We recently told you about an epic Zelda re-creation in Minecraft, but there something very similar out there, a “voxel-based exploration RPG” called Cube World. We’ve got a fan made trailer that shows just how awesome the game looks. Spoiler alert: it looks pretty damn awesome. The game is still in development and there’s no ETA on release, but we sure hope it’s soon.

Last week we published an editorial called “The Hypocracy of PC gamers“. We’ve received a ton of feedback and emails from readers, some good, some bad, but we also got emails from a few game developers as well. One developer wanted to share his story on how piracy affected his studio. These are his thoughts.

I run a small independent PC game studio (which will remain anonymous), and we have a slate of smaller puzzle and RPG games that we’ve made since 2009. We sell the games on Steam and other downloadable services, in addition to selling them on our own site, completely DRM-free. In 2011, we had 12 developers and artists working on new titles, and working on getting our games on the iOS platform. Sales were decent throughout the years, enough to support us and ensure that we could keep updating our games. Then our entire catalog of games was posted on The Pirate Bay and spread to other torrent sites.

“The “bundle” of games hit the torrent sites in January 2011, and by March, sales were down 50%. By May, they were down 80%”We didn’t think much of it at first, piracy affects everyone in this industry, and we believed that sales wouldn’t be affected too much and that gamers would appreciate supporting the devs and buying DRM free games. Then sales went down. A lot. The “bundle” of games hit the torrent sites in January 2011, and by March, sales were down 50%. By May, they were down 80%. We tried to respond to the piracy of our games in several ways. We lowered the price on Steam by 33%. Sales picked up a tiny bit, but it’s impossible because you’re competing with free. We had Steam sales, bundle packs, everything we could. It wasn’t enough, and by October of 2011, I had to let go half of my team — 6 people. We’ve restructured now to focus entirely on iOS games. I dunno how it’ll turn out, but developing on PC and supporting our PC games is not an option any longer. We just can’t afford it.

It’s easy for gamers and game journalists to get on their soapbox and proclaim they know how to fix the piracy issue, they always seem to “know” what developers should do (“Put it on Steam”. “Don’t use DRM”, “Use clever advertising” etc.). But you’re not the ones who have to manage a studio, you’re not the ones who have to make sure your developers get paid so they can feed their families. Our studio was doing just fine before our games hit the pirate channels. Then it all went downhill.

There are some claims that piracy causes millions of lost jobs in the US. I dunno about those numbers, maybe they’re true, maybe they’re much lower. But I know that piracy cost at least 6 jobs in 2011. Six people that I had to fire. Talented, hard-working folks with families.

So to all of you Pirate Bay supporters, all of you “experts” on Internet freedom who support “sharing” and who claim that “it’s not stealing”. From the bottom of my heart and on behalf of those 6 people: fuck you.

UPDATE: Our contributor emailed in this addition to the post: “For all those who ask: I won’t name my company nor the games we make. I’m fully aware that my statements go against most gamer’s beliefs on piracy and I have no intentions of drawing the wrath of the Internet to my company, which is already struggling. And this has nothing to do with quality — our games had a great fan base and we were doing just fine for two years before the games hit the torrent networks.”

It seems there can’t be a single week without Zynga copying a popular Facebook game and releasing its own clone. Last week the makers of Tiny Tower accused Zynga of copying their game and releasing it as “Dream Heights”, and now developer Buffalo Studios points out to VentureBeat just how similar Zynga’s new bingo game is to Buffalo’s Bingo Blitz. They released an infographic showing the similarities, which you can see above.

By ruthlessly copying games and concepts, Zynga has become one of the most hated game developers over the past year. And rightfully so — the large company employs thousands of people and still manages to steal creative ideas from much smaller developers. Tiny Tower, for instance, only has 3 developers, while Zynga’s Dream Tower may have had hundreds working on the project.

Worse, Zynga has been very open about how they do business, with its CEO reportedly telling employees, “I don’t want fucking innovation. You’re not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers”.

Just one look at this game, Dear Esther, and you can tell that it’s very atmospheric. The game started as a Half Life 2 mod in 2008, and has since been in development for a commercial release. It’s built on the Source engine version that powered Portal 2, and is scheduled for release this February. It’s one of those game we can’t wait to check out.

The recently released first person puzzle game QUBE, which draws inspiration from the likes of Portal, has been somewhat successful, according to the developers. CUBE had a budget of $90,000, pennies compared to AAA titles, but it managed to recoup its costs after just 4 days of being available on Steam. The game retails for $15, and is somewhat of a short affair, with little story and somewhat repetitive gameplay (yes, we’ve played the game). The game has sold 12,000 copies as of a few days ago, but we imagine those numbers are quite higher now.

Either way, we’re glad to see indie titles succeed in an industry that’s increasingly getting hooked on sequels, remakes and adaptations. The developer is currently looking to port the game to iOS and consoles.

Indie hit and cult phenomenon Minecraft has now topped 20 million registered users, Minecraft creator Notch revealed via his Twitter. Minecraft has been a huge success over the past few years, and has generated lots of revenue for its studio, Mojang Games. However, 20 million registered users doesn’t mean 20 million copies sold. Last time we checked, Minecraft had sold about 4 million copies, as of late last year.