The Witness has exceeded expectations for many people with its widespread critical acclaim and popularity. While thousands of gamers have taken the opportunity to support its development team by purchasing the title, there are equally as many looking for a free ride.
The Witness has quickly become the #1 most popular game on a major torrent site, and is climbing the ranks on at least two others, something its lead designer and producer Jonathan Blow was hoping wouldn't be the case. He shared on his Twitter account:
He continued:
The majority of The Witness' budget was funded by the revenue from Jonathan Blow's last creation, Braid. His hopes have been to do the same with his next game, but that relies upon The Witness being financially successful. In other words, clever and ambitious games like Braid and The Witness are reliant upon gamers supporting them.
Currently, The Witness stands as a top 10 best seller on Steam for the week, and is performing well on PSN. Although it's experienced strong initial success, it'll need to retain as much momentum as possible heading into the future if it hopes to make a profit, and piracy is only making that goal more difficult to achieve.
