Neowin.net

Game developers are not made and broken by profits, especially if they are up-and-coming. And if they have more ideas that would translate into highly playable, addictive games, why should it punish them. If this is their one and only game and/or idea, well they only have themselves to blame, but this kind of story can only help their reputation.

What will see them "fade into obscurity" is if this gets them a high powered job at a big games developer and they don't live up to the high expectations their new employers have for them.

What about the current sales ?
DRM-free will always be pirated (so are the other anti-piracy-protected titles).
But it's good to hear that some people turn back and buy the game.
I did that for some of the titles too (downloaded it and then buyed it because good games deserve to be buyed and developers payed), and with todays advertising and marketing you really never know if a title will be playable and good or not...

90% of World of Goo all PC game installs are pirate copies.

I purchased WOG through steam for a friend as a joke. This is a horrible game I did not enjoy the demo. The music and basis is top notch, however the repetition and system design for end user playing is frustrating and lacking refinement. I know the friend I purchased this for has played that game .30 hours total as well as having recently alerted me to his uninstalling of WOG. It is quite silly. Try again as, the Wii or perhaps iphone game.

As a comparison one torrent site says Crysis has 725 Seeders 2916 Leechers and that has DRM. So you can't really say that this game is pirated because of the lack of DRM protection.

I played the demo and it seemed alright, though $20 is definitely too much for it. On Steam I picked up Peggle for $10, Eets for $2.5 and Gumboy / Gumboy Tournament for $5... all of which I found more enjoyable. And last time I checked the PC version didn't support widescreen, despite the Wii version supporting it - that's simply lazy.

i havent downloaded a game worth paying for in ten years. last title i actually bought was Civilization 2.

WoG does not have a 90% pirated player-base because it's free of DRM. It has a 90% pirated player-base because it's an OK game, at best, and is not worth $20.

WoG is a great game and one that I have absolutely no regrets about pre-ordering

I bought my copy after playing the demo and haven't regretted it for a second.

That's just sad. It's a great game at a great price. At least 8 hours of game play for $20. You can't go wrong. Come on you ******* support a great game.

I downloaded "pirated" version (for mac, it was out before official, hehe). I liked the game so much I bought it, €15 is nothing for fun game like that...

Would be interesting to learn how many of the pirated versions are actually playing the game. That someone pirate a game does not mean they actually play it more then 1.

There would be 90% of pirated copies with DRM too. DRM software is not an effective way to fight piracy. Im fact it's often easier to pirate a game using DRM software like starforce than install it legally. Pirated copies of game using DRM software like starforce comes without the DRM software and this is a big plus for the pirated version of the game since those softwares can bug and do bad things to a computer. I don't say this because i heard this here and there i say this because it actually happened to one of my friend. After installing a game coming with starforce (X3 if my memory is good) his DVD drive was not able to read disc anymore. He had to un-install windows and re-install it to make it work. Other example of a bad behaviour by DRM software is my legal Shaun of the Dead DVD. PowerDVD, Windows Media PLayer Classic and my XBox 360 all can't read my legal Shaun of the Dead DVD. When i try to watch it using Power DVD i get a message saying that Power DVD failed to authenticate the disc. Since i opened the box the store wont accept a return.

DRM software failed badly. It doesn't stop piracy. It doesn't even do a small dent to piracy. The only thing DRM softwares do is sometime it prevent legal user to actually use what they legally paid for.

The World of Goo developper is a small unkown developper. Let's just hope that the care they show toward their customers will help it in the future.

Gee, with all the thieves justifying their theft by claiming they wanted to "test drive" it first, you'd think the game industry never came up with a thing called DEMO.

This story is exactly why we have DRM today. The honest people have to pay the price of those who have an ill-conceived notion of entitlement.

90% of people with that torrent probably thought they were getting the 1990 Sonic Youth album.

i actually enjoyed the game and if it was 5 or 10 i might have bought it.

Never heard of this game...

I dont get the "pirate then buy the game" approach for this game. There is a demo of the first chapter and the online tower building mode. You should be able to decide if you want to buy the game or not after the first chapter. Pirates complain about DRM and they want to try the game to see if its worth a buy. Looks like 2D Boy did the right steps here.

Last edited by Doli on 14 Nov 2008 - 23:14

Take a look at this as well: http://games.slashdot.org/games/08/11/15/0239219.shtml

Looks like it would be a fantastic iPhone/iPod touch game.

95% of all World of Goo installs are probably not played. I thought it was kinda dull...