Hollow Knight: Silksong may have taken years to make, but it got cracked and shared on piracy sites about fifteen minutes after launching. Yes, you read that right. While most of us were discovering that Silksong‘s first boss was buying the game, or unable to make any progress for hours, pirates were pilfering and playing the game right away. Before you start judging too harshly, though, these rascals insist that they have morals. On forum posts where people typically discuss where and how to pirate media, the replies are filled with people either urging others to buy the game, or swearing that they will, at some point, support Silksong monetarily.
On Reddit, within a thread that expresses amazement at the speed at which Silksong got cracked, the discourse immediately touches on the goodwill that Team Cherry has amassed over the years. Beyond being a two-person studio that developed an excellent game in the form of Hollow Knight, the leading comment thread reminds everyone that, at $20, the game is “way cheaper [than] a lot of people expected.”
“Happy customers won’t pirate,” the commenter says, despite literally being on a piracy subreddit. Somehow, it’s not some unhinged display of doublethink. The rest of the replies are folks saying that they plan on purchasing the game at some point, or have already bought the game on a different platform. Perhaps the most amazing twist here is that many pirates claim that Silksong will be the first game that makes them break their vow to never purchase a game at all.
“First game I’ve bought day of release in a decade probably,” one commenter says. “Not even the decade for me,” another chimes in. “It’s the very first.”
The thread then sees a handful of people replying “Same” to the notion that this will be their first video game purchase ever. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Granted, these are outliers. Most pirates are justifying their actions, or swatting away potential criticisms. “I don’t play 99% of the games I pirate,” one pirate says.
Fortunately, the piracy doesn’t seem to be hurting the game much; with over 529,000 concurrents on Steam alone as of this writing, Team Cherry will be pocketing millions of dollars right off the jump. This is how at least some pirates justify downloading the game, or why they see no problem with waiting until Silksong goes on discount. Where some feel that $20 hits the sweet spot for pricing in a world that’s inching toward $80 games, others don’t care about the price at all. They weren’t going to buy the game under any circumstances. “I pirate with 0 guilt,” one commenter says.
It’s pirates like these that are prompting others in the community to try to pull them out of the dark side.
“It’s a 3-4 person team that has done right by their fans at every turn,” one orator writes. “Making sure the pc release is DRM free. Making sure all original backers of Hollow Knight get Silksong free on their choice of platform. This is a time where if we can afford to support them, we should.”
It’s a great spiel, and most people are responding either in kind or with jokes about the fact that Team Cherry did not deliver its promises for Hollow Knight on Wii U. Overall, most pirates sound like they want to do right by Team Cherry in some way, perhaps when they’re not broke.
“Support the devs if you can, they deserve it,” another Redditor wrote.
The discussions aren’t all sunshine and roses. There are people who are side-eyeing the “good” pirates, eager to disagree with a principled piracy framework.
“We’re still supporting them via word of mouth,” one commenter who apparently did not buy the game argued.
As an optimist, I’m choosing to believe that at least some of these internet denizens out of the millions of people enjoying Silksong are keeping to their word. It’s a nice thought. If nothing else, at least one pirate managed to make me laugh.
“This is how I found out Silksong came out,” said one commenter who stood frazzled between all the bickering, grandstanding, and peddling.
