作者：Mike Rose

PC游戏的盗版问题是独立开发者时常谈及的话题。各工作室不时会公布公司最新作品的糟糕盗版率数据，互联网会因这一问题的严重性而颇为愤慨，探讨要采取什么举措阻止这一情况。这些讨论通常以DRM是电子游戏遭遇的最糟糕情形而告终。

某独立开发者最近就盗版问题采取不同方式，最终被许多其他开发者称作是在提倡盗版。

Under the Ocean from diygamer.com

《Under the Ocean》是2010年免费下载游戏《Under the Garden》的成熟续作，今年初以付费alpha模式发行，游戏基本版本售价7美元，特别版本售价25美元。

但游戏还有第三种免费“版本”，即“Annoying Cockroach Edition”—–虽然这并非真正的独立版本。这是以幽默方式承认，有些玩家（“cockroaches”）会跳过两种获取游戏的合法选择，盗版内容。

“在游戏发行时盗版内容”，cockroach版本的功能列表显示。“我们很难阻止你，是吧？”甚至还添加臭名昭著网站Pirate Bay的链接信息，让访问者访问游戏的免费盗版版本。

这一方式获得许多游戏玩家和媒体的关注，社交新闻网站Reddit还特别给予游戏鼎力支持。虽然这一进入渠道的流量最终逐步消失，但它短期内让游戏得到广泛关注。

cockroach from gamasutra.com

当时，很多其他开发团队都不满此措辞，称美工Paul Greasley及其公司宽恕电子游戏盗版问题。Greasley表示，事实并非如此。

他表示，“如果我们能够挥动魔杖，阻止玩家盗版内容，我们无疑会这么做。但我们没法这么做。这是个无法改变的事实，在我们看来，利用点黑色幽默没什么不对。”

虽然在意识到这一动作有点过火之后，团队移除Pirate Bay的链接（游戏邦注：这可能会将用户链接至网站上的恶意软件中），但他们依然将“Annoying Cockroach Edition”置于适当位置，供访问者查看。

Greasley强调，很多人对于团队采用这一方式的目的理解有误。

他表示，“Cockroach版本并非旨在减少盗版问题，这不过是身为独立开发者的一项自由，我们无需回应任何人。最大麻烦是，90%以上的用户将在PC平台盗版你的游戏（我们的作品也不例外，根据流量记录就可获悉）。坦白讲，我们只是觉得指出这点非常有意思！”

相反，团队计划通过简化方式将盗版数量转化成实际销量。Greasley表示，“我们将持续推出更新内容，融入许多附加功能，若你想要持续跟进，花钱购买要比盗版内容简单很多。”

他补充表示，“用户在此取得胜利，因为这没有设置数字版权管理（DRM），他们获得众多《Under the Ocean》的杰出新功能，我们也因此获得胜利，因为更新内容让我们能够在游戏论坛之外的地方推广游戏。”

在Greasley看来，处理盗版问题可以归结为3点：“制作用户期望且愿意讨论的作品，尽可能优化产品，尊重你的用户基础。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Piracy is a fact of life, so why not just have fun with it?

by Mike Rose

Tackling PC game piracy is always an on-and-off talking point for indie developers. Every now and again a studio throws out awful piracy rate figures for its latest release, and the internet goes ballistic over how terrible it is and what can be done to prevent it. These discussions usually culminate in DRM being called the worst thing to happen to video games ever.

One indie studio recently took a different approach to piracy, and ended up being called out by a number of other devs for actually advocating piracy.

Under the Ocean, a fully-fledged sequel to 2010 free download Under the Garden, launched as a paid alpha build earlier this year, costing $7 for the base version of the game, and $25 for a special edition.

However, there is also a third free “version” of the game, titled “Annoying Cockroach Edition” — although it’s not really a separate version at all. It’s simply a humorous acknowledgment that some people (well, “cockroaches”) will skip the two legitimate options for obtaining the game, and just pirate it.

“Pirate the game when it comes out,” the cockroach version’s features list reads. “Not much we can do to stop you, is there?” There was even a link to infamous torrent website Pirate Bay, giving visitors access to a free, pirated version of the game.

The approach gained a lot of attention from game players and the press, with social news website Reddit in particular exploding with support for the game. Although the traffic from this influx has now finally died down, it earned the title a great deal of notability for a good while.

At the time, a number of other development teams were not exactly happy about the phrasing, calling artist Paul Greasley and company out for condoning video game piracy. Says Greasley, this simply wasn’t the case at all.

“If we could wave a wand and stop people from pirating stuff, we would,” he tells Gamasutra. “But we can’t. It’s a fact of life right now, and in our opinion there’s nothing wrong with a little gallows humor, so to speak.”

Although the team removed the link to Pirate Bay after deciding it was perhaps a step too far, potentially linking users to malware on the website, it has kept the “Annoying Cockroach Edition” in place for visitors to see.

Greasley is keen to stress that many people have simply got the wrong end of the stick about what the team is trying to do with this approach.

“The Cockroach edition was actually not an attempt to cut down on piracy,” he notes. “It was just one of the liberties of being an indie developer, with nobody to answer to. The elephant in the room is that 90 percent+ of people are going to pirate your game on the PC (and ours is no exception, based on the traffic logs). We just thought it would be fun, and frankly honest, to point that out!”

Instead, the team plans to convert pirates to purchases via simplistic methods. “We’re going to be releasing a whole bunch of frequent updates, with lots of feature additions,” notes the artist. “If you want to stay up to date, buying it is much easier than pirating it.”

He adds, “The users win, because it’s DRM free and they get a bunch of cool new updates for Under the Ocean, and we win, because the updates get us new ways to promote the game outside our game forums.”

For Greasley, tackling piracy comes down to three key points: “Make a product people want and will talk about, make that product as good as you possibly can, and treat your customer base with respect.”（Source：gamasutra）