Gaming

Ultrakill Creator Thinks Piracy Leads To Word-Of-Mouth Promotion And Is “At Worst An Equal Trade”

admin June 5, 2024

Highlights

Support indies when you can, but piracy can help spread the word about games, leading to more sales in the future.
Pirating indie games is seen as acceptable by Ultrakill’s creator, as it can make products accessible to more people.

If you’re of a certain age, you’ll remember that Limewire was the place to get all of your pirated materials, particularly music, and then having to fight a huge Trojan horse virus after it corrupted your system. Those were the days, right? Now, the piracy debate is still prevalent in all areas of movies, as well as video games, and whether it’s a right or wrong method when faced with huge price increases.

Regardless of your own personal stance on it, Ultrakill’s creator, Arsi “Hakita” Patala, believes that it’s a pretty acceptable practice and by doing so, it can help can support the product via word of mouth.

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Bringing this controversial opinion to Twitter/X, Patala replied to a post that showed off a screenshot of Ultrakill being downloaded on PC with the words “I love pirating Indie Games” written across it. While many indie games, especially, are much cheaper than AAA titles where you support the devs directly and go on sale quite frequently, Patala had a relaxed view of this user’s method of playing their game.

“Culture shouldn’t exist only for those who can afford it,” Patala replied. “Ultrakill wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t had easy access to movies, music, and games growing up.”

Going a little more in-depth on the matter, Patala stated that even when a player decides to pirate a game, it can still benefit companies if the player is vocal about it because it’s an “extra sale” if someone else sees or hears about the game in which they may not have heard about previously. “Even the more business-minded people around can recognize that if you pirate a game, then enjoy it, spread word about it and get someone else to buy it” Patala continues, “That’s at worst an equal trade, at best an additional sale that wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t pirated it.

Patala did make sure to say that gamers should “support indies if you can”, which is vitally important, especially now when so many layoffs are happening throughout the industry. However, it seems like matters might not be so simple when it comes to triple-A titles when they are in the hands of the Embracer Group, who have hinted at raising the price of games to over $70.