Developer claims 80 percent piracy rate for latest iPhone release

by Andrew Yoon on Oct 26th 2009 12:30PM

Apple's iPhone/iPod Touch is a lot like Sony's PSP in many ways: they both play games, movies and music -- and now both can struggle with the effects of piracy. According to iPhone developer Smells Like Donkey, about 80 percent of all downloads of Tap-Fu were illegally downloaded.

The developer notes that learning how to pirate games off the iPhone is surprisingly easy, thanks to "a kernel patch that bypasses Apple's DRM system" that "would take an average person 5 minutes in Google to find." Additionally, the developer discovered that an average of zero percent of pirates end up purchasing a legitimate copy of Tap-Fu -- it seems marking the game down to $1.99 didn't discourage anyone from taking a free ride.

"It is kind of depressing," the developer admits. However, other iPhone developers are encouraged to take a proactive approach in lieu of Apple's slow response to the piracy situation. "Detecting a pirated app is quite simple to do," the developer notes. "Probably the first thing we'll try is popping up a message reminding people that they really should buy the game if they like it and conveniently provide links to do so." An alternate plan to generate revenue? DLC. "This forces the pirates to change their strategy significantly and it might be a while before it becomes feasible to attack this system."

[Via Develop]

Source

Tags: apple, drm, iphone, iPod, itunes, piracy, smells-like-donkey, tap-fu

Reader Comments (45)

It's very likely that the pirates played it once and deleted it, so they can't really be expecting to get sales off of that. If they wanted people to buy it out of principle or respect for the developer they shouldn't have developed an iPhone game.

A bit more information that was gleaned from slashdot.org
This particular developer was only judging piracy vs. non piracy based on high scores that individuals would have to upload to a server. Pirated copies included a flag labeling them as such. Now he says that 0% of the people who pirated went on to buy the official version but this is not true. Its really 0% of the people who progressed enough in the game that they would want to upload a high score didn't go on to buy the official version. Anyone who pirated just to check out the game and liked it enough to buy would in probably close to 100% of the cases buy it before they would upload a high score.

Also, the game apparently sucks and isn't worth $2. but that's my 2c ;)

Pirates do it because it's easy, free, and chances of them being caught is slim to none. There are no other righteous reasons beyond that.

You can never count pirated apps as "potential" sales though, as the only reason they have the app is because they got it for free. It's true that there are very very very few pirates out there that buy a product, but you have a better chance of contracting an STD from a public restroom than finding those people.

I guess I'm herpes then. I couldn't afford Fallout 3 when it came out so I downloaded it for PC. As soon as I had the cash I ran out and bought the collector's edition.

Syphilis here. I download movies and TV shows daily but turn around and purchase them if they're worth having for collection's sake. Considering how much is out there and how little time I have to set my schedule around when TV shows air, piracy is more of a temporary convenience for me than a means of collecting things I want. If I know I want it, I'll buy it. If I'm on the fence, I'll download it first to determine if it's worth the money.

I guess if you got robbed out of your paycheck you shouldn't either. Have some damn consideration.

I don't really like the way piracy stats are counted. I mean, if I were to download 10 DS games, and it turns out one I really like, I would go out and buy it. But the 9 other games I didn't like or though were mediocre, get counted as 9 lost sales, which doesn't make much sense.

Hey Joystiq!! Can someone please make an option to see the text on comments that have been downvoted? Some of those are my favourite ones to read because it shows how dumb some people really are.
My eyes are fricken aching after straining them to try and read that top comment for petes sake. I seriously had to look at it from a specific angle.

"I guess I'm herpes then. I couldn't afford Fallout 3 when it came out so I downloaded it for PC. As soon as I had the cash I ran out and bought the collector's edition."

I don't see the problem with this at all. If he payed for the game, why did he get downvoted? My friend and I would download albums and buy them later. He does it often actually. I wouldn't be surprised if every album he buys, he already has on his iPod from a torrent.

I'm willing to bet that the numbers would definitely change if you took out the number of people who pirated AND bought the game. A friend of mine ordered Dead Space for PS3 through Amazon, and when it didn't come a week or two after it should have, he downloaded the PC version. A month later, his PS3 copy showed up. Is he in any way morally wrong for doing this? No. He bought the game. He is not taking any money from the developers or publishers by downloading a copy.

If you don't end up buying a game, then fine, I'll agree that it's wrong.

That, and many pirates actually buy the games they are distributing. 90% of the time NFOs state that not only did the provider buy the software, if you like it so should you.

Can't say the same about the leechers though.

Hi, this is Genital Warts checking in. Probably 90% of my PC, PSP and DS collection was pirated before buying the original. (And not to brag.. but I have bookcases full of games..)

Now and then I'll buy a game without checking it out first if I trust the company or have played a demo.

The rest of the time, it's hit up pirate-bay first. 95% of the time I buy the original. The other 5% I delete it, because it's either a shoddy game that was done with the intention of defrauding me out of my money with pretty art, or I simply don't enjoy the game (My rule is if I play it more than 15-30 minutes, I'd better be buying it).

Other times I pirate a game I've already ordered and paid for, but it hasn't been shipped to me yet.

Based on the second commenter in this thread however this is a really sad situation. If people are playing a game enough to get a highscore and upload it they should bloody well be wiling to shell out 3 bucks for the game. That is just appalling.

Honestly the only way I see of fixing a problem like this is working on the community. Technology isn't going to fix it. DRM gets cracked. Find a way to get your community to make their buddies pay for the app, and you win.

I won't lie. I have a jailbroken 3GS with the appropriate "app hack" program. I have downloaded a few games illegally but have only done so when a game/app in the App Store doesn't have a "lite" version. Until Apple mandates that developers create lite versions along side ALL their releases, I'll probably keep doing this. I refuse to shell out x amount of dollars for a game/app that most likely has a very suckage rate.

And yes, I have purchased 4 games after I "illegally" tried them out:

Canabalt (Best. Game. EVER.)
Ynth
Crystal Defenders
Flight Control

Im not sure I get this.

You're going to defeat the pirates, by having a pop up which politely asks that they buy the game. THEN, youre going to release DLC to discourage them from pirating something they will likely pirate MORE, because theres DLC for it, which is also easily piratable.

Goes to show if piracy was as easy on the consoles (not that its that difficult) as the PC/PSP/DS/Iphone, it would be just as rampant.

If they can detect the pirates and send them a message, can't they just lock them out of the game or something? Or better yet, some them some kind of iPhone-bricking virus?

first you loose that customer for good and second the hackers would find a way around it anyway. Better to be lenient and shame them into buying the full copy.

That was my thought. Unless they're thinking that pirates will simply work around the code that closes it, but they might be too lazy to work around a nag screen.

If pirates never buy, then who gives a s**t if a developer locks out a user?

Because then the pirates will complain about how they hate the developer ruining their reputation if the pirate himself has good rep.

wait, so the jesus phone made by the jesus corp isn't jesus?

JESUS!

The only people who called it Jesus phone were people like you. So, I'm sorry to say, you've let yourself down on a device you'll never own. I'm sure Apple is crying about it right now. Enjoy your Zune.

Lets see apple make a chart on this one.

Lol, I can just imagine playing the full game illegally, next thing a pop up tells me to buy the game if I like it, I satre at it for a few seconds then say, 'ha, get off my screen bitch, I already have the game, why do I need to buy it, this ain't no trial!'

Dude, iPhone games are cheap anyway. I don't understand what's the need to steal a game that costs 99 cents anyway... LOL! People are cheap, yo. Some of the same people were complaining PSP games cost too much; hardcore DS games cost too much. Now it's like, "Yeah, well I have to do it 'cause there's too many games in the App Store that suck so I'm savin' $$$ by tryin' it first." I don't have an iPod touch and don't want an iPhone but if I had either, I'd really just buy the games. Even my bargain bin DS games cost more and I'm not really going to miss $1-3 to try something.

So only 2 people purchased it out of the 10 copies being played? With that small of a sample that statistic is useless and not indicative of piracy rates.

If their wasn't a free version I can see why people would be inclined to pirate it. I'm not saying that's a valid reason though. Too many apps come out with only the pay version first with a lite version in tow months later. If more developers released both at the same time, I think that would help quell that.

Other then that, it's no use worrying over the pirates. If you have a demo available and people still pirate it, then they were never going to buy it in the first place. Sad reality, but they should spend their time catering towards those who are going to actually buy their game.

ah how amusing, once again bad developers blaming pirates for there low game sales. Apparently your game wasn't even worth 2 bucks, for shame!

The price users pay for something DRASTICALLY affects how they perceive the game, and how much effort they put towards learning and enjoying it.

Many iPhone developers have done tests where they take a 1.99 game and then price it at 99 cents. The game gets more sales at 99 cents, but the user ratings drop significantly.

Many users who pirate games won't bother to put the effort in to really learn or appreciate the game.

I say write some code that if pirated, number of punches = number of spam emails or text messages that would be sent to all contacts listed in your phone with the body or subject "Kaiswil2 is cheap and is playing a $2 pirated game!, please convince him or him to purchase the game to prevent this message".

This would turn some heads.

Piracy is one MAJOR issue for digital downloads, systems like this are easy to crack and make a very tempting target for many, especially if all they need to is download a kernel patch to do so.

Great. Now we have ass holes pirating games on the iphone. Way to start the viscious circle dick heads. Before we know it, you're going to have to enter a serial key, activate online (limit to 1 time) and sign in to the apple store for verification onilne every time.

"Now we have ass holes pirating games on the iphone."

iPhone Piracy has been rampant since long before this Joystiq post. Most people I know that pirate games are doing so because there is no trial period to try the game out. Many of them then go on to purchase and promote a game that they found enjoyable.

Fact: 95% of the games in the App Store are tripe.

I think they should stop using the term "Pirates", in today's world is so easy to play a cracked version of anything, that any kid can do it, they are no pirates, they are just users. Every time people talk about piracy, a bunch of people come here and start the same BS saying that all the Aholes pirates should stop and blablabla, well they'll NOT stop, you can rest assured of that. The developers could try to find a solution for this, or every month we gonna have one developer or another bitching and crying about piracy. My suggestion, start developing to PSN or Xbox LIve, I never heard of developers complaining about piracy in those methods of distribution.

Not everyone wants to develop for consoles. That's why some devs and studio develop for PSP, DS, and the idevices in the first place.

So tell then to stop bitching and try to find a solution...

I'll be honest and say that my iphone is jailbroken but its just for changing the look of my icons. As for apps I pay for all my apps cause I am always worried of these bootleg downloads that can harm my iPhone so I have dont mind paying a few dollars for a kick ass game.

So what does this say for the future that Microsoft would have that all movies be DD and the piracy that will most likely ravage the industry if there's no such thing as a physical media to sell in a store?

Piracy is here to stay but the moment you make everything available online you lose a LOT of control. The blogsphere is a perfect example of this. There was a time when newspaper and TV media controlled the news. Now anyone with a strong opinion and a blog, Twitter or Facebook account can make national news that can impact the world.

Piracy? On the iPhone?

There's an app for that!

I didn't know there was piracy on the iPhone. Very interesting.

People need to stop taking piracy claims at face value.

Remember your math teacher "show your work!". Require it anytime someone starts throwing out statistics. Especially something as unlikely as 80%.

To prove this guy wrong, find 10 random iPhone users and I bet not even one of them will have a clue on how to pirate a game. Most would probably be shocked to learn you can jailbroke the device. The iPhone and its games are hitting the john q average consumer that knows nothing of piracting games and unlikely to go through the trouble. For them, its pretty magic shortcuts that do magic things and nothing more.

There is probably piracy (if it can be sold, there will be piracy) but for a $2 app that most users probably have not heard of? Please.

This goes to reporters too btw - always make them show their work when making claims like this. Reporters laziness in requiring this is why billion dollar statistics without anything to back them up circulates.

Your rant is meaningless.
For starters your find 10 random people that use an IPhone and they won't know how to hack it is probably true. Heck ask 10 people what brand headlight fluid they use and your get 8 liars. But the point of the story was 80% of those people that have played the game on their IPhone, have in some form or fashion withheld monies to the developer.

And not beat this game up but there is over 13,000 games its a crap shoot.

I can't remember who said it, but I remember the saying:

"Pirates weren't going to buy it anyway."

its true in every place pirates go. you don't lose sales to piracy. The "pirates" I know will get movies, and if they actually enjoy them they normally buy the DVD or the movie off itunes.

I have bought some games that I pirated, Geodefence Swarm, Medieval, Dead Panic, I find if I have sat there playing a game for hours, it was worth the few dollars to purchase... Although I have downloaded many, most get played for a couple minutes and thats it. I haven't tried his game, so I can't say if it was good or bad.
There are some pirates with a haha FU attitude, but there are many of us who will.

Despite the so called "rampant" piracy on the iPhone, obviously that doesn't deter developers to flock on the platform. Sure, piracy exist on any platform, but you still have millions of potential legit iPhone users with easy access to download your app legally. That's the important point.

That said, I can't blame some developers that may be discouraged looking how cheap people can be (pirating apps that are only a couple of bucks). Sure, one can make an excuse of pirating apps like Office or Photoshop due to their high cost, but pirating a game that will only cost you a buck or two is just low. Heck, I know plenty of people that rather pirate something than using a free alternative, even if the free alternative is as good/better.

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Developer claims 80 percent piracy rate for latest iPhone release

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