Cities: Skylines is being pirated, but Paradox Interactive isn't panicking. Instead, the publisher will continue to support the game, thus making the Steam version more attractive than any unpatchable and unmoddable pirated version could ever be.
Taking to Twitter, Paradox's Sham Jorjani made a case for post-launch support being the best discouragement for pirates. Noting a steep 16 per cent increase in pirated copies of the game, Jorjani Tweeted that "our plan for pirates is to make a great game even better through free updates - making it more convenient to use Steam instead."
"It's all about offering the superior service," he added. "That's how we bring down piracy. By making the paid experience a superior one."
Jorjani went on to name Netflix as an example of convenience trumping piracy in the digital age. Meanwhile, Paradox's quick rollout of Magicka updates – 14 in 13 days – meant that users preferred to actually pay for the game and get auto-updates, rather than manually download the game each time the studio patched it.
To put it simply: ongoing content rollouts and mod support is a better way to combat piracy than DRM.
"Or....we could build our own ecosystem," Jorjani joked. "Call it....P-play....or...Plorigins...or P-vapor or somesuch...yeah let's do that."
Cities: Skylines has already attracted a massive audience: modders have already added a first-person mode, while one dedicated player has recreated Los Santos.
