Piracy is one of the main enemies of many, if not most, video game and media companies, as it is often blamed for lost sales. One indie developer, however, has embraced piracy as a way to get its game in the hands of more people. Acid Wizard Studio has uploaded its own game onto The Pirate Bay, the popular torrent site, in order to give those who can't afford it access to a safe version.

Darkwood was fully released last week, and it's garnered a positive response from Steam users since then. Following its successful launch, Acid Wizard's Maciej Gorny explained that the developer wanted to ensure that everyone had the ability to play a secure, stable, and safe copy.

"We decided to upload it to Pirate Bay to ensure that people who can't afford it can download a safe version of the game," he said in a press release.

Further, the studio explained that it was frustrated with how game keys often end up being resold on suspicious and possibly dangerous website, so it decided to do something about it. "To be honest, we're fed up with it," Acid Wizard wrote on Imgur. "This practice makes it impossible for us to do any giveaways or send keys to people who actually don't have the money to play Darkwood."

"If you don't have the money and want to play the game, we have a safe torrent on The Pirate Bay of the latest version of Darkwood (1.0 hotfix 3), completely DRM-free," the developer continued. "There's no catch, no added pirate hats for characters or anything like that. We have just one request: if you like Darkwood and want us to continue making games, consider buying it in the future, maybe on a sale, through Steam, GOG, or Humble Store."

Darkwood is a top-down, survival-horror game that came about because the studio members were too afraid to play other horror titles. In a post on Reddit, the developer stated that it wanted to make a game that doesn't depend on jump scares to create a sense of suspense and horror.

If you want to buy a copy of the game, you can grab it for $15 on Steam. If you'd rather get the free version, the Pirate Bay link is here.