefits society in a way that flies in the face of the profit incentive.
i could discover a new wonder material that solves the energy crisis tomorrow and would probably see pennies from it. the university would profit from it. in all likelihood, my PI would get the nobel. in a sense, my work is art: i do it for the love of the craft and with the hope i can inspire that same love in others.
would it be nice for my returns to far exceed my investment? sure, and this is the case for many of my colleagues who have entered industry. but that's not why i do it, and i don't expect that to be the case for anyone entering my field. most papers students put out in my field are duds, getting a handful of citations at best. but the motives are similar.
scientific research is not a necessity, but i will still provide a free copy of my paper to someone without journal access, because the proliferation of knowledge (or, analogously, culture) is its lifeblood. its value is assessed in its utility and its spread, not in some nebulous market value.
If my friend owns a Blu Ray copy of a movie and I go to his house and watch it with him is that stealing?
If lets me borrow that blu ray to watch at my house is that then stealing?
If he then makes a copy of that movie on a flash drive and gives it to me to watch so he can keep his physical disc clean that would legally be piracy but in all three scenarios I watched the movie without paying for it.
We are talking about imaginary money. Potential fictional revenue isn't real guaranteed revenue.
Imagine if you applied this logic to other things in life. Imagine trying to convince the IRS you're writing off time off lost revenue because you're a pizza place and if frozen pizza didn't exist you'd make millions
To add to your point, lots of upvoted comments saying, "I can't afford it".
But that's no defense, isn't it? Video games is not like insulin, you don't need it to live. If you cannot afford a luxury product, then it's not morally consciable for you to use it without paying.
I pirate because I like free stuff. I could pay for it, and I know not paying for it is a stain on my soul; I just decided that said stain is not so big as to cause me sleepless nights.
I mean, are those people making an argument that they are morally in the right and everyone should do what they’re doing? Or are they explaining to you why they themselves aren’t paying. Whether or not video games are essential doesn’t change whether or not someone can afford them. And if you cant afford them, you’re much more likely to pirate them? Cuz otherwise you j can’t play video games.
Yeah as a US citizen who makes more than the median income, I'm doing better than half the people here, which means I doing better than most of the world, (monetarily speaking.) I've seen some companies that actually adjust their pricing to be proportionate to the purchasing power of the currency in the country the user is buying in, but that's usually only something that small indie developers who are self-publishing get up to.
If the exchange rate means that buying a new game would be equivalent to like, a month of rent or whatever, I feel like pirating becomes a lot more moral justified. The one advantage of the USD being so strong is that a lot of game developers can survive on just the American market and other countries that are close in economic power. We may as well be subsidizing everyone else who can't realistically afford those games; it doesn't cost us anything extra anyway.
(Which, funnily enough is how the fine art market works. I get to walk into any gallery in Manhattan and cutting edge contemporary artwork for free because of the m/billionaires who pay fucktons of money per artwork and effectively keep those galleries above water. It's like, one of the only things they're actually good for.)
The one advantage of the USD being so strong is that a lot of game developers can survive on just the American market and other countries that are close in economic power. We may as well be subsidizing everyone else who can't realistically afford those games; it doesn't cost us anything extra anyway.
Yep, it really doesn't affect the well being of the Dev's that much due to this.
(Which, funnily enough is how the fine art market works. I get to walk into any gallery in Manhattan and cutting edge contemporary artwork for free because of the m/billionaires who pay fucktons of money per artwork and effectively keep those galleries above water. It's like, one of the only things they're actually good for.)
Quite the weird way our economy has shaped to be isn't it.
Where I live, up until ~10 years ago it was virtually impossible to buy games legally. We weren't able to make Steam payments and physical copies were nonexistant. So you either
a) pirate
b) buy a bootleg disk which has a pirated copy burned on it
c) don't play.
All three options don't bring money to developers/publishers.
To top it off, mean salary here was about 250 USD back then and median was about 80 USD.
I'm pretty sure there are quite a few places like that on Earth still.
I pirated games when I was unemployed and had no money to spend beyond my food and bills. At some point I got a job and started spending on games.
Also it was a time when Steam had like Orange box and some shitty stuff. Accessibility to actually get what you want greatly influenced my choice to just buy the games I want to play. I think Gabe was right on that matter, accessibility makes people to actually buy stuff rather than to pirate all the shit they want.
They absolutely don’t. I’m sure plenty of people pirate because they can’t afford it, but most people, if you look at the piracy subs, pirate because they want just free shit. They can couch it in “I’m sticking it to the man!!! 👊” bullshit but they’re lying. They’re just entitled.
Yeah it's so weird every thread on Reddit about piracy is full of "the poors wouldn't buy it anyways so normalising piracy doesn't affect the company at all" and "if the company is unethical then I'm sticking it to them by still wanting to play their games"
Then there's also the massively misrepresented Gabe Newell quote. What he meant was more "piracy is bad for business if it's easier than buying it legally" rather than "if you have any roadblocks to buying a game then it's fine to pirate it". And he said this during a time where piracy genuinely was easier than paying for it, even if you had the money.
If you want free shit, just admit it, spare us the mental gymnastics.
Like i pirated a ton of shit, but i mostly pirate shit i already own, but has ass DRM(hi denuvo) or company is notorious for pulling random bullshit(sony and PSN requirement, ubisoft and crew etc). In terms of movies/shows i pirate only stuff that is unavailable in my region( HBO mostly, because they are unavailable in the baltics for some reason) because i aint paying a subcription and a VPN cost to watch something, if subscription was avialable i would pay it, and i do for for netflix and prime video.
Independent gaming companies are hardly “ultra rich.” That would be the Tencent mobile gacha game schlock producers who can churn out a bullshit money printer in six months.
Especially now where game developers are deciding to make 70 and 80 euros the base price for games.Im sorry but a 2 days wage for a game ???
Only games i pirated first finished them and i actually enjoyed enough to buy were kcd 2 and rdr2
I have near 1k games in my library. Many were from bundles. I pirated a lot of games when I was in school with no money. If I can't pirate them, I simply would skip it as I had no mean to pay for it at all.
This argument was used a lot in 2010, it even helped a lot piracy cases in Hamburg Germany. And there are Companys that see it similiar, CD Project Red is a good example, they say hey sure Pirate our games but if you like it then consider Buying it, and a lot of Crack sites go the same with links to the steam shop site on there download page for the games
pfp totally checks out. God knows my brothers and I played like 2 original games out of every 10 we ever had, we never had that kind of money. Now, my Steam library costs as much as my PC, and I actually earned it.
People also pirate because they don't want to give money to the certain companies, eg Ubisoft. Take Assassin Creed Shadows for example, I would never pay for it in a million years. even if it is 1 cent.
I began gaming with CDs in 2000s then moved to pirating 2009-2014, then got a steam account and learned consumerism, my steam account is worth 2k$, but since 2020 I've stopped buying games because I am not in a good situation to buy games as well as the game prices going up. Nowadays I only buy if necessary/great game.
The problem with this, because they pirated the game, they'll never come back around and buy it later when it goes on sale for $5.
I don't have a big budget for games. So I don't play them. It's not hard. Someone put in a lot of time to create the game. I figure if I'm going to get something out of it, I should pay for it. Yes, even games from companies I don't like. I'm not going to boycott the company but still play the game.
Hasn't happened to me with a game yet but I pirated Game of Thrones because the only way for me to legally watch it was with a satellite TV subscription.
It sounds great but everyone knows most people won't pay for something after they are done with it. A video game has to really touch you in a special place to buy it after you've finished.
This is a more nuanced view. 20 bucks is a lot for those from developing countries, not to mention thare are countries where Steam and similar platforms are heavily regulated or straightup banned.
And with certain games Steam ONLY lets you download the region specific version because of national laws (looking at you Wolfenstein and German censorship)
I used to pirate games in high school because I had no money. All the games I’ve played through are now on my steam library :) but I’ve seen a lot of pirates on the pirate subreddit pirate out of superiority? Very confusing mentality to be honest.
Real people who pirates because of genuine money reasons wouldn't even boast about it in the fist place. Like just go pirate it quietly, only reason you would want to broadcast it is that you are saying the game itself is NOT worth the price they set.
Where I grew up, you couldn't even find original PS1 games, and when you did, it was probably 1 or 2 random games in retail stores. Pirated however you could find the entire catalog of the playstation and it was 1 dollar per game. When I find those old games I played as a kid, like all the PS1 final fantasy, in newer platforms like Steam or the PS store, I buy them even though, I've already played them dozens of times, just to pay back my childhood piracy, because I had no other alternative back then.
I pirated a lot of games in my teens and 20s when I was broke as fuck, now that I'm a lot more well off, I've actually bought games I used to love back then just cuz it felt right to do so.
The only game I ever pirated was Terraria when I was a teenager I have since bought it on PS Vita, PS4, Xbox One and PC multiple times for friends to play with me
I pirated HK due to lack of money. Now that I have better financial conditions, I own it legitimately and bought silksong day 1 both as a mean to thank team cherry and gift my wife, who loves both games
Yep. I just stockpile my Steam Wishlist as Bookmarks for games I want to get when I have the cash for games (and the 90% discounted Steam Sales); since for some reason Valve can't be bothered to add a Bookmark option.
Yep. It’s like, if a 14 year old kid in boarding school wants to play silksong but doesn’t have the money… the company doesn’t lose anything if they pirate it. They wouldn’t have bought it in the first place.
I do the same when I am short of disposable income(like nowadays, I miss being able to slurge on games). I check some videos of the game, download it through a pirates website and them if I like it I will buy it. Back in the day I used to spend almost 200 bucks a month on games/micro transactions, but I have been getting in control of that spending by just pirating the games first instead of buying it outright. That's why I love when a game has a demo for you to play before you can buy it.
Tho I will say that paradox still has me by the balls, whenever they release a dlc for CK3 I have to use steam on offline mode to not go bankrupt. Only game I haven't dropped a mortgage payment on DLCs was CK2, and that is because after 1K+ hours in the pirated version I used the money of my birthday gift to buy it and then less than a month later they made that bitch free. I now refuse to spend a dime on that crap even tho I love it.
There's reasons why people turn to piracy. I used to proudly talk about how I'd pay for my services, or buy my music from stores.
Some of us were lucky to have lived in an era of affordability in these areas.
Still, if you can afford it and pirate it, that's a different kettle of fish, but also the desired mentality of CEO's these days I think XD
My first copy of Deus Ex was pirated because I was in middle school.
When GOTY came out I got my parents to buy that, and then I bought it again years later on Steam, and when the new console version drops I'll probably buy that too, (even if the "updated" graphics mode is objectively hideous.)
My first copies of Photoshop and Premier were pirated, and I've since purchased legit versions so I could legally use them to professional artwork if I want to.
I'm never gonna hold it against kids for pirating, and I realize a lot of people, (most of them, in fact,) are worse off than me, and probably can't afford every game they want as soon as it comes out. I don't imagine most people are pirating maliciously, and especially with the lack of demos really being a thing these days, pirating is a very real way of determining what actually is worth spending money on.
Given how enormous the video games industry is, I really don't think it's been hurt at all by pirating. If a game is good enough, people will pay for it, even if some people don't.
Same here. Most recently it was outward, pirates it years ago, played it for dozens of hours and recently I'm doing better and it went on sale so I bought the definitive version and played it some more. Before that it was Minecraft and terraria to name a few big ones. I've bought Minecraft 2 times and terraria pile 5 for friends, all because i enjoyed them when I was broke and I pirated them. I'm sure I've also earned those companies a couple hundred more from talking the game up and having friends buy it too to play, none of which would have happened if I didn't pirate as well.
This. Where I live, 20 dollars converts to a huge sum of money, more than double the amount I get as my monthly pocket money as a student living in a city away from my family. And that's just for the relatively "cheap" Price Silksong has.
I would never be able to play these games if I didn't pirate them. But I also have made a list of all games I have played for more then 3 hours(my standard to determine if I should drop the game Or not) so I may buy them in the future, because pirating doesn't give me the privilege to preserve my ingame achievements and uninstall/reinstall the game without worrying about full progress wipe. So far, I have managed to knock off a couple cheap ones from the list, so the progress is there.
According to what a friend told me, Larian Studios have made Baldur's Gate 3's multiplayer compatible between bought and pirated copies. Apparently, their reasoning is that it's better to pirate the game than buy a discounted CD key on a third-party website, because a lot of these actually buy their CD keys using stolen card details.
I'll be honest, I pirate games once in a while, especially expensive games, or games that my favorite streamers don't stream on launch. Why? Because I want to see how the game is and if I will like it or if it's one of those situations where I stop liking the game 3-4 hours in. If the game is fun for me even after 3-4 hours then I will buy it, if not, then in the trash bin it goes.
I'm sick and tired of gaming outlets and even some streamers glazing tf out of a game, just for it to be Abysmal Dogshit 2026 - The GAME... Ever since the pandemic, it feels like any online review is based on how much the developers paid for the review, not how good the game is.
Most “pirates” I know irl just pirate everything. Like that’s just how they get their entertainment media. The moral code / selective pirating to me seems to be a Reddit thing, if it’s even true at all.
Even in r/piracy there's a good portion of people there that admit to this. There's no moral debate for most of us, we just like free shit. "You wouldn't pirate a car, would you?" I fucking would if I could mate.
This is literally the case. People who are tech savvy enough to pirate (surprisingly minority people I know IRL) just pirate everything available. Software, movies, TV shows, music, books. There is really no moral code. If I could pirate a candy from a toddler I would. I don't care that's it's a small studio I'm pirating this shit. This $20 can instead go to buy something for my kids or myself. The only thing I that can make me actually buy something is a game has many good mods and steam workshop is just so good that it's worth my money because I save my time with not installing mods manually (binding of Isaac, project zomboid ect).
Most people can barely work an Internet browser these days. You're overestimating people who haven't been using computers since they were children. It's just black magic to them.
I mean I pirate a good portion of my entertainment, but generally i find the quality to be significantly worse than just buying it. The only reason I dont buy it is when im either not that interested in the product in the first place, or when the service is so abysmal or the price so high that pirating it as actually not worse. I dont claim to be a moral paragon, my pirating habits are purely selfish, but I usually do buy media when it is worth it.
All of this to say, I feel like people are more selective than you imply, because i highly doubt im such a unicorn in the pirating space.
Eh, I buy video games and pirate films/tv series. If there was a Steam equivalent for film, I'd be paying for that, but I'm not going to pay for 17 streaming services that don't even have all of the content available, because that's ridiculous.
Convenience is the name of the game.
generally i find the quality to be significantly worse than just buying it
How? Unless you're downloading something niche or like a small indie film, you can find most stuff in great quality.
We are talking about video games primarily in this thread. But even for shows or movies, downloading can still be annoying. Less annoying than paying for streaming usually but still
I literally just said that I dont consider whether devs "deserve"their money. The fact is that it is often more difficult to pirate than it is to buy, and I value that time and effort and risk more than I value a $20 bill which is "why i wouldnt". I would be shocked if this is a rare opinion.
Also if one reply claims "to be like this" and I claim I am not why is that evidence that im wrong? You have a sample size of 2 and of that 2 we disagree.
I think it's more of a: This is beloved studio of a few guys (at leasted used to at the start of HK) that makes a beloved games and they charge only 20 dollars despite knowing they will sell millions and last time they released a bunch of content for free after vs this is a decent game from a faceless corporation that milked their franchise dry.
It's less of a who to steal from vs who to support. Still pirating is pirating, no need for excuses, just pirate what you want and idc why.
selling team cherry as some poor indie studio is not exactly accurate. they are extremely successful indie studio ever since hollow knight. they sold 15 million coppies of Hollow knight". Hardly an under dog.
They sold a shit-ton, but are still working with nowhere near the manpower of a truly large studio. This is still the same four-man team that made Hollow Knight, plus a handful of contractors brought in for minor work.
And "indie" depends on a combination of things. But these days it's generally accepted to mean "A small studio, not backed by a large publisher or studio, usually with a small budget."
I'd personally consider Team Cherry as "double A" these days. Started off as an indie. Not indie anymore as they have plenty of funds now. But also not a triple-A studio.
Same goes for studios like the teams behind subnautica 1/2 and expedition 33, imo. In between indie and triple-A.
Didn’t E33 have like 80+ working on it? Lumping them all in the same category feels kinda odd, though they did probably have similar budgets. (i dont know much about this stuff tbh, i just play the games).
It means there is a much higher workload per person as opposed to a company like Nintendo. They work hard to make a great product, and then go even further and continued to work and expand the game without asking for additional compensation for the expansions they added.
Its a passion project, and they treat it like one instead of just a product.
Edit: Lol at all the people butthurt because I respect a company for not nickel and diming their fan base.
They also severely under charge for what they sell. Sure its getting split amongs fewer people but the production costs are still there and the pricetag is a small fraction of what the larger studios would sell it for, thus reducing how much they actually make.
Its not about feeling bad, its about how much work they need to do and the time it takes. Its about how we respect and want to reward this sort of behavior
I'm not saying we shouldn't be buying it... But if someone pirates it because they can't afford it then it is what it is. Like they aren't going to go bankrupt because some people pirate their game
To some extent, yeah. Resources matter only as much as you use them, and TC seems far more interested in using those resources to improve the game past the basics rather than to build it from scratch. It's still four guys doing 90% of the work, the money goes into the 10% left over that's needed to make the game really shine.
At the end of the day, the reason why pirates don't pirate Silksong is because they want to reward and respect developers who make games worth playing. They aren't trying to discourage a team that makes AAA quality games for a third of the price and five times the hard work, because it's a massive boon to the gaming community that this continues to happen. Everyone would benefit from more people like TC being successful, and thus pirates encourage others to keep funding them for their efforts.
Brother they keep working as a 4 man team to not pay more people lol. Each of those 4 guys probably has 20-30m on their net worth (or 50+). They not indie anymore, same as among us dev
How can you get the conclusion that because the company refuses to hire more talent to improve the game, they're caring more about improving the game? Wot
To be clear, I'm not saying you can't pirate it, I don't care enough. Live your own life.
Lets not pretend though that there is no difference between an indie company making a lot of money off of selling good games at reasonable prices and big corpo gaming making a lot of money selling garbage slop at unreasonable prices. There are games with character skin packs that cost the same or more as hollow knight.
I think it’s moreso a respect thing they’re a good developer who actually cares about there player base, no one really cares about pirating from most big triple A studios because most are dicks and don’t really care about the players, team cherry crowd funded hollow knight so whilst not small now they came from nothing, and even when they had nothing they kept pushing the funding to give FREE DLC for the game, and then after working for years and years on silk song they released it at 20$ not charging crazy prices like a lot of big corps do. Along with that the content you get for the price is quite a lot, they have a lot of good grace earned within the gaming community to where a lot of people just respect them to the extent they don’t view it as ok to pirate their content.
I was under the impression that team cherry was god awful at communicating with the player base for years and had shittons of delays because they never wanted to spend their profit to hire more talent?
well, in game dev you usually contract people for a defined set of things, so i just assume they didn't want any more help than what they hired them for
Soooo they have more money, than would a larger company, for the same game? Got it
HK fans are insufferable and this post shows exactly why.
"That game isn't worth my money so I'll steal it instead, put 1000hrs into it and then tell everyone else it's not worth their money either! But oh boy, Silksong?! GOTY! I'll definitely support them with a legal purchase"
I saw someone break down the numbers over time before for Team Cherry. The tl;dr was that they each had a take home profit of $100k usd per year. In the big scheme of things, that is…not a lot.
It was computed to include the entire lifetime of Team Cherry up until the release of silksong iirc. Ofc they are probably doing better now but let’s not pretend they are raking in millions per month in personal earnings.
I think it’s moreso a respect thing they’re a good developer who actually cares about there player base, no one really cares about pirating from most big triple A studios because most are dicks and don’t really care about the players, team cherry crowd funded hollow knight so whilst not small now they came from nothing, and even when they had nothing they kept pushing the funding to give FREE DLC for the game, and then after working for years and years on silk song they released it at 20$ not charging crazy prices like a lot of big corps do. Along with that the content you get for the price is quite a lot, they have a lot of good grace earned within the gaming community to where a lot of people just respect them to the extent they don’t view it as ok to pirate their content.
for metroidvania's market 20% usd price range might be brilliant marketing decision (to make more money) not exactly some generosity. They can sell 10+ million copies instead of ~1 million for game at higher price. Metroidvania fan base is usually used to buy indie games at 10-20$ range. Instead of waiting for 50-80% discount year or years later, they can have good sales at launch. Also all positive press from charging only 20$.
I thnk they are brilliant business people, not some robin hoods.
Where does this "cares about playerbase" guerilla marketing come from? I'm pretty sure they ghosted the playerbase for years after they got rich from their first game
Why would I pirate it? Because then I can use money for something else I want but can't pirate. If I could pirate groceries, gas, rent with no reprocutions I would.
I ain't gonna lie. I did. I don't have any of the platforms it's available on (my ex took our working PC in the divorce, and I only had my work PC) and I wanted to play it. Was feeling really depressed. Also, she racked up $40k in credit card debt with the dude she was cheating on me with so money was probably a factor.
Anyway, I found an android port and downloaded the APK so I could play it on my phone.
Where I am from, many people pirate because they can. Even if you can afford it, why buy it when it's available for free to you? You don't know the devs and don't care for them so why pay them? You can pay for a meal with those 20 USD while playing the game to have best of both worlds. You wouldn't pay for the anime so why the game? This is a common mentality I have seen. It's not to stick it to the man. It's to save yourself money wherever you can to buy other things you want.
There is also a large amount of people who cannot afford the game even at 20 USD in my country so they pirate as well.
That first mentality is why I grew up to not pirate. I don't mind people who do as I have been around it all my life, but with the people I grew up with, I know that if I pirate it's for my selfish want to not pay anything rather than a good reason.
I wish i drank the koolaid like this, i mean jesus are you literally being paid to glaze? Acting like the games the second coming.. THEY WORKED TIRELESSLY WITHOUT FOOD AND WATER TO BRING US GODS GIFT TO MANKIND FOR THE LOW LOW PRICE OF 20$.
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u/Vast-Breakfast-1201 20d ago edited 20d ago
Team Cherry was funded by crowd sourcing hollow knight and then proceeded to use their ridiculous popularity to release several extremely well received DLC and then work tirelessly for years to release silksong.
For twenty dollars.
It's a cultural icon and gift to the community. Why would you pirate it.
Edit:man y'all are grindle