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Comment by kelnos | Hacker News Reader

If not making or at least suggesting that claim, what's the point, then?

Generally speaking, if an article is trying to lead you to a conclusion, that conclusion is specifically stated. Not everyone knows how to write, though, so sometimes it isn't there. This is typically rare, because people that don't know how to write often state their conclusion 5 times in 5 different ways and don't realize it. That isn't the case, here, anyway.

The point of this article is to give you what could be some surprising information; that giving away a game can, in at least this circumstance, can lead to additional sales.

And we're left to speculate on the repeatability of doing something like this and the underlying reasons that it worked.

Personally, I think it's an interesting idea for small developers because it's free publicity. Many people only pirate games, many never pirate games, and both talk to each other about games they like. Making a game available to pirstes before it's popular enough for someone else to do that means they get more eyes on the game that probably wouldn't buy the game anyway, but will recommend it to people that may buy the game if they hear about it.

This probably wouldn't work very well for popular game studios because they already have the marketing done, but it may work for smaller studios. I may consider this if I ever get around to finishing a game, largely because the potential negative is very small (this is a hobby, not my living) and the potential upside is large. And you can always add more content to the game that isn't in the torrent if it gets popular enough to try to capture the business of those on the fence.

To recount something happening.

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