Boss trolls everyone who pirates his game – Says “This is how I sold 300% more on Steam”

Cricket 22 screenshot

Ever since gaming has existed, there have also been people who don’t want to pay for games. Developers have always fought against pirates and bootleggers, sometimes with simple copy protection, but sometimes with very creative solutions. So the boss of Cricket 22 decided to simply troll bootleggers.

This is how the boss trolls the bootleggers: Copy protection is usually used to keep pirates out and prevent them from playing. However, Cricket 22 does it differently: here you let the pirates in and then troll them properly with apparent “bugs”.

These lead, for example, to the digital pirates seeing a white screen between matches. Symons dismissed complaints about this “bug” by advising people to just buy his game. Then that goes away too.

Ross Symons, the CEO of the company behind Cricket 22, promises on twitter even more pirate games coming in the next few weeks. Below:

  • 100% loss on a coin toss
  • automatic disconnection from the controller with an indication that the battery is empty
  • endless rain

Heavy rain in cricket will result in the game being canceled and that is exactly what will happen in cricket 22. As soon as it is the player’s turn, heavy rain starts and lasts until the game ends.

He has a whole range of things he could do to the pirates. The mere fact that some players complain about the “bugs” lets them out themselves as pirate copiers. The boss says: going this route is the right decision for him too.

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300% more sales since the protection is active

Is it worth it for the developer? According to Symmons, sales on Steam have increased by 300% since he turned on the protection. His philosophy: excluding pirates from the outset is a lost sale.

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However, letting them play and then encouraging them to buy could convince them. He even offers people to keep their progress if they switch from a drawn to a legal version.

That’s what players say: On twitter there is some headwind. A number of people are complaining here that the developers should kindly give them access to the game. They have no money and pirated copies are their only way to play.

Others support the approach. Creative solutions are better than pure bans and a few laughs at the expense of the piracy provide entertainment.

Cricket 22 is a small sports game on Steam.

The game itself is doing well on Steam. With 72% positive reviews overall and even 95% recently, the game is mostly or very positive. With 150 players on average, Cricket 22 doesn’t have that many fans on Steam, but it does have a player base.

Creative copy protection – Always a part of gaming

Cricket 22 is not the first game with creative anti-piracy protection. There have been ideas like spinners before, with which you had to decode something in order to install the corresponding game in the first place. But that too was quickly circumvented.

Some developers therefore rely on more clever solutions. The strangest include:

  • Alan Wake: The protagonist wears an eye patch with Jolly Roger in a pirated version
  • The Witcher 2: In all sex scenes, Triss and Co. are replaced by old grannies
  • Serious Sam 3: An invincible giant scorpion spawns after a while and follows you through each level

Nintendo’s Earthbound game is particularly nasty. Here pirates can apparently play normally, there are only more difficult random encounters. However, when you defeat the last boss, the game just crashes and the save is deleted.

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By the way, it’s not just developers who troll pirates. There are also some resourceful “cheat” developers who ensure that nasty cheaters are punished in highly satisfying ways:

A brilliant troll cleans up in CS:GO – makes sure that cheaters have to jump off the map



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