Another developer reports insane iPhone piracy rates
by Richard Mitchell 
on Oct 27th 2009 10:01PM
61
Reader Comments (61)
Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:03PM (Unverified) said
Here's a thought: Make your game worth paying for. I would bet that the best games have lower piracy rates than the crap ones.
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Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:06PM (Unverified) said
Then they have to embrace that saying 'We have to be better than free'.
Or Apple could, you know, secure their platform.
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Or Apple could, you know, secure their platform.
Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:08PM (Unverified) said
Can we get past that excuse?
Here's a thought: DON'T STEAL
I don't like the taste of certain candy bars, but that doesn't make it okay for me to steal them from the store.
Reply
Here's a thought: DON'T STEAL
I don't like the taste of certain candy bars, but that doesn't make it okay for me to steal them from the store.
Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:11PM (Unverified) said
I don't bother pirating: If it doesn't say 'id Software' I generally don't buy it unless there's a demo. iPhone games in general disappoint me.
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Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:42PM Cheesus Crust said
Here's my copy of Borderlands: http://i37.tinypic.com/33p653s.jpg
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Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:43PM Cheesus Crust said
But I also BOUGHT the Steam version... so it's ok.
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Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:44PM (Unverified) said
Not sure why I was downvoted...I'm one of the strictest Anti-piracy people on the internet.
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Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:59PM (Unverified) said
How about they just stop doing stuff for the iPhone? It appears that it's quite easy to just steal the games and such.
Oh, wait. Is that why the iPhone is selling so well recently?
Reply
Oh, wait. Is that why the iPhone is selling so well recently?
Posted: Oct 27th 2009 11:10PM (Unverified) said
That was crass. These people are just trying to earn a living like me and you. It's pretty bad when somebody can't pay 2$ for a game.
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Posted: Oct 28th 2009 12:20AM chrisredfield31 said
I don't understand why you were downvoted either. It's well known (at least it should be) that the most marketed, whether viral or otherwise, games that have high production values, are games that sell the best versus sleeper hits that have a chance of flopping and are not very known. If they did a better job of marketing their game they'd get more sales. There's plenty of legitimate customers on the App store.
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Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:07PM ch3burashka said
Say, I heard Zune has an app store...
...sad it's not open to developers yet...
...but you devs should start making the apps now...
...Would you kindly start making Zune apps...
Reply
...sad it's not open to developers yet...
...but you devs should start making the apps now...
...Would you kindly start making Zune apps...
Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:09PM Premature ejaculation man said
C'mon. While pretty poor, the majority of piracy arguments are about high prices, no demo or being unsure if it would work on the computer or some kind of stupid corporate decision (DRM, price increase, no dedicated servers, etc).
But iPhone games are dirt cheap. Jailbreaking your iPhone/iPod Touch just to get around paying $0.99 (or 6.99 in this case) seems a little too absurd considering if you've got an iPhone, you generally have money to burn.
Reply
But iPhone games are dirt cheap. Jailbreaking your iPhone/iPod Touch just to get around paying $0.99 (or 6.99 in this case) seems a little too absurd considering if you've got an iPhone, you generally have money to burn.
Posted: Oct 27th 2009 11:01PM spin cycle said
For many young people, it's pretty simple. They have plenty of time to screw around trying to figure out how to get stuff for free (even illegally) and little money to spend. So they pirate. End of story.
I've known young people who can convince their parents to buy them $80 DVD writers (when they were that expensive), or big hard drives to store pirated content on, but they can't get them to buy them music, DVDs, etc. as easily.
As these people grow older and have more income and less free time, they'll buy more stuff. But the problem is the record, movie and game industries are heavily concentrated on young people, and so they get hurt badly.
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I've known young people who can convince their parents to buy them $80 DVD writers (when they were that expensive), or big hard drives to store pirated content on, but they can't get them to buy them music, DVDs, etc. as easily.
As these people grow older and have more income and less free time, they'll buy more stuff. But the problem is the record, movie and game industries are heavily concentrated on young people, and so they get hurt badly.
Posted: Oct 28th 2009 1:14AM jakey said
@why not the LS2LS7?
Nail on the head right there. I'm pretty sure a majority of these pirates are college aged or at least close enough and still dependent on their parent's income. They might not even have a credit card yet. That's means even if it's a dollar, if there is a "free" option, they will choose that. With most parents it's not just about forking over money to pay for entertainment, but they also scrutinize over WHAT you buy. So if there is something you want and the parents are unlikely to buy for you because of the content, then piracy is going to look very appealing.
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Nail on the head right there. I'm pretty sure a majority of these pirates are college aged or at least close enough and still dependent on their parent's income. They might not even have a credit card yet. That's means even if it's a dollar, if there is a "free" option, they will choose that. With most parents it's not just about forking over money to pay for entertainment, but they also scrutinize over WHAT you buy. So if there is something you want and the parents are unlikely to buy for you because of the content, then piracy is going to look very appealing.
Posted: Oct 28th 2009 3:48AM (Unverified) said
Actually, you don't even need to jailbreak. Buying it once allows you to have it on 5 devices. You can easily share games with friends and get around buying them a few times...
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Posted: Oct 28th 2009 1:40PM (Unverified) said
"considering if you've got an iPhone, you generally have money to burn."
Huh? iPhones cost $99 now... that's a mass market price.
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Huh? iPhones cost $99 now... that's a mass market price.
Posted: Oct 28th 2009 12:22AM chrisredfield31 said
why hasn't this loser been downrated yet? I hate fanboys like this. It seems like the MS fanboys always gotta make their presence known somehow.
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Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:16PM spin cycle said
I dunno, could they be doing their math wrong? It's just hard to believe that there are that many people pirating iPhone apps, well, unless their sales are minuscule and so the number of pirates, although small, is still far larger.
In the end, isn't it weird to concentrate on the people you failed to sell to instead of those you did?
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In the end, isn't it weird to concentrate on the people you failed to sell to instead of those you did?
Posted: Oct 27th 2009 11:21PM spin cycle said
Well, 95% is still crazy. That's 20:1. If you managed to sell your app just to 6% of the iPhone owners, it would actually be impossible for it to be pirated 95% of the time, since there aren't enough devices in the world to make it happen.
These figures have to have something to do with low sales as much as high piracy. Let's say 33% of iPhones are sold to young people and 100% of them pirate every app. That means that these games are sold to less than 1.6% of iPhone owners. That's a low sell-through rate.
Maybe these developers should try a little advertising, get the word out that their apps exist. That will raise the sales rates and thus make the percentage of copies that are due to piracy lower.
Reply
These figures have to have something to do with low sales as much as high piracy. Let's say 33% of iPhones are sold to young people and 100% of them pirate every app. That means that these games are sold to less than 1.6% of iPhone owners. That's a low sell-through rate.
Maybe these developers should try a little advertising, get the word out that their apps exist. That will raise the sales rates and thus make the percentage of copies that are due to piracy lower.
Posted: Oct 27th 2009 11:38PM Vegeta has a ps3 said
I don't see how it's hard to believe. It's so ridiculously easy to simply jailbreak your ipod, that it's not suprising that there are that many pirates.
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Posted: Oct 28th 2009 7:59AM SheppyReturns said
1. You're talking total userbase. Newsflash, not even the latest firmware is a 1:1 attach rate since Apple charges iTouch's for the upgrade.
2. It's pretty frickin hard to plan an advertising blitz when Apple holds the keys to the kingdom and CAN hold your game for several months if they want to. Advertising an iPhone game before it dropped backfired on a couple companies when the ads went up and Apple wouldn't elease the title for another 5 weeks.
3. People are fucking thieves. Advertising your game only gives it more exposure to the self-entitled fuckwidgets that are pirates.
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2. It's pretty frickin hard to plan an advertising blitz when Apple holds the keys to the kingdom and CAN hold your game for several months if they want to. Advertising an iPhone game before it dropped backfired on a couple companies when the ads went up and Apple wouldn't elease the title for another 5 weeks.
3. People are fucking thieves. Advertising your game only gives it more exposure to the self-entitled fuckwidgets that are pirates.
Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:22PM (Unverified) said
I did the jailbreak (this was in the OLD days. Before the 2G Touch and all the simple one click software. I think the App Store had less than 10,000 apps on it at that point.) and it just wasn't that impressive. And it sucked my battery down like no other. Went back to the standard FW in a week.
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Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:22PM jdizzle84 said
I don't get why there are always excuses or so called "remedies" for piracy. There are people out there who are just cheap and will not buy games, music, or movies and will pirate those things whether they are 50 cents or 50 dollars. No in-app purchasing, no better game quality, NOTHING will change that. Apple just needs to shape up and shore up their system. There is no way to pirate games on PSN or XBLA, so it's definitely possible.
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Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:29PM HighFiveJesus said
smells like donkey? fishlabs?
who the hell is naming these companies???
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who the hell is naming these companies???
Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:31PM No Kill Tayler said
Here's something crazy, maybe even a protip.
But, make it a requirement to update, and if they don't, hell breaks loose.
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But, make it a requirement to update, and if they don't, hell breaks loose.
Posted: Oct 27th 2009 10:58PM (Unverified) said
Attention, Pirates!
*waves hand*
You should not pirate games. You should rethink your life.
I'm done here.
Reply
*waves hand*
You should not pirate games. You should rethink your life.
I'm done here.
Posted: Oct 27th 2009 11:06PM (Unverified) said
Oh please. 99% of iPhone users don't even know what jail-breaking is, let alone would be able to do it, or would want to do it. Saying your app experienced 95% piracy just means no one actually bought it. if 1900 people download a pirated copy and 100 people buy it, that's 95% piracy. In the scale of the millions who have iPhones, 1900 people is tiny.
Do I think they need to shut down pirates? Yes. Do I think the sky is falling? No way. I know 10 people with iPhones, and none of them have jailbroken it, even though 6 or 7 have way more technical capability that your average iPhone user and would certainly be able to if they felt like it.
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Do I think they need to shut down pirates? Yes. Do I think the sky is falling? No way. I know 10 people with iPhones, and none of them have jailbroken it, even though 6 or 7 have way more technical capability that your average iPhone user and would certainly be able to if they felt like it.
Posted: Oct 27th 2009 11:39PM Vegeta has a ps3 said
I'm curious to see exactly where are you pulling your stats from.
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Posted: Oct 27th 2009 11:31PM emperorzeroxx said
where the heck do these guys get those numbers? oh yea that's right they pull it out of there a$$... once again low grade developers, stop blaming others for your horrible skills and try to make something worth paying for. If you want to complain, do it like Nintendo. They make amazing games, heck just look at the sales. Nintendo hasn't blamed piracy for bad sales ever, sure they don't like piracy and they obviously try to block it from there consoles, but they never said it was the reason their games haven't sold as much as they could. Lesson of the day, if your games suck stop making them. Instead of wasting your time trolling the internets and complaining all day you should take a few developing classes and learn how to make a real game that people actually like.
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Posted: Oct 27th 2009 11:46PM Vegeta has a ps3 said
You need to realize that Nintendo is a pretty established developer so there's one of two reasons why they don't necessarily have to worry about pirating.
1. They have a massive following of gamers that will buy anything (well almost anything) that has nintendo's name on it.
2. It's difficult enough to try and pirate a console game that most people are willing to fork over cash to buy it.
Besides there's already a game that recently came out that pretty much proves your logic wrong, and that's World of Goo, a game that recieved great reviews and yet the developers complained that the pc version of the game was being pirated on a massive scale.
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1. They have a massive following of gamers that will buy anything (well almost anything) that has nintendo's name on it.
2. It's difficult enough to try and pirate a console game that most people are willing to fork over cash to buy it.
Besides there's already a game that recently came out that pretty much proves your logic wrong, and that's World of Goo, a game that recieved great reviews and yet the developers complained that the pc version of the game was being pirated on a massive scale.
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