The Witness is, by many accounts, another fantastically brilliant puzzler from Braid creator Jonathan Blow. Unfortunately, that popularity isn’t entirely translating to sales. Blow recently announced his concern about The Witness being heavily pirated, with warning that it could affect the possibilities of a future game.
Blow went on Twitter today, speaking out against the piracy of the game. For a game that is mostly unprotected, The Witness is an easy pick for pirates. While Blow himself is mostly against DRM, he also claims that the loss of sales could affect his team’s ability to produce another game in the future or at least have to seriously think about how they handle security on another game.
It seems The Witness is the #1 game on a certain popular torrent site.
Unfortunately this will not help us afford to make another game! :(
— Jonathan Blow (@Jonathan_Blow) January 28, 2016Of course, Denuvo has been added to the conversation. Austrian-based Denuvo Software Solutions GmbH has produced a product that is already extremely difficult for pirates to get around and even still it’s constantly being updated. Many companies who choose not to use it attribute the decision to high cost of the service.
Unfortunately for game designers like Blow, this may be a bridge that must be crossed if they want to continue to profit and create for legitimate consumers and players.
