Indie dev is releasing an official pirate version of his upcoming game, 'no strings attached'

pcgamer.com:

Please Fix the Road is a lovely, laid back-looking puzzle game about—in case the title wasn't enough of a giveaway—fixing roads. The goal is to move and manipulate tiles of various sorts to ensure that cars, boats, trains, and even animals can get from where they are to where they need to be. It's set to come out in June, and will be available on Steam, GOG, Itch.io, and various pirate torrents.

Games are inevitably pirated, it's true, but this is actually an «official» pirate release, complete with special pirate version features. Not a murderous scorpion, dunce cap, or anything else that would mark or punish pirates for their transgression, though: Developer Ariel Jurkowski said on Twitter that there will be «no strings attached» to the version of Please Fix the Road released to torrent sites.

«Pirate version will have all of the launch levels, but no updates,» he wrote. «No strings attached. There's an extra pirate themed song at the start, altered intro sequence, a pirate face instead of the cogwheel options icon and a request in the options menu to buy the game. Cheers!»

This isn't the first time a game developer has effectively given piracy a green light. The makers of Hotline Miami, Darkwood, Danger Gazers, and Loop Hero have all done the same thing in years past, and generally for similar reasons. «It would be pirated anyway and I don't blame anyone for it, it is what it is,» Jurkowski said in a follow-up tweet. «I hope at least some people will appreciate the gesture, maybe I'll get some PR points from this.»

Pirate version will have all of the launch levels, but no updates. No strings attached. There's an extra pirate themed song at the start, altered intro sequence, a pirate face instead of the cogwheel