Piracy is getting worse...

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by Psychonaut, Oct 26, 2009.

  1. Psychonaut

    Psychonaut Member

    Oct 26, 2009
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    #1 Psychonaut, Oct 26, 2009
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2009
    Kotaku just posted a link to a developer's blog about his encounter with iPhone piracy.

    http://smellslikedonkey.com/wordpress/?page_id=274

    Reading his blog, he seems to have taken it well considering the circumstances. But its a look into how widespread piracy is becoming on the app store, I just hope it doesn't become any worse than it is now...
     
  2. chickdigger802

    chickdigger802 Well-Known Member

    Apr 14, 2009
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    ya that article is interesting, especially how he mentioned that getting apps off those sites were easier than from the app store (especially on windows comp, stupid buggy mess of itunes). In the future most game devs should just implement a mandatory online login or whatnot the first time the app is run to 'register' the game. Based off those stats it seems that blocking pirates from your game will still probably increase your potential sales based off curiosity for the app(if the app is good).

    Also running hacked games on a jb iphone/ipod usually perform way worse than on a 'clean' system, so if the piraters found a game boring/unplayable, there would be no reason for them to buy it.

    I still doubt apple will do much, unless more devs start complaining. Dev's should take action. Hmmm is it possible to push spam =D?
     
  3. GlennX

    GlennX Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2009
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    The problem with that is that a lot of people resent having to fill in those forms. Just look at the reviews for ngmoco's free apps with plus+

    The piracy thing is very worrying though. At my kids' school most of their friends are Jailbroken and most of those download pirate software. I suppose it could be argued that there is still useful word-of-mouth power in the few non pirates seeing all those pirate copies being played. At least that's what I'm trying to tell myself...
     
  4. Psychonaut

    Psychonaut Member

    Oct 26, 2009
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    Registration for apps would probably cause a lot of problems too, you don't want to bother legit paying customers, yet you don't want your game to be pirated...

    It's just too easy to pirate an app on the iPhone, and really, it's going to be near impossible to stamp out all piracy. The only effective solution is making it much more difficult for the "average" pirate to get hold of a working copy. Apple will have to, sooner or later, play a bigger role in the situation.
     
  5. markx2

    markx2 Well-Known Member

    Dec 28, 2008
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    Developer has the UDID as does Apple. Pity they can't be matched.
     
  6. creation

    creation Member

    Oct 23, 2009
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    #6 creation, Oct 27, 2009
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 27, 2009
    UDID F**** is what every pirate is using. Well, those in the know.
     
  7. chickdigger802

    chickdigger802 Well-Known Member

    Apr 14, 2009
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    eh, but like plus+ network only requires 1 registration for all games that support it. They really needa do some of that things they did back then about sueing those ppl who dled music. Do something that can scare users, because developers know which iphone/ipod touches are pirating. They should be able to track your ass down. Who doesn't believe apple has there own findmyphone system for all iphones =)
     
  8. HardcoreEricXXX

    HardcoreEricXXX Well-Known Member

    Nov 29, 2008
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    One thing that has deterred pirating with at least one of my friends is having quality DLC with a quality game. I only know of two, FAST and Tap Tap 3, but that seems like a good model to follow.
     
  9. ddn

    ddn Well-Known Member

    Jun 19, 2009
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    Programmer by day but at night also programmer.
    Look behind u!
    This is inevitable unless Apple gets their act together and impelemnt hardware decryption at runtime, like how the consoles do it. Apple is just shooting themselves in the foot, even though games are ultra cheap on iPhone, once someone starts pirating they will almost never return back to a normal consumer (why? when u can get it for free with all the convience).
     
  10. Adams Immersive

    Adams Immersive Well-Known Member
    Patreon Bronze

    Dec 5, 2008
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    Pretty depressing. (Not to mention, I don’t care what scores pirates are getting—give me a ranking against REAL players.)

    I can’t see how pirating is truly “much easier” than buying from iTunes. iTunes has great search, and one-click purchasing! The best case anywhere else would also be one click… PLUS dragging to iTunes.

    Of course you need to have signed up for an iTunes account… but to pirate, you need to deal with jailbreaking and the mysterious consequences of every update. I wouldn’t call that easier.
     
  11. hackdirt

    hackdirt Well-Known Member

    Oct 26, 2009
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    I think his graphs would be far more enlightening if he compared pirated downloads to something free, such as a lite version of the app.

    Also, just to play devil's advocate for a second, is pirating actually that big of a deal?

    My take is that most - maybe 90% - of people pirating are doing it because there's simple no alternative for them. They're not bad people, they're just poor, don't have a credit card, or live in a country where the app store is not available. In most cases, you're simply not going to see any money from them. The alternatives for them are (a) pirate your games, and (b) don't even use your games. There's no "(c) pay for the games" option for them.

    It's not like this is a new thing, either. I just think back to when I was a seven year old with my trusty Amiga 500, and I had hundreds of games, all pirated. There was no way my $2 a week allowance was going to allow me to pay for any of them. Pirating was just a lame way to get the games I wanted - me and my friends all knew pirating was lame, but if you really wanted a game you couldn't afford, there was no other option.
     
  12. xxxmind

    xxxmind Well-Known Member

    True. It is too depressing to know all this. I believe as time goes on and number of users grow, it will be worse. I wonder if there's any way to make crackers harder to crack other than online registrations.
     
  13. Vexxed

    Vexxed Active Member

    Sep 8, 2009
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    When our SCRAPS game hit the pirate sites we went from about 5 downloads an hour to 40. That held for almost as week.

    I tracked down the site where the downloads were coming from and we were essentially in the "What's New" on the site so everyone was downloading it.

    I have no way of knowing if we lost sales or not as a result. And at this point (after getting featured in What's Hot by Apple) we've now sold more units than were pirated, but it's still close to 50%.

    I would like it to be less trivial for these games to be pirated, and it grinds on me at a very fundamental level that folks do this. However it's also pretty easy to write it off as sales that you never would have gotten anyway. I'd rather focus on things that I can actually do something about :)
     
  14. d1

    d1 Well-Known Member

    Sep 19, 2009
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    someone brought up the the 1 star ratings for ngmoco's free games. it reallly pissed me off that ppl are so ignorant/lazy/retarded that they think its sooo f'n hard to put in a user and pass thats universal for Plus+ apps..i just dont understand why its so hard for them to comprehend it..
     
  15. bomber

    bomber Well-Known Member

    Nov 9, 2008
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    Apple has clearly addressed the piracy problem with the in-app purchases which have all the advantages of normal purchases (can be restored, can be used on 5 devices) but can also be checked on server-side by online services. This is quite a big step forward.

    About the forced login to plus+: it's partially for making money with free-loaders. By forcing everyone to create an account and fill a profile or so they are expanding their network and collection valuable information about users. From my point of view it's quite ok, but technically very badly implemented. The app can already identify the device, so their is no point in forcing someone to register, most of the registration process could be done automatically. It's only natural that people complain about that.
     
  16. EssentialParadox

    EssentialParadox Well-Known Member

    Sep 21, 2009
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    #16 EssentialParadox, Oct 27, 2009
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2009
    I agree with that. Looking at that high score chart and the statement of 90% of users playing pirated versions, aren't the ratio of lite users something similar? I think the large number of piracy versions out there are primarily because it's free, and I don't think developers should be worried too much that they're losing sales to pirates.

    I personally don't believe we should allow even this excuse as justifiable for piracy. I find it unfair on the kids (and adults) who are saving up to buy a new game every couple of weeks, but there is a pirate who downloaded 10x the number of games because he says he couldn't afford it. It's not only unfair on the developers, it's unfair on the honest customers too.

    I have also known pirates in the past who've said they can't afford to pay for their stolen content, but then they'll go out and buy a $100 pair of jeans, and I'm just thinking to myself: "what the heck?" If someone is too poor to buy a two dollar game, how did they afford one of the most expensive portable music devices?

    I definitely believe there's a disconnect for a lot of internet pirates, but I think the solution is educating them on where the content comes from, and as they grow older and become interested in video game development or music production and they'll learn for themselves how important paying customers are to the economics of these industries. That's my hope, at least. :)
     
  17. mobilainteractive

    mobilainteractive Well-Known Member

    Mar 6, 2009
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    #17 mobilainteractive, Oct 27, 2009
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2009
    Pretty lame arguments (no offense):
    - poor people don't buy $300-600 dollar devices (there are $20 phones and mp3 players). If you spend 300+ dollars on the hardware but can't shell out a buck for a game, you are not poor you just cheap asshole.
    - name a few countries w/o appstores? Sri Lanka and Bulgaria have it.. I don't think that countries less than those would really make much of a difference in traffic
    - no credit card? buy a gift card in your local store and redeem it.. (if those pirates have internet, I bet there is a bank nearby to issue a debit master card)

    Why people pirate? - because
    - it's easy enough
    - there is no risk of being caught
    - there is no punishment
    Eliminate one of these reasons and you'll see a significant drop...

    Good example is cable service theft. The cable companies sent a few "bullets" to disable hacked boxes, sued a bunch of people to make an example and converted to digital, which is mostly impractical to hack. The problem practically disappeared in most areas...
     
  18. don_k

    don_k Well-Known Member

    Oct 9, 2008
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    +1 +1
     
  19. MikeSz_spokko

    MikeSz_spokko Well-Known Member

    May 27, 2009
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    I dont think anyone mentioned that yet, but people pirate even FREE apps. we've seen it with our games for sure

    what does it mean ? basically that there are people who chose to completely avoid the appstore. or maybe its just easier to install games (even the free ones) using j/b ? laziness ?

    ---

    about the appstore unavailability in certain countries:
    I know of one case, where the devs pretty clearly invite people to pirate their app. it's Civilization Revolution - for absolutely no reason it is still not available in some countries (Poland, France and others). personally I purchased a gift card and got the game, but I cant really blame people who pirated the game - if the publisher is stupid and does something like that, no wonder the market responds in such way...

    but yeah - this is just a single and very specific case
     
  20. bomber

    bomber Well-Known Member

    Nov 9, 2008
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    It was probably not possible to get the world-wide distribution rights. Especially for older games the distribution rights were often sold to a bunch of companies which each had their own territories.
     

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