Posted Tue Apr 30, 2013 at 05:30 AM PDT by Brian Hoss
Leaked torrent version of the game leads to amusing pirate progress blocking.
Developers leaking versions of their games with built-in progress blockers are nothing new and are used to confuse game torrenters during a game's launch window. Usually though, the progress blocking technique takes the form of a subtle bug or kill screen, but in the case of the recently released 'Game Center Tycoon' the leaked version altercations are a bit more poignant.
'Game Dev Center,' a title which could be described a clone of another game, is floating around in a leaked version that sees the player's progress ultimately fatigued due to game piracy.
It seems after one day on sale, the $8 game was suffering with 3104 of the 3318 copies being played being pirated copies. With so many playing the leaked version, several messages requesting help appeared online that seem to drip with the irony that the developers had in mind.
One such message was captured by Eurogamer, "I can't progress further.. HELP! Guys I reached some point where if I make a decent game with score 9-10 it gets pirated and I can't make any profit. It barely sells 100k units.... I mean can I research a DRM or something... There's no point in inventing a new engine because the revolutionary game mode out it will get pirated and I will not be able to cover my expenses."
As messages from the two man dev team and those game pirates that were looking for support online continue to surface, the game has managed more publicity than would have been expected otherwise. The game's website and main buying portal are down, the cause of which remains unknown.
Patrick Klug, co-developer of 'Game Dev Tycoon,' "As a gamer I laughed out loud: the irony!!! However, as the developer, who spent over a year creating this game and hasn't drawn a salary yet, I wanted to cry."
'Game Dev Center' is available DRM-free for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms.
Source: Eurogamer
Author: Brian Hoss
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