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[Future]

So there are still no systems in place to prevent pirating huh? No online handshake to ensure the copy is real?

It sucks, but this is like walking into a mind field with no precautions and getting blown up. People are assholes and will pirate everything. The only thing I'd say is that luckily pirated copy does not mean a sale was lost, because I truly believe pirates want everything free anyway and wouldn't bother purchasing.

But if sales are low, that probably has to do more with pricing and other factors rather than pirates. Even I am hesitating to pay 40 bucks

 

[Tenebrous]

Are you calling Valve indie just because theyre privately owned?

independent
ɪndɪˈpɛnd(&#601nt/
adjective
adjective: independent

1.
free from outside control; not subject to another's authority.

Well, that would be fair to say.

 

[TheTylerRob]

It's a niche genre, of course it's not selling insanely well. Candy Crush is free. Most people don't want to pay $40 to do puzzles. It sucks but we need to stop denying that it's a bad value proposition, to a lot of people it is. Not implying that it justifies piracy.

 

[Recall]

Isn't this an example of pricing yourself out of the market? I mean, piracy is completely wrong, but I doubt the vast majority of pirates would have paid $40 for the game in the first place.

Pirates always offer bullshit justifications.

 

[uncleniccius]

value is subjective

Indeed, but you don't see people continually doubting the fact that The Witcher 3 for example is worth $60.

For the content the game offers the price is pretty fair, people just feel strange about it as it is digital only and thus has a lower perceived value.

 

[Nickle]

Look at this chump, complaining about people stealing his game. If he wanted people to buy it he should have released it on Steam at a good price point.

 

[Lingitiz]

That's really unfortunate. Im hoping he can find a good publisher if his next game is too hard to do with his own small team. I really want him to be able to achieve whatever he wants next because I really like his games.

And while PC users may be pirating, I'd hope the PS4 version sells well enough and that he can capitalize on things like eventually putting the game on PS+ and releasing on X1.

I don't like how this is turning into "PC gamers are pirates and the game is bombing because no one on PC buys games."

It's been the top seller on Steam and is doing fine for it's genre, pricepoint, and marketing. Highly doubt the console version is doing better.

I am just saying what I would of done in his shoes, everybody has different ideas on best way to sell a product.

So screw an entire userbase and ignore your primary market? Ridiculous.

 

[Venfayth]

But fundamentally it doesn't mean "1 pirated == 0 sales lost" either, no doubt it's somewhere in between those two numbers. Where it lies is most definitely a point of contention and is probably virtually impossible to actually divine however.

Agreed with this. Some pirates don't have the means to buy a game, some pirates do but choose to pirate anyway. Even if you could somehow identify how many fall in to each category, you still can't wave a magic wand to figure out which would have actually bought the game if they 1) had the means and 2) couldn't pirate it

It's important to understand that any number of pirated copies is a negative statistic. More pirates is probably more negative, but I would make the argument you can't use it as an effective metric for determining lost sales.

I totally understand why a dev would look at the download stat and feel bad though.

 

[Werd]

I didn't get well over 1K Steam games by pirating, so he's probably talking about another site I don't know about, but I was curious so I checked the two most notorious ones I am aware of... and the total seed/leech count was under 2K. That's too bad and all, but hardly alarming.

I assume we aren't supposed to name sites and such here but it would be nice to have some more context on how big the problem actually is. Are we talking tens of thousands here? More?

 

[ChaosZeroX]

Thats kind of what happens when you release on PC. Pretty much every game ends up getting pirated. I'm not sure why he sounds surprised lol

Hopefully the PS4 sales are good enough for him.

 

[Easy_D]

"I don't like the price point therefore I'm not buying it." - Acceptable, and how I personally feel.
"I don't like the price point therefore I'm pirating it." - Not acceptable whatsoever
"I can't afford it right now therefore I'm pirating it." - Not acceptable, somewhat understandable

This shit would drive me crazy if I was a game dev. Absolutely crazy.

Still, in the second and third statements, there's not a lost sale due to piracy as those people weren't intending to purchase it anyway.

 

[LPride]

It's a little unfair to compare the two. Portal 2 had a massive amount of marketing behind it and came from a company with an established IP or three behind it. As much as I like and respect Blow's games, he doesn't have much of a pedigree unless you're already invested in what he's selling you.

Lol, I think theres a bit of miscommunication here because thats exactly what I was trying to say. People accepted a high price point for Portal 2 because it came from an established studio. People are nervous about a high price point for Witness ebcause it comes from an Indie.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

Why do you say that? Is there anything to back this up that I can read up on? It seems like a lot of assumptions are being made in this thread...

No matter when you release your game on PC it will get pirated. That comes with the platform. GTAV released a year after consoles and it got pirated by thousands of people while having denuvo.

It's going to happen no matter what.

 

[GatticusFinch]

this sucks

the devaluation of games is getting worse and worse

"indie games aren't supposed to be over $20! wahhh!!"

::game gets great reviews::

"fuck, guess I'll pirate it then"

scust

Undertale got better reviews than The Witness and no one would pay $40 for it.

 

[StereoVsn]

It's not really as much about pirates not buying, as people like me not buying it. I'm not going to pay $40 for it, so that's one less sale. So if the same X number of people pirate the game, and only Y people buy it because $40 feels like too much for them, then piracy seems to have a larger effect.

At least that's my opinion on the whole thing. It's not about people pirating it because it's too expensive, it's just about people not buying it because it's too expensive.

Yeah, I think the issue is more with perception and marketing and cost plays into this. It's an indie game so there are "expectations" around cost on Steam. Consoles aside (where $40 is probably an ok price), on Steam for an Indie game dealing with puzzles to come in at $40 right off the bat is steep. It did work for Talos principle and Witness is probably worth the price, but the perception is not quite there for the latter while there was a lot of hype for the former.

 

[Producer]

An 'indie puzzle game' at $40 is a hard sell for alot of people, regardless of the content or production value. Thats just how it is.

 

[Red Hood]

it doesnt, and its unrealistic to do so.

if my budget is $20 dollars for a game, and the game is $40 bucks, i cant get it. It in no way justifies piracy, but if I was never gonna buy the game at 40 bucks and i pirate it, they didnt lose a sale.

Which is exactly what I mean. Piracy is a problem, but saying as how it's directly linked to Blow's future is absurd, since the overwhelmingly vast majority of the people who pirated his game wouldn't even have bought it in the first place. E.g. your example.

 

[Hibiki Kurosawa]

Pirates will be pirates, but I can't shake the feeling that the price point may have worsen the piracy a bit.

 

[KORNdoggy]

yeah, some seem to be treating it like puzzle games are categorically cheap. Nevermind that it's a huuuuge game, it's basically $40 tetris, seems to be the reasoning.

personally it's the type of puzzles that make it seem overpriced, not the amount of them. screen based puzzles just seem super detached from the world itself. unlike say, Talos and Portal. its like i think Tetris is a timeless classic...but it was also free with the Gameboy. there's no way i would pay £30 for Tetris...even if you played it on a screen in an admittedly beautiful and artistic virtual world. it's ultimately still a 2D puzzle game.

£25 should have been the asking price for a physical release. £15-20 should have been the digital release. imo at least. more people would pick it up at that price negating the initial pricing loss per copy.

 

[Morts]

You don't need a source to understand that not everyone who pirates a game is capable of buying the game.

Not defending it, just saying it's common sense to understand there's not a 1:1 correlation between number of downloads on a torrent site and number of lost sales.

If there's research out there clarifying the statistic, and that maybe can estimate an actual ratio, it'd be super helpful, but I think you might be asking for something that doesn't exist.

I think logic can at least assert that the ratio of pirates to lost sales is <1

Sure, it's most definitely not a one to one relationship, but it often seems like people say that to dismiss the issue. By the same logic we can say the number of lost sales is greater than zero, and of course Blow should be at least a little upset about that.

 

[Raylan]

does it have multiplayer? does it have cool level up sounds? can i buy a season pass with it?

Are you serious?

Spoiler

I'm 99% sure you are not. But that 1% tho! :/

 

[Gestault]

I wish more people were self-aware enough to understand why saying "but it's expensive" as rationale for stealing something like this makes them sound like a total jerk. Even when playing Devil's Advocate.

 

[daveo42]

I bought the game on steam for $40 and even after just a few hours of playing I absolutely feel like I'm going to get my money's worth.

edit: It's probably a worrying sign that he's upset about piracy. If the game was doing fine I don't think an indie dev would worry about pirate numbers? Maybe I'm wrong there. Just a thought.

I think he's more concerned about it because it was a self-funded game. That's his money on screen. He's getting his payday now and less sales means he's got less money in the bank to continue to self-fund future games in ways and timeframes that work best for the types of games he develops.

 

[Mugen08]

I have friends earning more than $10000 per month who still do not buy games and stream movies illegally etc. I make less than half of that but I can safely say that The Witness is well worth it's price tag. I have little respect for people with average income (here in Sweden) who still pirate as a routine.

 

[MarineMountie]

Ha. Poor people need to pirate. Get a job...

Ive alwaya hated thieves. They are truly the scum of the Earth.

 

[Diprosalic]

The Witness is a steal at 40.

 

[AstroNut325]

I'm really not sure what makes this game not worth $40 - because it's a puzzle game?

What does a game need to have to be worth $40 to you?

 

[Kenzodielocke]

These games can do very well on mobile.

Just don't overprice it for that market.

 

[Instro]

For comparison's sake, Ori has over half a million sales. Then again, it's half the price of The Witness.

The problem with The Witness is that the line puzzle mechanic drove away people, thinking the game would just a series of simple maze puzzles, which it ain't. And probably most importantly, Blow took way too fucking long making, consequently spending more money than he should have. And then there's the price. I guess these in are fact multiple factors.

Yeah the puzzle types have always seemed off putting to me, but I haven't done the leg work to see what variety there actually is.

Definitely not plunking down money for it right now with XCOM right around the corner.

 

[Nirolak]

I doubt he has much of an issue long term. The Talos Principle didn't move a lot of units up front, but made a ton of money over time.

 

[Milly Osworth]

Yeah, it seems like some devs just get super obsessed with the idea that people are pirating their games. Doesn't seem healthy or rational to get so bothered by it.

Indeed, if people would be stealing something I produced I would be like no biggy.

 

[CecilRousso]

I think he's just stating the obvious on twitter. Something that's always dissapointing, but not suprising.

As for the price, half the price ($20) means it needs to sell twice the amount for the same revenue. Doubt that would have happened, and even if it would have, it would have left the devs with less options for sales in the future.

 

[Guess Who]

screen based puzzles just seem super detached from the world itself. unlike say, Talos and Portal.

People who've played The Witness are loling right now.

 

[DedValve]

It was two tweets, and not really that vitriolic either. I don't think he's obsessed.

Shhhh people like to create drama.

 

[gatti-man]

I might buy this on ps4. $40 isn't that bad people really... if i cant afford it now I just save up. Protecting piraters in this thread is strange.

No it's not strange. There are tons of closeted pirates on neogaf.

 

[Venfayth]

I think he's more concerned about it because it was a self-funded game. That's his money on screen. He's getting his payday now and less sales means he's got less money in the bank to continue to self-fund future games in ways and timeframes that work best for the types of games he develops.

That's true. I can only speculate how I would feel in his position. It would be a loss for us all if piracy contributes to anything that causes him to reconsider how he develops games, or if he develops them at all in the future.

 

[bounchfx]

I have no intention of pirating it at 40 its a wait for sale game to me

 

[OnionPowder]

Undertale got better reviews than The Witness and no one would pay $40 for it.

I also beat Undertale in 1 sitting and it was made by 1 dude in GameMaker

 

[Aeana]

I have no intention of pirating the game, but I also don't intend to spend $40 on it. Especially since it's apparently very prone to causing motion sickness. So I'm just waiting for a more agreeable price point.

 

[Auctopus]

"I want to play this game because it reviewed so well but it's independent so I don't want to pay $40 despite it lasting longer than a large amount of AAA games so I'm gonna pirate it."

Selfish dicks.

 

[Sylas]

I bought the game on steam for $40 and even after just a few hours of playing I absolutely feel like I'm going to get my money's worth.

edit: It's probably a worrying sign that he's upset about piracy. If the game was doing fine I don't think an indie dev would worry about pirate numbers? Maybe I'm wrong there. Just a thought.

He likely doesn't have access to sales numbers yet, much less any kind of payment coming out of those sales. He can easily see that the game is being pirated--but wasn't it also on the Steam top sellers list? Is it still?

It's a little silly to think that just because it's being widely pirated also means that it isn't selling well at all. For all anyone knows, someone pirates the game, likes it, buys it! That person is on both of these "charts" until sales numbers are released.

 

[Already Torn]

Ha. Poor people need to pirate. Get a job...

Ive alwaya hated thieves. They are truly the scum of the Earth.

What a horrible attitude to have.

Undertale got better reviews than The Witness and no one would pay $40 for it.

Yup, especially since it was a new series. I guess The Witness sort of has some sequel momentum because a lot of people liked Braid, but it's not really the same. I liked Undertale but I never would have even tried it if it were 20 or 30 or 40 dollars. People have been comparing the price point to Portal 2, but that's not really fair. Portal 2 is a sequel to Portal which is in the half life universe, of course they can charge more. Barely anyone bought the Talos Principle either.

 

[phanphare]

Undertale got better reviews than The Witness and no one would pay $40 for it.

since when do prices fluctuate in tandem with review scores? unless a game is shit and goes right to the bargain bin

this is a new one lol

 

[Zaptruder]

I doubt they would have paid $30 or even $20. I really don't think pirates give a fuck about the price

Not that I pirated it, but I'd be much more inclined to buy the game for $10.

Spoiler

So that it can sit on my back catalog and laugh at me.

 

[The Jackdog]

serious question?

what makes this game so special?

I dont mean it terms of quality. I mean every game is pirated. Every game. I know theres DRM free versions or whatever but that hardly means MORE pirates, every game gets cracked almost.

is it getting pirated at a higher rate? how much higher?

like i guess my question is, is this game a special case or is jonathan blow just bitching about things that happen to every game

 

[Cairnsay]

The modern day Lars Ulrich.

I get where you're coming from, but I think there is a distinction to be made between a multi-millionaire rockstar who's only financial involvement with his product is how much money he can make from it, and a guy who has spent a large amount of his only money making a game, and is reliant on said games earnings to keep his business going.

That's a long sentence, sorry!

 

[uncleniccius]

Undertale got better reviews than The Witness and no one would pay $40 for it.

Are you honestly implying that reviews should determine cost?

Undertale had a MUCH smaller budget and MUCH lower production value, The Witness compares to retail games in terms of those two things.

 

[elkniwcire]

Well its not too hard to imagine why. Its hard to sell for a digital puzzle game at $40, especially without a demo of any kind. Although we all understand there is way more than $40 in content, its hard to get past the stigma for many. As an anecdotal example: I'd love to try it, but I'm a little intimidated by the premise of an 80 hour puzzle game. I have no idea if I will like and $40 is a pretty big gamble to take for something like this. A demo or a lower price tag would help a lot.

 

[Venfayth]

What does a game need to have to be worth $40 to you?

1) They need to ask for at least that much
2) The people I respect need to have high opinions of the game
3) It needs to preview well. I need to look at it and go "Dang, this looks fun"

Do all three of those and you'll guarantee I'll pay $40 for your game.

 

[Doctor Ironic]

Undertale got better reviews than The Witness and no one would pay $40 for it.

It's also a significantly smaller game with much less of a budget.