“This is not piracy, this is restoration of justice.” That was the answer a Russian hacker gave after being confronted for porting The Dishwasher to PC. The game was released in 2011 as a Xbox 360 exclusive title, but according to this “white knight,” PC gamers have the RIGHT to play the game.
According to the Hacker code-named Barabus “…the authors are not very nice to publish the game exclusively for the Xbox 360, making it impossible for PC gamers to play in such a great game.” He goes on to say that porting the game to PC doesn’t represent a financial loss for the developer since the game wasn’t available on that platform in the first place–which is why the developer has no right to claim any potential profit derived from the PC version.
“Given that developers ignore the PC platform, about any loss of profit for them is not out of the question. After all, if they wanted to earn money, then the game would be issued on all available platforms.”
The unofficial PC version has been released on a popular Russian language torrent site rustorka.net, which has been deluged with people in haste trying to get a copy of the game which actually reveals that there is great demand for a PC version; the port however doesn’t have permission from the developer Ska Studios to even exist.
Ska Studios founder James Silva replied by saying “I’m not mad about the crack itself, in fact, I’m actually pretty impressed… But I’m bewildered by the cracker’s attempt to justify the morality of it.”
The hacker released the following statement (translated by Google Translate)
“The ethics of publication.
The view was expressed that, with respect to the authors, it is not very nice to not publish the game on the PC. I have to argue that the part of the authors are not very nice to publish the game exclusively for the Xbox 360, making it impossible for PC gamers to play such a great game.
About Piracy.
Piracy – yes, that is bad. On the other hand, we did not steal the game for the Xbox 360; we released it for the PC port. Given that the developers ignored the PC platform, any loss of profit for them is out of the question. After all, if they wanted to earn money, then the game would be issued on all available platforms. If the game came out on PC officially, then this thread would not exist.”
Silva said he’d have been happy to explain why the game wasn’t released on PC if the hacker had emailed him.
“The main reason it’s not [been ported to PC] is because even though the game was developed on a PC, releasing on PC and working out all of the input, display sizes, graphics options involved is a lot of work (and a lot more work than it sounds like!). I know Dean was working on Dust PC for at least a few months before it was even announced (sorry if I’ve said too much, Dean!), and for us, when Vampire Smile shipped, we were already full speed on Charlie Murder. Once Charlie ships, I’d like to try working on a Vampire Smile PC port, but I’d really like to give it a Director’s cut treatment–rework some areas, add environmental hazards and new enemies, etc., so we wouldn’t really be missing out if there’s a cracked torrent with broken shaders floating around somewhere.
And as someone who grew up wanting to make Nintendo games, I really really really wanted this as a console title first. The thought of playing it with a keyboard gives me a nervous tick. Now that Xbox360 gamepads have become so ubiquitous, it’s all more or less water under the bridge (the last shooter I played on PC that I used mouse+keyboard for was System Shock 2), but the thought of anyone playing Vampire Smile with a keyboard is still not super pleasant.”
In my opinion this is a flagrant attempt to justify the fact that the hacker released an unauthorized version of the game without the IP owner’s consent, obviously Ska Studios is going to water down the situation by being nice about the fact that this dude released their game for free, after all this is a two person, two cat studio.
