Pirating Video Games and Promotion Culture

Thievery or Great Promotion?

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/Dt21z_BWRMw

For many who own a PC, it’s a very tempting thing. To steal a game that a developer worked really hard on. A Legendary Drops short detailed a tweet where the user said, “I love pirating indie games” to which the creator of Ultrakill, quote tweeted, “As the creator of said game: you should support indies if you can, but culture shouldn’t exist for those who can afford it. Ultrakill wouldn’t be the game it would be if I had easy access to movies, music and games growing up. If you don’t have money, you can support via word of mouth.”

This is a huge debate within any creative medium. It helps that the creator thinks it’s great that he’s losing money but the original DOOM creators made their game open source so that any developers could use their technology, but they never saw the rewards for their generosity.

So, the question isn’t that is stealing good. No, because the developer of Ultrakill deserves to be paid for their worth. Nobody works for free, especially if you have a day job. Nobody is going to play hero in a retail job when the company can sue the thief and write the loss off their taxes.

The outcome is that stealing a video game is as bad as stealing food. It’s not the same thing, but it does mean that someone’s livelihood should be respected. There was a reason why retail stores like Blockbuster created a culture of renting movies because nobody had to steal, because culture should be afforded to everyone who had that card.

Again, if the creator of Ultrakill is fine with it, that’s their business, but word of mouth and paying for culture are very different, but they do help, in different ways. It’s not worth the promotion when you aren’t being paid for your art, either.