In a refreshing take on the battle against software piracy, developer Introversion has revealed that it ’causes mayhem’ on peer-to-peer networks to exasperate pirates and downloaders who plan to play illegal copies of its games.
Speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz in an interview to be published next week, the developer talks candidly about its methods of disrupting piracy by subverting and polluting peer-to-peer networks.
“You can’t stop peer-to-peer file sharing, so the best route to combat it is to subvert it,” revealed Tom Arundel, sales and marketing director at Introversion.
“We will release a version of our game that looks like it’s been hacked at the same time as a pirated version gets out,” he said.
“Our version looks like the real game, but is in fact a demo. After the third time of downloading the demo, the P2P user will be very, very frustrated, and will do one of two things – give up or buy the game from us. We subverted the Bit Torrent network for Darwinia very successfully this way,” he revealed.
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I looked at their site i wouldnt play any of those games i think they have nothing to worry abour especially pirate copies of their games
This fails when people leave bad comments for these bogus downloads and the sharers’ IP addresses are eventually banned. LOL!
the only good thing about this idea is that it defeats the “try before you buy” argument. and hell if i decided i wanted a game i wouldnt just give up. not untill i find that there is no real version availble.
hmmm have they considered that we may be willing to try again. Furthermore have they considered that that various torrent sites have forums where we can comment on which are fakes. Even if they get into the forems and post bogus information we know the regular posters who’s comments will weigh more.
Even if I wanted to play the games and I got a bad file I would just find a different file. They underestimate us.
They are trying to act like they have some sort of grasp on P2P.
Sure you program video games. You’re not that stupid.
But neither are we.
I guess they are happy detering a few noobs here and there.
*Addtion*
I wonder what their excuse will be when their games *still* don’t sell.