{"id":1937368,"date":"2026-05-15T15:17:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T12:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1937368"},"modified":"2026-05-15T15:17:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T12:17:24","slug":"i-cannot-condone-piracy-but-i-get-why-people-do-subnautica-2-lead-designer-airs-frustration-at-flagrant-pirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1937368","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I cannot condone piracy, but I get why people do&#8221; &#8211; Subnautica 2 lead designer airs frustration at &#8216;flagrant&#8217; pirates"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article \" data-ads=\"true\" data-article-type=\"news\" data-article-group=\"news\" data-paywalled=\"false\" data-premium=\"false\" data-sponsored=\"false\" data-type=\"article\">\n<header class=\"article_header\" data-component=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<nav class=\"nav_breadcrumbs\" data-component=\"nav-breadcrumbs\" aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\">\n<ul class=\"nav-links\">\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Home<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/news\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      News<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/subnautica-2\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Subnautica 2<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_details\" id=\"main-content\">\n<h1 class=\"title\">&#8220;I cannot condone piracy, but I get why people do&#8221; &#8211; Subnautica 2 lead designer airs frustration at &#8216;flagrant&#8217; pirates<\/h1>\n<p class=\"strapline\">Avast.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_asset\">\n<figure class=\"headline_image_wrapper\">\n<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"headline_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/subnautica-2_zv86SQE.jpg?width=570&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;dpr=3&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"A shot from Subnautica 2's cinematic teaser trailer showing a close-up of a diver in the ocean's depths. A message is visible on the inside of their helmet visor, reading,&quot; Warning, critical.&quot;\" loading=\"eager\" data-uri=\"subnautica-2_zv86SQE.jpg\" data-lightbox width=\"570\" height=\"321\"><figcaption>\n          <span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>Unknown Worlds\/Krafton<\/cite><\/span><br \/>\n        <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"metadata\">\n<div class=\"avatar\">\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Connor Makar avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/tAtwiaBo_400x400.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"374\" height=\"374\"><\/p>\n<p>  <img alt=\"Connor Makar avatar\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"tAtwiaBo_400x400.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"374\" height=\"374\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<div class=\"byline\">\n                  <span class=\"article_type\" data-slug=\"news\"><br \/>\n                    News<br \/>\n                  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by\">by<\/span> <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/authors\/connor-makar\">Connor Makar<\/a><\/span>                    <span class=\"job_title\"><br \/>\n                      Staff Writer<br \/>\n                    <\/span>\n            <\/div>\n<div class=\"published_at\">\nPublished on <time datetime=\"2026-05-15T15:17:24+00:00\">May 15, 2026<\/time>              <\/div>\n<div class=\"comments\">\n      <a class=\"comments__link comments-bubble\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/i-cannot-condone-piracy-but-i-get-why-people-do-subnautica-2-lead-developer-airs-frustration-at-flagrant-pirates?view=comments\" rel=\"nofollow\"><br \/>\n          8 comments<br \/>\n      <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"mypop-header-wrapper\">\n<p><button class=\"mypop-button button wide\" data-state=\"follow\" data-type=\"tag\" data-uuid=\"9b751be1-bde5-4ecd-8081-2abe2cce45b9\" data-name=\"Subnautica 2\" data-follow-text=\"Follow Subnautica 2\" data-unfollow-text=\"Following Subnautica 2\" data-aria-follow-text=\"Follow Subnautica 2\" data-aria-unfollow-text=\"Following Subnautica 2\" data-popup=\"true\" data-force-login=\"true\" aria-label=\"Follow Subnautica 2\" title=\"Follow Subnautica 2\"><br \/>\n  Follow Subnautica 2<br \/>\n<\/button>          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/subnautica-2\">Subnautica 2<\/a> is finally here, and while the vast majority of fans are playing &#8211; and paying &#8211; their hearts out, a few have taken to a different ocean. And the game&#8217;s design lead has now pushed back against these flagrant pirates.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of Subnautica 2&#8217;s release earlier this week, a few players were seemingly boasting about having acquired early illicit copies of the game in the official <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/subnautica\">Subnautica<\/a> Discord server. It&#8217;s this behavior that Unknown Worlds&#8217; Anthony Gallegos was responding to.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"primis_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"primis_video\">\n<p><span class=\"embed_placeholder\" data-type=\"targeting\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"message\">To see this content please enable targeting cookies.<\/span><br \/>\n<button class=\"optanon-show-settings link\"><br \/>\nManage cookie settings<\/button><\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption>Here&#8217;s a Subnautica 2 early access gameplay trailer.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5sU66p6w2P0\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;Just to be clear, pirates are gonna do their thing. We were all kids once,&#8221; Gallegos wrote. &#8220;Money and the economy is very hard. I get it. It wasn&#8217;t the piracy that bothered me. It was the people that flagrantly walked in here and wagged it in the faces of people who were waiting to play legitimately. That was the part that aggravated me.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That and the Reddit responses that keep talking like I&#8217;m a millionaire,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;I&#8217;m very much [not]. I don&#8217;t own a home. I rent. There&#8217;s a lot of misinformation going around and we just wanted the best launch possible for our people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>All that to say, I understand and thank you for supporting the studio ultimately. I cannot condone piracy, but I get why people do. I would much rather people buy the game, try it for an hour, and return it than go play it illicitly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It seems the vast majority of players thought the same; Subnautica 2  saw around 446,000 concurrent (paying) players on Steam on the day of its launch. Quickly after, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/subnautica-2-sales-launch-one-million\">Unknown Worlds announced over 2m copies were sold across both PC and Xbox Series X\/S<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re curious what all the fuss is about, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/subnautica-2-has-hooked-me-on-an-irresistible-mystery\">Eurogamer&#8217;s Subnautica 2 impressions<\/a> offers an introductory peek at what the early access release has to offer.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"preferred-source\" data-component=\"preferred-source\">\nLove Eurogamer.net? Make us a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\">Preferred Source on Google<\/a> and catch more of our coverage in your feeds.  <\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/subnautica-2\">Subnautica 2<\/a> is finally here, and while the vast majority of fans are playing &#8211; and paying &#8211; their hearts out, a few have taken to a different ocean. And the game&#8217;s design lead has now pushed back against these flagrant pirates.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of Subnautica 2&#8217;s release earlier this week, a few players were seemingly boasting about having acquired early illicit copies of the game in the official <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/subnautica\">Subnautica<\/a> Discord server. It&#8217;s this behavior that Unknown Worlds&#8217; Anthony Gallegos was responding to.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"primis_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"primis_video\">\n<p><span class=\"embed_placeholder\" data-type=\"targeting\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"message\">To see this content please enable targeting cookies.<\/span><br \/>\n<button class=\"optanon-show-settings link\"><br \/>\nManage cookie settings<\/button><\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption>Here&#8217;s a Subnautica 2 early access gameplay trailer.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5sU66p6w2P0\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;Just to be clear, pirates are gonna do their thing. We were all kids once,&#8221; Gallegos wrote. &#8220;Money and the economy is very hard. I get it. It wasn&#8217;t the piracy that bothered me. It was the people that flagrantly walked in here and wagged it in the faces of people who were waiting to play legitimately. That was the part that aggravated me.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That and the Reddit responses that keep talking like I&#8217;m a millionaire,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;I&#8217;m very much [not]. I don&#8217;t own a home. I rent. There&#8217;s a lot of misinformation going around and we just wanted the best launch possible for our people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>All that to say, I understand and thank you for supporting the studio ultimately. I cannot condone piracy, but I get why people do. I would much rather people buy the game, try it for an hour, and return it than go play it illicitly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It seems the vast majority of players thought the same; Subnautica 2  saw around 446,000 concurrent (paying) players on Steam on the day of its launch. Quickly after, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/subnautica-2-sales-launch-one-million\">Unknown Worlds announced over 2m copies were sold across both PC and Xbox Series X\/S<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re curious what all the fuss is about, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/subnautica-2-has-hooked-me-on-an-irresistible-mystery\">Eurogamer&#8217;s Subnautica 2 impressions<\/a> offers an introductory peek at what the early access release has to offer.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home News Subnautica 2 &#8220;I cannot condone piracy, but I get why people do&#8221; &#8211; Subnautica 2 lead designer airs frustration at &#8216;flagrant&#8217; pirates Avast. Image credit: Unknown Worlds\/Krafton News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on May 15, 2026 8 comments Follow Subnautica 2 Subnautica 2 is finally here, and while the vast majority [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,253],"class_list":["post-1937368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-eurogamer-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1937368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1937368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1937368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1937368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}