When fighting game fan “Dan Hibiki” got a strange message while playing Skullgirls, he did what anyone with a Twitter account might do: he contacted the game developers to ask what was going on. Little did he know that the message, pictured below, was something that only those who pirated the game could see.
The conversation that followed, which was shared by Giant Bomb, is kind of amazing:
//@Skullgirls So I got this message after beating story with both Para and Cere and I have no idea what it means… pic.twitter.com/Nv5bH1vqkV
— Dan Hibiki (@SaikyoChamp) July 8, 2014
@SaikyoChamp Oh that? It means you should probably buy the game instead of pirate it. o:)
— Skullgirls (@Skullgirls) July 8, 2014
Busted! Still, it says a lot the developers behind Skullgirls, Lab Zero Games, didn’t lash out at Hibiki or anything like that. Instead, they kindly continued to chat — and even answered some of Hibiki’s questions:
//@Skullgirls … I’m sorry. I kinda did a trybeforeyoubuy thing. I already bought it on PS3 and I’m planning on buying it for Steam, soon.
— Dan Hibiki (@SaikyoChamp) July 8, 2014
//@Skullgirls I was about to buy it this morning BUT GAMESTOP DOESN’T SELL IT DIRECTLY ONLINE AND I DON’T WANNA LEAVE MY HOUSE!!!
— Dan Hibiki (@SaikyoChamp) July 8, 2014
//Holy shit I just accidently told Lab Zero that I pirated Skullgirls…
— Dan Hibiki (@SaikyoChamp) July 8, 2014
@SaikyoChamp It’s all good, man. Well… I mean, it isn’t really, but I get it. Just try to do the right thing eventually.
— Skullgirls (@Skullgirls) July 8, 2014
//@Skullgirls Thanks for not flipping the fuck out. Quick question, though. Any plans to add 1PvCPU or CPUvCPU into the game?
— Dan Hibiki (@SaikyoChamp) July 8, 2014
@SaikyoChamp I’ll have to ask Mike. Don’t think there are any plans for that now, though.
— Skullgirls (@Skullgirls) July 8, 2014
@Skullgirls //@Skullgirls I’m assuming they’d be pretty cheap (if not free) to add in. Thanks for answering!
— Dan Hibiki (@SaikyoChamp) July 8, 2014
@SaikyoChamp Nothing is ever cheap or free, because it still has to be implemented, UI updated, strings localized, QA tested, etc.
— Skullgirls (@Skullgirls) July 8, 2014
It’s the sort of interaction that made Hibiki pause and reconsider — which makes sense, because he was reminded that the developers behind Skullgirls are real people.
“Skullgirls is such a great game,” Hibiki reflected on Twitter. “It practically lives off of fan support and I’m kinda fucking them over…I’m still going to buy the game eventually! HOPEFULLY EVEN THIS WEEKEND!”
This weekend, for those of you that don’t know, is EVO — the biggest fighting game tournament of the year.
Having pirate-specific “features” or messages isn’t new — last year, Game Dev Tycoon made headlines after it forced players that pirated the game to experience the woes of piracy inside the game’s simulation of game development. Still, it’s kind of hard not to laugh at this incident with Skullgirls — and appreciate developers who deal with piracy in surprising ways.
Comments
6 responses to “Fan Pirates Game, Accidentally Tells Developer About It”
I don’t see what’s surprising about this. How else would’ve they dealt with itk?If they dealt with it like ea, Ubisoft and other big guys often deal with it, pirates would’ve seen it as a challenge and would’ve proved them wrong. Doing more damage in the process.
Edit: see how what they called minecraft guy dealt with it. Lol not as good as this but ok
It’s not really that surprising because the Skullgirls people are pretty cool, but you can bet that if it was about a song or movie there would have been a court case and absurdly high penalties for doing it.
I Love these stories of Devs playing with Pirates! I especially liked the Game Dev simulator one that always ran the pirates out of money! 🙂
If you want a game, support the guys building them for you – what’s that you don’t have enough cash? Stop going out and drinking up all your cash on Friday and Saturday nights, get another job, learn to budget, whatever it takes to get what you want.
That so rad, I almost want to buy the game just on the level of awesomeness the developer has shown.
Thats pretty funny, I bet that guy owns it now.
i bet he doesn’t 😉 why pirate to begin with.
His reasoning is somewhat sympathetic, hell I do the same thing. With the enormous amount of games, good & bad, it’s hard to tell what’s really worth the cost(which let’s be honest is extremely expensive in some regards in Australia. I pirate a lot of games for the sole reason of try before I buy. I have a very large collection of games I have purchased because of that fact. If I enjoy it ill buy it, if not, delete & repeat.
Wow, the devs took it really well.
But people dig themselves in it all the time, i don’t know how many people complained to rockstar about the drunk cam in GTA IV or the fast invincible scorpion in Serious Sam 3 not knowing that its a anti-piracy measure.
Actually two years ago I reinstalled gta IV and got the drunk cam. I had to revalidate it or something. And no, before any smart asses reply, it was a legit CD copy.