How developers mock pirates
(c) Cartoon "Treasure Island"
Game developers are well aware: if the game goes on computers, then it will be hacked sooner or later. No protection is enough to defeat some players' cravings for free entertainment. Therefore, the developers went the other way. They troll pirate users from the heart.
A recent example is the Quantum Break action . If the game decides that it was hacked, then a black pirate blindfold will immediately appear on the hero’s eye. By the way, the exact same joke was in the last Remedy game - the thriller Alan Wake .
But the pirate armband is just a harmless Finnish trolling. Other developers were not so kind to the pirates. In the torrent versions of GTA 4, Nico Bellic arrived in America deadly drunk and never left this state. Even behind the wheel and during story clips. Managing the game was, as you know, almost impossible.
The heroes of the series Far Cry , as you know, prefer drugs to alcohol. Therefore, the jokes of the authors of the game were also specific. Those who downloaded the fourth part from torrents, from the very beginning felt like Snoop Dogg. The image was treacherously distorted, and any trip turned into a flight to the stars. Overthrowing the power of the eastern dictator in this state was slightly inconvenient.
Even more uncomfortable was the players who downloaded The Sims 4 from torrents . Pixels that cover the characters during intimate processes, now always accompanied men. And over time - they filled the entire screen, turning the game into a product of pixel art.
Other developers were even less tolerant of freebie lovers. Therefore, they made it so that the pirates could not pass the game at all. A typical example is Mirror's Edge Parkour Simulator . In the licensed version, the main character Faith could easily jump from one skyscraper to another. But Faith pirate in front of the ramps noticeably slowed down, as if afraid to step into the void.
The same thing happened with Batman in the pirated version of Batman: Arkham Asylum . The dark knight no longer knew how to soar smoothly in the air, and fell with a stone on the heads of enemies. At the very beginning, you could still come to terms with this, but then the pirates just got stuck in the game. Then they went to write complaints on the forums.
However, the authors of shooters sometimes troll pirates even more cruelly. In the illegal version of ArmA 2 , player accuracy was sharply reduced. Bullets flew anywhere, but not at the target. But the developers of Crysis Warhead completely replaced all the bullets ... with hens. It was funny to play, but to kill at least someone was simply unrealistic.
But when a player could not kill enemies - this is not so bad. Sometimes in pirate games they killed himself. If someone started playing the first Dark Souls before the release, then Black Phantoms were sent to capture him, which did not leave the pirate any chance.
Although this can not be compared with what the authors of the old EarthBound role-playing game came up with . The pirate player there had to fight with a lot more enemies. But some of such a challenge only enraged. However, right before the battle with the final boss, the game hung tight. And after rebooting the console, it turned out that all your save disappeared without a trace. And now the game will have to go through again. This was one of the most brutal examples of moral humiliation suffered by freebie lovers.
Another memorable way belongs to Lucas Arts . In her quests, everything was all right with humor, but the game Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders outdid everyone. Each time a hero flew outside the United States, the game asked for a serial number. It, of course, could only be found in the official boxed edition. And if the player tried to pick up the code by typing, then the hero of the game was sent to prison. There he was forced to listen to a long and boring speech about how bad it was to be a pirate. Of course, it was impossible to miss it.
But a real life lesson is always better than a boring lecture. He was just waiting for those who coiled the strategy of Game Dev Tycoon . She, as you might guess, was devoted to the development of video games. That's just the studio, created by the owner of the free version, always ended its century bankruptcy. And the pirates who downloaded copies of your game from the Internet turned out to be guilty of this.
Of course, the moral of this joke was too simple and obvious. In fact, developers and publishers are unlikely to die of starvation from the fact that you will not pay them your money. But here they are unlikely to release the continuation of a commercially failed game. Even if millions of people played it for free.