Kill them with kindness, that appears to be the motto for a video game company after it found links to some of its games posted for free on Reddit.
TorrentFreak reports that instead of lecturing or threatening legal action against the pirates that posted the content online for all to have, PM Studios, instead tried to convert the pirates to actual customers.
PM Studios chose to join a Reddit discussion after noticing that its Playstation Vita game SUPERBEAT XONiC had been posted on the Vitahacks and VitaPiracy subreddits.
The company thanked the posters and offering them discounts on the actual games.
“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,” they commented on several threads, noting that the total cost would be $15.99, a 60% discount from its original price.
The offer was greeted with its own thank you thread, with several of the pirates suggesting they plan to buy the game.
“This is confusing me I don’t like it! Why are you so nice to me! Now I have to buy your game,” poster transferstudentx wrote.
“You know what? These guys are cool. I just purchased it. Hope they do well with their future endeavours,” zacksterjp wrote.
“I appreciate the ability to be able to download a game and give it a good run. Demos do not always sway purchasing decisions in the right way, for numerous reasons,” one poster, Mr_Cloud_Strife, wrote, noting that it’s hard to say no when company approaches the situation the way PM Studios did.
Game Maker Thanks Reddit Pirates for Attention, Offers Discounts [TorrentFreak]
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist