Zeno Clash developers plead to pirates

Indie developer throws its heart on a pike for the downloading community at large.

Zeno Clash is an Indie title that is available through the venerable Steam download service, offering an Oblivion-esque fighting style for a budget-conscious price of US$20.

Unfortunately while this game is surprisingly fresh and original enough in its theme, that didn't stop pirates from getting to it - and distributing it to others for nix.

While the torrents will never really be stopped from happening, this kind of thing really hurts the small dev teams that pour all their free time and spare cash into these games, and there's only a few options available to them for combating it - they chose the direct approach.

Pleading to the community, the devs had this to say:

"We cannot do anything to stop piracy of the game (and honestly don't intend to do so) but if you are downloading because you wish to try before you buy, I would ask that you purchase the game (and support the independent game development scene) if you enjoy it."

To those who had been thinking of pirating the game, or had already done so, this message actually spurred some positive thoughts and feelings in the gaming community at large; though the devs didn't mention if it had increased sales at all.

Indie titles need to be supported if you're interested in their games, and they usually only have a handful of titles (if they're lucky) to sell, so do the right thing next time and buy a copy - it's what Atomic would do.

Thanks to Arstechnica for the backstory on this, as well as the above quote.