Clever Anti-Piracy technique | Forums

[Godmil]

I was just reading an article on gamesindustry.biz that mentions RedLynx released a semi-pirated version of Trials 2 on day one to torrent sites. This version had access to everything except online leaderboards, with the intention being that once pirates started liking the game they'd decide to buy it in order get the full experience.

I think this was a great idea. Too many developers/publishers think they can combat piracy by just bumping up the protection, but that never works. Doing what RedLynx did is like releasing an extended demo while cutting off the real pirates. I hope it was successfull.

One thing I'm curious about though... the article mentions that Trials 2 has sold 150,000 copies. If this is the case, why are there <90,000 registered players?

I'm afraid I can't link to the article due to the forums anti-spam settings, but it should be easy to find on gamesindustry.biz, as well as on the front page of Joystiq.

[rlmergeuser]

Its been discussed in the THD forums with links. It wasn't a pirated version RedLynx says it was just the regular demo. It was a good idea though.

[s0ad667]

Never tried the demo myself, but somewhere in the T2SE area lurks a thread that opened when the first pirated version came out. I must admit that the RedLynxes reacted to it with great optimism (i didn't) and after some more thought, i saw they had a really good point about it.

As for the sold copies that are more than the registered players, a small example is that i have two copies and i haven't activated the second yet. And there were/are many people here that bought a lot more than two copies. Yeah, some people chose that way to show their love for one of their favorite indie game development studios.

[sebastianaalton]

the article mentions that Trials 2 has sold 150,000 copies. If this is the case, why are there <90,000 registered players?

Trials 2 and Trials 2 Second Edition have completely separate game servers and high score lists. I think that Tero (our CEO) just added both Trials 2 version sales numbers together.

[Godmil]

Ah yes, that makes sense. Thanks