Parleying with Pirates

Zeno Clash developers take on file sharers, appeal to their conscience.

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By Nathan Davis on 27 April, 2009

Playing hardball with non-paying fans of your game via the rainbow of available digital rights management (DRM) tends to mar the experience for only the paying variety. It takes just one properly cracked copy to get out and it’s smooth sailing for the file sharers, whereas legitimate copies and their owners continue to suffer from whatever limitations the chosen DRM enforces.

Out of this dire situation have spawned those who are outwardly against using these abrasive techniques on their customers, going so far as to decry their effectiveness. Stardock is probably the most prolific such games company, having issued and abided by its so-called Gamer’s Bill of Rights, which includes “Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.”

Most of the games it publishes feature no copy protection, yet such titles as Sins of a Solar Empire perform quite respectably in units sold. Of course, its latest unprotected game, Demigod, begun life with nasty gaming performance due to its popularity with file sharers and the game’s reliance on a hosted service. Regardless, Stardock remains steadfast in considering file sharers an inevitable lost cause. They weren’t going to buy the game anyway, were they?

Well, it’s only fitting that the guys behind the bizarre Zeno Clash game have an unorthodox take on the matter. Rather than ignore those who are freely sharing around the game they independently slaved over, developer ACE Team is actively pursuing these people, but not in a way you might expect. Forget cease and desist notices, ACE is cleverly sparking conversation with the file sharers on their own sites and appealing to their moral sense of conscience.

Dearest pirates: The message as it appears on one file sharing site.Below, shown in verbatim, is the message ACE’s Carlos Bordeu is posting around on file sharing sites:

I’m one of the developers of Zeno Clash. I would appreciate you read this if you are about to download this file.

Zeno Clash is an independently funded game by a very small and sacrificed group of people. The only way in which we can continue making games like this (or a sequel) is to have good sales.

I am aware that at this moment there is still no demo of the game, but we are working on one which will be available soon.

We cannot do anything to stop piracy of the game (and honestly don’t intend to do so) but if you are downloading because you wish to try before you buy, I would ask that you purchase the game (and support the independent game development scene) if you enjoy it. We plan on updating Zeno Clash with DLC and continuing support for the game long after it’s release.

Thanks for taking the time to read this… hopefully it will make a difference.

Carlos Bordeu
ACE Team

The effective guilt trip actually seems to be having a positive effect. A certain PzyCow posts on the official Zeno Clash forums “Earlier today, I was just about to start downloading Zeno Clash, illegally”. Having read that message, however, PzyCow ended up “buying the game through Steam.”

“I appreciate that you decided to buy the game,” replies Bordeu. “Zeno Clash’s sales will be our single source of income and that will be the deciding factor of whether we can continue making a game like this in the future.”

Zeno Clash: Oh, it's on.

What’s particularly amusing is the support that’s springing up in certain file sharing forums as a result of the above message. A kind response even comes from an apologetic uploader, who hopes that all who download “this cool game” should buy it. Reflecting the majority of others justifying their download in lieu of a demo, another file sharer says “Your comments have touched my heart. If the game plays as I expect it to I shall be dusting out the cobwebs of my check book.”

Writing on the Steam forums, Bordeu says that piracy is just a sad reality of the industry. “We don’t seek to stop it (it can’t be stopped anyways), but instead to appeal to the conscience of the people who do download it. I think that is the best we can do.”

Zeno Clash is currently available through both Steam and Direct2Drive for sweet fuck all.

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