Piracy is illegal, and more often than not people find themselves in hot legal water when caught. However sometimes developers come up with funny and interesting ways to deal with pirates, like with The Sims 4 where the entire game was “censored” when a pirated copy was detected. More recently, developer PM Studios actually reached out to the pirates and offered them a discount.According to a report from TorrentFreak, developer PM Studios who created the game SUPERBEAT XONiC actually bothered to track the pirates down to their posts on Reddit where they were sharing the pirated link, and left them thank you notes for their interest in the game, and even offered them a 60% discount!
The message reads, “We feel honored that you enjoy our game SUPERBEAT XONiC so much, we would like to invite you to take this opportunity to purchase it on sale at the Playstation Store. You can enjoy the original game and show support to the team for just $15.99 (60% off), no Playstation Plus required! Have a nice day!”
Some people on Reddit have applauded the decision of the developers, with some saying that this actually made them go out and buy it. However some people have said that while their intentions were good, it did not make sense that the pirates should have their behavior rewarded in discounts while regular gamers had to pay full price, but what say you?