Yesterday saw the release of Game Dev Tycoon, the debut title from developers Greenheart Games. The game in it’s self sounds interesting but the way it has fought piracy is amazing.

Studio founder Patrick Klug decided to pre-empt pirates and he put out a cracked copy of the game himself. He used it to teach pirates a lesson by “holding a mirror in front of them and showing them what piracy can do to game developers.”

The idea of the game, as the name suggests, is to run your own games development studio. Creating games, researching hardware and moving from generation to generation. Those who downloaded the cracked version however will run in to difficulty in about the PS2 generation, where their games will start to be pirated. They’ll see their studio finances dwindle as piracy bleeds out their balance until the point of bankruptcy.

The reactions Mr Klug has found from people pirating his game range from the amusing: “Is there some way to avoid that? I mean can I research DRM or something …” to the depressingly unaware: “Why are there so many people that pirate? It ruins me!”

The sad part of this story comes when you  know of the people playing the newly released game, around 93% are using the cracked version, with just under 7% having to chosen to pay the fee of $7.99. Mr Klug also details the various ways he’s tried to reach out and speak with pirates about the harm they’re causing his studio, yet it seems the stronger message will be the one coded into the game.

Klug leaves you with this final thought “If years down the track you wonder why there are no games like these anymore and all you get to play is pay-to-play and social games designed to suck money out of your pockets then the reason will stare back at you in the mirror.”