Indie dev exposes pirated copy after player complained on Steam

https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/indie-dev-exposes-pirated-copy-after-player-complained-on-steam-3297076/

Cande Maldonado Dec 22, 2025 · 1 min read
Indie dev exposes pirated copy after player complained on Steam
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A Farthest Frontier developer publicly called out a Steam forum user for reporting bugs while pirating the game.

Piracy is one of those uncomfortable constants in PC gaming. Everyone knows it exists, especially indie developers, even if most people politely pretend it is not happening. What almost never happens is someone marching straight into an official forum, asking for fixes, and doing so while running a version they never paid for.

City builder dev tells Steam user to buy the game before asking for fixes

The exchange played out on the Steam forums for Farthest Frontier, where a user asked the developers to fix an issue with the game’s in-game time system. Shortly after, the dev hit back: “Please purchase the game instead of running a ‘non-Steam version’.”

Zantai, the developers later elaborated on Reddit, explaining that the same person had previously asked for mods for an alleged non-Steam version, something the studio does not support because it does not exist.

“If they don’t plan to support our work,” he said, “we don’t think that gives them the privilege to participate in our community.”

He added that “while Frontier does not have any anti piracy ‘bugs'”‘ in it, but we did do that in our previous game, Grim Dawn, where the pirates would get a random selection of issues

“Getting bug reports for those was a treat!,” he noted. He closed with a simple request for players to support indie developers if their work bring them joy.