Game Piracy Saves A Failed Game

Pirates aren't so bad after all. ;-)

A funny thing happened when a tiny little puzzle game called Gerblins got pirated online. Non-pirated downloads of the game shot up!

The little game, upon release, was a catastrophe. Absolutely no one bought it. Then, after months of no sales at all, the game suddenly out of the blue began getting downloads. What happened? The game got pirated and uploaded to Torrent websites. People started downloading it and playing it for free. The people who made the game saw this and thought, "Well, at least SOMEONE is playing our game," and decided to not make a fuss about it. Within no time at all, the game went from no one downloading it at official market websites to thousands of people downloading it at official online stores.

What happened? Market awareness and user experience. People played it, liked it, told their friends about it, and began downloading it from the official marketplaces. People discovered that it was actually pretty fun, all thanks to it being pirated online. Pirating literally saved their dead game, all because it expanded the availability of that game and opened the doors to more players.

Gamasutra:  How Piracy Saved Our Dying Mobile Game