Indie game developer encourages pirating: 'Culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it'

The developer of an indie game called ULTRAKILL has encouraged people to pirate video games if they're not able to afford buying it, saying "culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it".

ULTRAKILL is a retro first-person shooter developed by Arsi 'Hakita' Patala and published by New Blood Interactive which released on Steam in 2020.

The game has proved a tremendous success and even has an "overwhelmingly popular" review rating on Steam with more than 100,000 players sharing their thoughts.

Hakita quoted a Tweet of someone who was pirating his own game which had the caption: "I love pirating indie games."

The picture showed ULTRAKILL being transferred from a zip file and Hakita quoted it with an unexpected reaction.

He said: "As creator of said game: you should support indies if you can but culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it.

"Ultrakill wouldn't exist if I hadn't had easy access to movies, music and games growing up. If you don't have money, you can support via word of mouth."

Hakita also posted a follow-up Tweet.

That said: "Even the more business-minded people around can recognise that if you pirate a game, then enjoy it, spread word about it and get someone else to buy it, that's at worst an equal trade, at best an additional sale that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't pirated it."

Pirating is something that's been happening for decades and is described as using or reproducing the work or someone else without permission, usually in breach of a patent or copyright, including using something without paying for it.

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