Project Zomboid Likely to be Released on Indie Distribution Platform Desura To Stem Piracy Woes

A few days ago indie zombie survival RPG Project Zomboid was taken offline, after a new auto-updating pirated version of the game appeared on the net. The piracy wasn’t the problem; the reason the devs pulled the game was because the new version would auto-update by re-downloading the entire game, potentially costing them significant money.

Talking to Nukezilla, one of the team members behind the game, Chris Simpson (known as Lemmy on the site), said they are “currently talking to Desura and it looks like we’ll be releasing the paid alpha on there very soon”.

Desura is a digital distribution platform akin to Steam, but with a much stronger indie base. It was built by the same company who run IndieDB and ModDB, and it has more of a developer and mod focus.

Currently Desura is PC only (though Linux a version is in the pipeline), but Simpson explained the team will “be working on releasing a paid alpha through our site ASAP so Mac and Linux purchasers can continue to play”.

If you want a bit more information on the downtime, the team put together a short FAQ explaining a few things such as why their security wasn’t stronger, and why they’re sometimes unprofessional.

There’s also now a free, public tech-demo to fill the void left by the pulled full version. I would highly recommend it.

[This article has been edited as only a Linux version of Desura is currently in the real-world pipeline, a Mac version is still in the pipeline of optimism.]