I pirated it too back then, and bought two copies years later. Sent them an email when I did so and got this reply from Ron Carmel almost exactly 10 years ago (2013-12-18):
> thanks, daniel! tons of people play world of goo without paying for it, and we're ok with it. we think that sometimes buying the game makes sense (when you can afford it and it doesn't feel like a big expense) and sometimes it doesn't (when you can't get access to a payment system, when you're poor, or if you're living in a place where the price of the game sounds outrageous).
> anyway, appreciate your support now, and glad you are enjoying it!
That's a pretty incredible amount, because there was a point where there were indie bundles making headlines every week and World of Goo was featured in every single bundle imaginable. I feel like every person who played games 15 years ago bought World of Goo intentionally or accidentally in some form at least 10 times.
If I recall correctly they were the ones who popularised these bundles in the first place as they offered the pay what you want model that went on to be copied by Humble Bundle and co.
We may be able to decrease that just a tiny bit. I did buy it legit, twice, but its a pain in the ass to keep a track of whats going on with licensing, which platform do i have licenses on? What platform did i get migrated to without knowledge or consent? Etc. but it is a nice game to come back to every now and then. So i dont buy it anymore but when i feel like playing i pirate it, i figure i own it on at least two platforms already, should be ok. If others like me exist, then the high piracy numbers might in part be a condemnation of drm and another part high praise to the replayability of the game.
Few other games get this much revisitation from me. Warcraft 3 used to until blizz stope that from me and forced me into their "remaster"
As I remember it the article was quite interesting notably because it also compared another similar category game released around the same time that chose DRM and yet had similar piracy ratios.
I pirated it, liked it, then bought it three times (one copy for Wii and another for Linux I think and then later for iOS). I do feel times have changed. Not just because I have more disposable income, but the UX of buying digital games has improved massively (both for PC with Steam, on mobile app stores and on consoles).
I bought the physical CD back then and still have it but would have to go digging for a CD drive if I were to ever need to reinstall it. Thankfully the code has been stable over all these years and it still works as well as the day I installed it.
