14 DAY TRIAL // Torchlight was an indie hit when it was released and has proven to be a good money maker for developer Runic Games, but the game has apparently not slipped the attention of PC-based video game pirates, with more than 5 million pirated copies of the game played in China only.
The numbers come from Max Schaefer, the leader of Runic Games, who says that Torchlight being pirated was inevitable, but that the illegal copies might have a use in promoting the upcoming MMO based on the same universe.
Talking to PC Gamer about the future of Torchlight, he said there are “millions and millions of copies of Torchlight downloaded from the illicit market in certain Asian territories. And that’s fine with us.”
He added, “We knew it was gonna happen. For us, we kind of see it as, down the road, we’re building an audience. We’ve long since announced that we’re going to be doing an MMO, and you know, we kind of view it as a marketing tool for us. We’re going to have millions of people who are familiar with our franchise, familiar with our style, and who are going to be ready customers when we do a global MMO.”
When Torchlight was initially announced, that game was supposed to be an MMO, but the team at Runic needed money to support the development process and chose to create a single-player hack and slash title first.
Torchlight was a success, so a sequel is also in development and, after its launch, the team at Runic Games will focus on the MMO completely.
When ready, it will be published worldwide by Perfect World and will use the free-to-play and microtransaction business model.
Torchlight II is set to be launched this summer and will offer a number of gameplay enhancements over the original.