Honestly, imo piracy is beyond Apple's control. iPhone/iPod Touch games aren't the only things being pirated, it's software in general of all kinds. It's been going on a long, long time. Apple can't even stop people from jailbreaking in the first place, what hope do they have of stopping piracy? I could be wrong here but I think it's just a fact of life. It's like saying, 'why can't the police stop people from stealing?'
They get their iphone/touch from their parents. They also get more of that allowance then when we were kids...(those above a certain age that is). So they have the money to buy the apps, but some of them sadly choose to pirate anyway and save their money for other things they cant steal if they are so inclined to do so. The parents do nothing to teach values because they turn a blind eye to the problem. So they grow up to become some of the homeless ones you speak of who steal food to survive.
As an aside to this - I heard of homebrewed, homebrewn - something PSP's and then Sony did something to discourage piracy. I assume with their new store thing on the PSP go they kept those safeguards in place. Is that something Apple CAN do? I fear that despite the ease that Apple makes it for developers to BE a developer (costs, etc) that many developers might bite the bullet and pay more to be a Sony contributer and get a higher price tag for their games rather than take the risk of being pirated with ease. Or did I just open a can of worms?
See that is where the sense of entitlement is just too much for me to fathom. I can go into the when I was a kid routine but won't and just say that I am glad that I instilled morals in MY kids.
Maybe it's just me but I think stopping it is a lost cause. I haven't followed the PSP Go or the respective 'app store' but I'd bet people will figure out a way to hack it sooner or later. It's a cat and mouse game, and I think history has shown that you can slow it down but you can't outright stop it.
jaikben is so anti these threds b/c he is a user of pirate software he as reputation on all the symbian pirate sites and now he'll do same with iphone software
I wasnt trying to lump all parents today into the same pile. Just that the kids who are doing this are more likely to have parents who are too "busy" to properly raise their children. And i wasnt attempting to go into when i was a kid route either. Just pointing out that things have changed drastically over the decades due to many factors and therefore It's harder to raise kids today.
I think throwing the issue in peoples face is more of an encouragement than discouragement. when I was a kid, if someone said something was wrong, I usually gave it a shot. When everyone strted talking about how easy Napster was, everyone wanted to check it out. When my parents said don't smoke pot, I checked it out. When my teachers said don't use cliffnotes, I used cliffnotes. It's the curiousity of humans (especially children) to go try what is wrong. This is an issue that should be dealt with quietly. If you have such a problem with it, give your app more security to deal with it. Unfortunatly for people of the arts, it's a digital age. You have less costs to get your product to a wider range of people, but it is susceptible to piracy. If you don't like it, Sell your game on CDROM off a website, or just sell your pictures at gallerys, or just sell your music on CDs. Would you have really expected to sell more than 20 copies a day 15 years ago if it were on a cd? The last thing I would do is hop on a forum where the majority of viewers are under the age of 18 and start saying how easy and prevalent piracy is.
First let me say that I do not pirate nor support piracy. However PIRACY IS NOT STEALING, IT IS INFRINGING If I go into a store and physically take a CD off a shelf and leave without paying that IS stealing because I have taken something physical. That CD has a marginal cost whereas a file does not. So though piracy is very bad on this platform and has the potential to push devs elsewhere it is not stealing. Pirates do not sneak into the devs home and make off their keyboards or monitors. When an app is pirated the dev doesn't lose money, he loses potential sales. There is a fundamental difference. /rant
No no, I know and believe me when I say it IS tougher to raise a child these days!!!!! There are sooo many more issues than "when I was a kid!" We just all do the best we can with the life situation we are given and hopefully teaching morals gets pushed up the hierarchy somewhere from someone for these kids.
I'm sure Apple could take measures to make it more difficult. I doubt there is a way to completely destroy it, but right now any person with an iDevice and 10 minutes of free time can become a pirate
please don't get me wrong I am not saying that piracy is acceptable, because - obviously - it is not I just wanted to say that those 4000 illegit downloads won't turn into 4000 legit downloads if all "get-it-free" servers will be down... ... out of those 4000 downloads maybe 20 will turn into real money (so all in all it will be 40-a-day, twice it is now), rest of them (3980) won't buy game at all because: 1 - they can't afford it, they got it only because it was free 2 - they aren't really interested, they got it only because it was free I'm not dissmissing the issue, I just think that "one has lost 4000 x cost-of-an-app a day" is an exaggeration, and it is more like "loss of 4000 / 100 x cost-of-an-app a day" due to above-mentioned reasons... while your argument about stealing anywhere "in real life" is of course true HOWEVER difference is that while one who stolen something from say supermarket won't buy it anyway, but it is a direct loss to supermarket (you can't just copy can of soda) so it is true that "something not sold but stolen is a direct loss"... while it is not true with piracy where "something not sold but pirated is not always a direct loss"
And then there would be a thread of pissed off customers who bought the app and complain about the DRM. Most games for the PC have some sort of DRM on them. Internet unlocking,etc. Check out some game forums when a game has DRM. There is always a thread bitching about it. Unfortunately there is no easy solution to piracy. Make a game DRM free, and it will be massively pirated, resulting in potential lost sales. Make a game with DRM, and people will be upset it has it, and make them not want to buy it, resulting in potential lost sales. Its a lose-lose for developers right now.
I get what you're saying. I thought you were referring more to "they're just kids, give them a break" rather than "they're just kids, they have no money, wouldn't have bought it anyways, so there is no loss". Sometimes I'm a hard ass. So you're right, digital products have a much lower incremental cost than tangible goods. You can't copy a soda I do agree that they probably would not have made much money from the pirates.. maybe it's 20/4000, I really don't know. But... it's still a lost opportunity and an opportunity cost. It's an opportunity cost when Dev's have to use additional resources in an attempt to combat piracy. Piracy is a moral drain on dev's and it takes the wind out of their sales. I would guess that sometimes that "moral drain" outweighs the actual monetary loss.
I don't mean to sound like an asshole but just because these devs have had issues with piracy doesn't mean that we should go out and buy every one of their games. I understand that we should buy their games so they earn the profit they deserve, but in the end WE lose money cause their game was pirated (I mean, if the game is good then i have no problem with buying it, I just bought Rally MAster pro and love it). If devs are getting hurt by piracy then DO SOMETHING and stop complaining. @jaikben so well said.
If you read back at some of the other posts, you'll discover that your post is not of everyone's opinion.
