Pirate Software Continues His Comeback Tour by Focusing on Indies
- Pirate Software is attempting a comeback with Indiecember, a Twitch-based indie game showcase featuring dozens of titles.
- The event’s loose structure and direct-contact system raise concerns that it may benefit his channels more than the developers.
- Community skepticism remains due to past controversies and his inconsistent game development track record.
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Indiecember
YouTuber Pirate Software, aka Jason Thor Hall, was the main voice of dissent when the Stop Killing Games initiative started picking up steam in July this year, leading to a huge section of the internet piling on him. Although he never technically went away, he did lose between 110k–120k subscribers as a result, and has been steadily losing followers on Twitch.
He’s kept a relatively low profile over the last few months, but now he’s back with an online-only showcase of indie games, called Indiecember. It started on Dec. 1 and runs throughout this month, with Pirate Software planning to showcase between 74-84 games in total. He detailed how this stands out from other game showcases in a recent YouTube video.
“We’re going to be playing those games on stream. We’re going to be talking to developers. We’re going to be interacting with those communities. We’re going to be really doing deep division every one of these to get you a good understanding of not only what the game is, but who is making it and what’s the reasoning behind it.”
For the Good of the Community
On the surface it’s a noble effort, but it’s telling that there isn’t a dedicated website or any kind of centralized hub for the event. Instead, game devs interested in taking part need to reach out to Pirate Software directly – he’s posted general info on X, YouTube, and his Discord channel about Indiecember but the only explicit contact details are listed under his X account. Plus, games will be streamed via his Twitch channel, which should help bump up his low viewer numbers this month.
His listed email references SIDEQUEST, however. Presenting themselves as “We’re not managers who game. We’re gamers who manage,” this is a “creator-first” management company. In short, they help already-established game streamers reach a wider audience and help with all the business aspects of being a popular streamer.
SIDEQUEST has been quiet on its socials about Indiecember, although the founder, Shane Wilson, has posted on his personal LinkedIn that the first day of the showcase went well, and that they’re opening up the number of slots going forward.
“We received such overwhelming outreach that instead of one game a day with Dev Interview we opened it up to three games a day with Developer Interviews.”
The first day featured Bourbon Risky (a boss rush action game), Solarpunk (a survival game set on islands), and GrimFog (a base-building action RPG). Wilson noted that GrimFog was made during a game jam hosted by Pirate Software; these have been on the go for a while, with the last one hosted by Pirate Software in July and August this year. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it received negative feedback from people involved, calling it “poorly run.”
A Double-Edged Sword
At the time of writing, Pirate Software was streaming Star Vortex (a space-based ARPG), but hadn’t listed any details about the game anywhere, nor scheduled on Twitch the other games due to be shown today – which does seem counterintuitive to running a showcase to highlight potentially undiscovered games. Although, there were 2.4K viewers watching the stream, so it’s possible Pirate Software’s lackadaisical approach to event management may still pay off.
One of Pirate Software’s personal selling points is that he’s an independent developer himself, with his RPG, Heartbound, in Early Access since Dec. 25, 2018. In the seven years since release, the game often lacked any kind of updates for up to two years at a time, with a few minor but regular fixes finally coming into effect earlier this year. It’s sitting at an overall Mixed rating on Steam.
He also worked at Offbrand Games (Aethermancer) but left in July as he said people were focusing their negativity about him on the studio. “I am no longer working at Offbrand Games,” he posted on X on July 3 this year. “People were attacking all of the games we were publishing and trying to mass review-bomb them. You can dislike the things I say but this kind of behavior is unhinged.”
However, this was quickly debunked – no one was review-bombing Offbrand Games’ titles, only Heartbound.
It’s entirely possible Pirate Software is trying to win back some goodwill from the gaming community, but it’s definitely going to be an uphill battle for him to prove that he’s not the “ego driven fraud” many consider him. As such, it remains to be seen whether the Twitch viewers for Indiecember translate to game sales for the indie devs. But, at least Pirate Software will have more viewers for the first time in several months.
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