Indie development sim Game Dev Tycoon gives pirates a taste of their own torrenting

[space.dust]

It really depends, say 100 people pirate a game, now the price of the game is $50, the average pirate is not going to reach out to as many people as he possibly can so that's $5,000 lost with no real investment turnaround, government didn't get their tax either.

lets say they all show 10 people the game increasing the public view to 1000 people who then maybe tell 10 more people each but that's a stretch. so here is where the free advertising theory hinges it's iron grip on justifiable piracy...

In the end, people who pirate tell other people who pirate so all these concepts about helping advertise is garbage, sure maybe 10% of them buy it, but that other 90% is either stealing it too or not bothering at all. Imagine a condom company only putting adds in elderly homes.. yes.. sure they see it and may tell their kids and close your eyes folks some may actually buy them as well! haha but lets face it, it's not going to be a big seller in that market pool

Back to the $5000, It's better spent on a web advertisement that will reach out to 100,000's of people with a 20% chance to buy. So yes while you can argue that it's free advertisement it advertising to a majority of other people who will also steal the game and that's not worth even a penny.

I'm not saying in some situations someone who pirates does not buy, or does not try to help bring more views to a product. What I'm saying is that if you do, you are the minority and all of you put together can not tip the scales to a proper advertisement company doing their jobs with the money lost to all the other pirates who didn't even bother to tell a friend.

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- Dust