How developers mock pirates

(c) Cartoon "Treasure Island"

Game developers are well aware: if the game goes on computers, then sooner or later it will be hacked. No protection is enough to defeat some players for free entertainment. Therefore, the developers went the other way. They heartily troll pirate users.

A recent example is the Quantum Break action game . If the game decides that it has been hacked, then a black pirate bandage will immediately appear on the hero's eye. By the way, exactly the same joke was in the previous game Remedy - thriller Alan Wake .

But the pirate bandage is just a harmless Finnish trolling. Other developers were not so kind to the pirates. In the torrent versions of GTA 4, Niko Bellic came to America mortally drunk and never left this state. Even behind the wheel and during plot clips. To control the game was, as you know, almost impossible.

Heroes of the Far Cry series are known to prefer drugs to alcohol. Therefore, the authors of the game also had some specific jokes. Those who downloaded the fourth part of the torrents, from the very beginning felt in the place of Snoop Dogg. The image was treacherously distorted, and any trip turned into a flight to the stars. To overthrow the power of the eastern dictator in such a state was slightly uncomfortable.

It was even more inconvenient for players who downloaded The Sims 4 from torrents. The pixels covering the characters during intimate processes now accompanied the little men always. And over time - filled the entire screen, turning the game into a product of pixel art.

Other developers were even less tolerant of lovers of freebies. Therefore, they made it so that the pirates could not pass the game at all. A typical example is the Mirror's Edge parkour simulator. In the licensed version, the main character Faith could easily jump from one skyscraper to another. But the Faith of the pirate before the jumps 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 float smoothly in the air, and fell like a stone on his enemies. At the very beginning, it was still possible to put up with this, but then the pirates simply got stuck in the game. Then went to write complaints on the forums.

However, the authors of shooters sometimes trolls pirates even more brutally. In the illegal version of ArmA 2 sharply reduced player accuracy. Bullets flew anywhere, but not at the target. But the developers of Crysis Warhead and completely replaced all the bullets ... hens. It was funny to play, but to kill at least someone is simply unrealistic.

But when a player could not kill enemies - it's not so bad. Sometimes in pirate games they killed him. If someone started to play the first Dark Souls before the release, then Black Phantoms were sent to capture him, which left no chance to the pirate.

Although this does not go to any comparison with the fact that the authors came up with an old role-playing game EarthBound . The pirate player there had to fight with a lot of enemies. But some such a challenge only provoke. However, right before the battle with the final boss, the game hung tight. And after rebooting the console, it turned out that all your saves disappeared without a trace. And now the game will have to pass again. This was one of the most brutal examples of moral humiliation that lovers of freebies were subjected to.

Another memorable way belongs to Lucas Arts . In her quests, and so everything was fine with humor, but the game Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders surpassed all. Every time when the hero flew outside the United States, the game asked to enter the serial number. Of course, it 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 is to be a pirate. Of course, it was impossible to miss it.

But the real life lesson is always better than a boring lecture. He was just waiting for those who spiral the strategy of Game Dev Tycoon . She, as you might guess, was devoted to the development of video games. But the studio, created by the owner of the free version, has always ended its century with 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 starve to death because you don’t pay them your money. But they are unlikely to release the continuation of a commercially failed game. Even if millions of people played it for free.