dishwasher vs 1

A Russian programmer known as Barabus is a big fan of the indie-hit-gone-arcade hack ‘n’ slash The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, so much so that he took it upon himself to take it multiplatform. Without any permission from developer Ska Studios, he found a way to port the game to Windows and released it for the world to download on the Russian game developers’ forum. Google’s loose translation of the Russian dialogue reveals that Barabus said something like, “The developers are not eager to do it for the PC. A good game, I think that many of those who do not have a box, they want to play it.”

Is this okay? Barabus doesn’t see why not. Amidst the debate thread only loosely understandable in Google’s translated version, Barabus argues he simply wanted to make the game available to the people who don’t own an Xbox 360. After all, they don’t lose any revenue for a platform it was never meant to come to. In addition, Nintendo fans have modified games that have not come to other regions like Mother 3 complete with an English translation, and they are lauded!

So how does the creator feel? “I guess you could say my reaction is mixed,” said Ska Studios founder James Silva. “I’m flattered that there’s this much interest in Vampire Smile on PC. I’m not mad about the crack itself; in fact, I’m actually pretty impressed. But I’m bewildered by the cracker’s attempt to justify the morality of it. He assumes a lot about why Vampire Smile’s not on PC yet, and he could have cleared up a lot of those assumptions by just emailing me. I get that piracy is a service problem, but that’s a consequence, not a justification.”

This adds a new dimension to the legal gray areas rampant in the industry regarding used games, DRM, piracy, and now platform exclusivity. What do you think? Is Barabus justified?

Sources: Eurogamer, IndieStatik