

Indie Game Devs Post Own Game on The Pirate Bay  - mambodog
http://torrentfreak.com/indie-game-devs-post-pirated-game-on-the-pirate-bay-110909/

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Jach
Great little story, if I wasn't supposed to be working right now I'd check out
the game more. (Maybe it'll hit the Humble Bundle next time around.) They seem
to understand that the greatest threat to any creator trying to monetize a
product is obscurity, not piracy. Also, when you release something, some
amount of Value is created and you're not going to be able to capture all of
that Value no matter how hard you try. But things like this that actively play
the torrenters can let you capture more of it than you otherwise wouldn't
have.

~~~
ido

        Maybe it'll hit the Humble Bundle next time around.
    

I hope so for them, but you realize the HIB is basically the lottery of indie
games? A tiny fraction of all indie games get on it, so the chance of each
individual game is minuscule.

~~~
stephth
How is it the lottery of indie games? All the games sold on HIB - that I've
played - are good, original, well polished games. Some, I believe, are some of
the best games ever made, indie or non indie. It wasn't luck that put them in
the HIB shelf.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I don't think the GP was implying a purely random process, rather the fact
that if there are 20,000 games submitted for the bundle, your chances of
getting picked are pretty low (akin to a lottery). As an indie dev, you have
some knobs in your control (how good you make the game), but many knobs won't
be.

~~~
ido
Exactly.

There are a lot of really good indie games out there, but most people are only
aware of the famous ones, or the ones they get exposed to via stuff like the
HIB or high-visibility steam sales.

If you enjoyed the HIB games I suggest you keep digging as there are many,
many games out there at the same level as the average of the game in the 4
bundles.

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nazgulnarsil
ugh, most indie platformers haven't yet reached the level of the original
super mario bros. nintendo spent a LOT of time fine tuning the controls. The
lack of fine tuning is very noticeable in games like this (another really good
example is meatboy). Intuitively the controls don't feel "tight". What's
really going on is that there is a lack of a way for the player to create
repeatable conditions so they can do experiments and thus learn the fine
degree of control exhibited in speed runs of SMB. This generally happens below
the conscious level.

~~~
waitwhat
_ugh, most indie platformers haven't yet reached the level of the original
super mario bros._

This is hardly surprising when Super Mario Bros is widely regarded as one of
the very best games of all time, some would say _the_ best [1], and sold more
than 40 million copies, making it the best-selling game ever until 2009 [2].

You don't rubbish a new play by complaining that it's not as good as
Shakespeare, or a new album that's not as good as Thriller. And you don't
rubbish a platformer for not being as good as Super Mario Bros.

[1] <http://top100.ign.com/2005/001-010.html>

[2] <http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros>.

~~~
eropple
Bad controls sink a platformer. I haven't played this one to evaluate it, but
if it's sloppy, that really does make it a no-go--the difference, for me at
least, between "good and worth playing" and "unacceptable, give it a pass" is
really narrow.

Given that developers have had about twenty years to study and reach deep into
the guts of games like the original _Super Mario Bros_ , it really does make
it harder to rationalize that, as the GP poster noted, very few games are
really even in the same ballpark in terms of fluidity of control.

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mathattack
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! Encouraging bootleggers helped the Dead. Why
not others?

~~~
city41
But that wasn't bootlegging, that was people legitimately recording the shows
with the Dead's blessing (many bands followed suit). But it still remains it
was the Dead's choice to give that blessing, and I still feel creators should
maintain that right. Even if they choose to exercise that right poorly (ie, if
the Dead disallowed recording) that is their choice, not the piraters.

~~~
mathattack
Same as in the article. The firm themselves chose to give away a pirated
version. I am certainly not trying to claim that all piracy is good - only
that some who embrace it on themselves do benefit.

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joenathan
The lack of a proper full screen mode really kills this game for me, I end up
click outside of the window and inadvertently switching to a different
application.

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idonthack
direct link to torrent file:
[http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/6617784/No_Time_To_Explain_...](http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/6617784/No_Time_To_Explain_Windows_tinyBuildGAMES.6617784.TPB.torrent)

