Crazy Support Request
A day or two ago, I got an amazing email along these lines:
"I pirated your game from a torrent site. The patches on your site do not seem to work, and I think I have found a bug [bug details]. is there a patch for this?
What a moron.
My answer was just to tell the guy to sod off. But apparently this was a bit too vague, as he emailed me again asking if there was any chance of tech support.
In case he is not alone, and some other people have not got this through their heads...
Pirating a game is NOT POPULAR with the people who make that game for a living. We do not 'understand your reasons' or 'turn a blind eye', or 'appreciate that you liked the game and might buy the next one'.
If you shoplifted, and the shoplifted item was faulty, would you go back and complain?
I dread to think how this guy will get on in the rest of his life. Such a sense of entitlement, without any concept of right or wrong makes someone totally unemployable. Thankfully, most people are honest, and *do* buy my games when they like them.
A big thanks goes out to all those honest people who have kept me in business. I really appreciate it.
"I pirated your game from a torrent site. The patches on your site do not seem to work, and I think I have found a bug [bug details]. is there a patch for this?
What a moron.
My answer was just to tell the guy to sod off. But apparently this was a bit too vague, as he emailed me again asking if there was any chance of tech support.
In case he is not alone, and some other people have not got this through their heads...
Pirating a game is NOT POPULAR with the people who make that game for a living. We do not 'understand your reasons' or 'turn a blind eye', or 'appreciate that you liked the game and might buy the next one'.
If you shoplifted, and the shoplifted item was faulty, would you go back and complain?
I dread to think how this guy will get on in the rest of his life. Such a sense of entitlement, without any concept of right or wrong makes someone totally unemployable. Thankfully, most people are honest, and *do* buy my games when they like them.
A big thanks goes out to all those honest people who have kept me in business. I really appreciate it.
posted by cliff at
7:05 PM
6 Comments:
I've always wondered how much tech support pirated copies of games costs developers. This is bit of a counter-argument to people who say that stealing a game that somebody wouldn't buy anyways doesn't hurt the developer.
By
Anonymous, at 7:27 PM
People who download pirated software should really take up a career in comedy.
By
procyonone, at 8:11 PM
I think you should just establish a fee for tech support for an unlicensed copy of the game. $50, maybe?
By
The Rampant Coyote, at 12:40 AM
Is tech support for the demo ok? Because that people also didn't pay anything.
By
Krystian Majewski, at 10:31 AM
I would say tech support for the demo is a given. It’s your primary marketing tool and as such has to make a great impression for them to buy the full version. Also, the issues that crop up in the demo are probably in the full version too so you’ll need to fix them anyway.
By
i hate crunch, at 1:52 PM
I second Rampant Coyote's notion. Somewhere online recently I was reading about Sierra's response to tech support calls that were clearly from pirates: They tried to get them to sign-up for their mailing list, which would allow them to turn some of the pirates into paying customers.
So, yeah, tell him that you absolutely can give him tech support. But since it's a pirated version of the game, there's a fee... which is, coincidentally, equal to the cost of the game.
By
Justin Bacon, at 10:05 PM
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