As many of you may recall, earlier this year we witnessed our rights over the internet assaulted as bills such as SOPA and PIPA were conceived. It was a time where friend and foe, trolls and fanboys, all united against a common foe. The world itself seemed a common cause. Heroes and villains alike harmonized to save the universe as we know it from total destruction.
I guess you just had to be there.
Anyways during this time Megaupload was taken down without the help of SOPA and PIPA. Heroes of the internet enraged over this action banded together to organize what would be known as "Black March".
TL;DR - Don't buy video games.
We not only intend to fully commit to Black March we also encourage everyone else as well. For the whole month of March we will be using Mediafire to host our new builds. The links will be made freely available for everyone to download and play the latest version of SoR free of charge. Additionally we will be releasing 10 keys that you can use on Desura with each new build for this month.
Ideally we hope that we get through the month of March without a single copy of SoR purchased. To kick off Black March we will releasing Alpha 16 this week. If all goes well we should have the new crafting system implemented by the end of the month for everyone to play!
However something to look forward to in the short term is stockpiling implemented.
As always don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Desura, IndieDB, Blogger, and Steam! You can now subscribe to our Pixel Pushers Podcast on iTunes!
I definitely will be supporting this! Thankfully Guild Wars 2 wont be released in March, so this will be much easier to participate in.
I was worried about this same thing with Guild Wars 2 and Diablo 3. However the window of opportunity for these games to be released should be well past March.
Yeah, wouldnt be able to join the Black March if Guild Wars 2 was released BUT I dont care one cent about diablo 3 so go BLACK MARCH!
Ok I support you guys and will not buy any media things
really sucks though i was going to buy this when i got my extra money next week
Appreciate the support Huey! I realize how tough this will be for some who do want to partake in Black March.
Eh, Megaupload and pretty much all the other uploader sites are a huge haven for pirates. =( I wasn't so upset about it being taken down tbh.
It was a legitimate site that hosted files for many companies. Hell we even hosted some files on megaupload during the early days. It is just a shame for the users that did use megaupload to host their files will not be able to use this service anymore.
I heard rumours about Airbus and Siemens hosting files on megaupload, which has caused Airbus aircraft designs to come into hands of FBI. Possibly a high risk of 'leaking' to boeing?
Uhh sorry... but I'm buying mass effect 3 on the sixth.
That's fine. We obviously aren't forcing people to partake in Black March. However individual's want to spend their hard money is perfectly fine with us.
Sounds like a plan. But then again I buy almost nothing but indie games and steam sales anyway so this shouldn't be too hard for me.
I'll be participating in this - no, I'm already participating. First day and I've successfully not spent any money.
I'm with you! Spend it on tasty food for Noms!
I would support this but sadly Mass Effect 3 comes out soon and im pre-ordering it still but i do wish all the luck to show Sopa and Pipa that what there doing is wrong and we will not be idle while the censor the internet
i dont know what part of those bills are "wrong" because i didnt read either of them. obviously censoring the internet would be moving us (america) in the direction of china, north korea, and other middle east countrys, and that would be bad. i dont think that is what either bill did but like i said i didnt read them. i believe the main reason for the bills was to make it eaiser to close down illegal in-home and over-seas providers of copyrighted material. there were probably extra things thrown in the bills that takes it too far( cause thats what politicians do) so i didnt support them anyway. but i would support a straight forward bill that lets them close down illegal sites, as long as they have checks and balances and cant just close a site without proof of illegal activities.
Here's one thing though: Doesn't the "public profit margins/statistic" only affect big companies who has gone public? As far as I know as a dreaming small enterpreneur (forgive my business English), smaller enterpreneurs only have to report their profits to tax- and social security/pension plan offiices (offices varies depends which country you're working in and business types).
So in other words, as far as I've understood, the message is more like "Don't buy via large publishers/middlemen; buy directly from smaller developers/studios. Or other non-huge public companies (without middlemen).
As far as I've understood, it's the middlemen/publisher who originally put this whole farce/publicity-stunt on the roll in the first place, not the actual creators who simply just want not only make living with their talent, but also just want to get their work distributed/as many fans-customers as possible.
That was my take on this as well, Indie Devs haven't done anything that would warrant not purchasing their products, this is mostly on the big Publishers of retail PC and Console titles, names like EA, Activision, Ubisoft, etc. Purchasing Mass Effect 3 is upping their profit, purchasing a Indie Dev title doesn't make a bit of difference on a big Publisher's books. Besides, the real reason for not purchasing SoR right now would be that there isn't much of anything resembling a game to play right now ;)
We didn't mean to say that people should stop supporting indie devs, we just wanted to make a bigger statement by saying we're in this totally and don't mind losing sales if it means a free Internet for the world. Kickstarters and Indies from all walks of life need support more than ever. Jeez... you Internet folk are always looking for controversy at every turn.
the internet is free? why am i paying for it?
I don't see the point of this, the only people it's hurting is Desura and French Rice Games. The proper purpose of the Black March is to not purhase from/support MAJOR, MAINSTREAM corporations.
Who's the idiot who forgot about the indies? I'm sure that they could use the business anyways.
Would prefer to see some updates to the game rather than a post about a ineffectual boycott.