Paradox will battle Cities: Skylines piracy with regular free updates

PC games publisher Paradox has said that it has a simple strategy to combat those who wish to pirate its PC mega-hit.

Rather than employing some sort of draconian DRM the company instead has vowed to support the title with frequent free updates that will ensure that those playing a legitimate version will always enjoy a better experience that those playing a pirated copy.

Here are a few small tidbits of info about Cities: Skylines – day one we had 0 per cent piracy. Pretty cool. Day two 16 per cent,” Paradox’s Shams Jorjani said on Twitter. As usual 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. That’s how we bring down piracy. By making the paid experience a superior one. How come more and more use Netflix instead of pirating stuff? Ease of use and convenience.

We updated Magicka 14 times in 13 days. Even the pirates stopped posting new pirated versions after a while. Steams autoupdate was easier.”

Paradox announced last week that Cities: Skylines sold 250k copies in its first day, making it the publisher’s fastest selling game ever.

We would like to offer our deepest and heartfelt thanks to the community for their passionate support and to let them know that we are committed to supporting this wonderful game for years to come,” Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester said.

We knew that we had a great game on our hands and so to be able to continue to provide fans of the game with a multitude of new content for it going forward is fantastic.”

Here are a few small tidbits of info about Cities: Skylines – day 1 we had 0% piracy. pretty cool. Day 2 16%.

— Shams Jorjani (@ShamsJorjani) March 12, 2015

As usual our plan for pirates is to make a great game even better through free updates – making it more convenient to use Steam instead.

— Shams Jorjani (@ShamsJorjani) March 12, 2015

It's all about offering the superior service. That's how we bring down piracy. By making the paid experience a superior one.

— Shams Jorjani (@ShamsJorjani) March 12, 2015

Here is Paradox Interactive's and Princess Leia's stance on PC piracy: pic.twitter.com/fDmDgfHHLp

— Shams Jorjani (@ShamsJorjani) March 12, 2015

It's all about offering a superior service. How come more and more use Netflix instead of pirating stuff? Ease of use and convenience.

— Shams Jorjani (@ShamsJorjani) March 12, 2015

We updated Magicka 14 times in 13 days. Even the pirates stopped posting new pirated versions after a while. Steams autoupdate was easier.

— Shams Jorjani (@ShamsJorjani) March 12, 2015

Also – best "DRM" ever? Steam workshop.

— Shams Jorjani (@ShamsJorjani) March 12, 2015