Game Dev Tycoon "Cracked" Version Unleashes Ironic Trick On Pirates

Game Dev Tycoon, a game about developing games, saw a cracked version released to several torrent sites, and pirates everywhere dipped in for a slice of fun pie. However, the "cracked" version was actually released by the Game Dev Game Devs themselves, and features a nasty surprise - anyone playing the pirated version will quickly find the game unplayable as every game they release is pirated into oblivion.

Before long the game's forums were alight with questions. "How do I make money? Every game I release with 9s or 10s scores gets pirated and I don't make any profit" and perhaps more hilariously "isn't there any way I can research DRM?"

While pirated versions of games featuring nasty surprises only apparent to players a few hours later are not a new thing, Game Dev gets points for adding a spice of irony to their trick. Though one could argue that the "message" of their trick is a little heavy-handed. A pirated copy of a game does not equate to a lost sale almost all of the time, and piracy is almost never a reason for a company to be in dire financial straits - Indie darling World of Goo saw an 82% piracy rate, yet still sold legitimate copies in the millions.

But let's not get into all that. Let us instead stroke our chins, nod slightly and utter a brisk "well played" to Greenheart Games.

The current website is very unreliable, probably due to this whole irony trick on software pirates!  But you can see the full blog post on this Google cached page.