Article We thought to write an article on our findings with piracy for Tap-Fu. Check it out here: http://smellslikedonkey.com/wordpress/?page_id=274 We'll try to keep it updated, and see how the legit-to-pirate ratio works out.
Thanks a lot for sharing this information. I always suspected the 'conversion rate' was nearly zero and your numbers proved it in this case.
Interesting article Knight, thanks for sharing. Appreciate you keeping us in the loop with what is going on. As much as I am against what is going on, I find the subject fascinating especially with the data you've got to back it up. One thing I found rather surprising, although arbitrary, the pirates seem to have much higher scores than the legit users! That's a travesty... I'm not one to usually submit scores or bother with achievements but I think in this case i am going to start doing so. They might be able to pirate the game but as legit users I think it's almost a matter of principle for us to be hitting the higher scores. Especially with the knowledge that they basically have gaming ADD and are able to move on to title after title endlessly. There was another thread awhile back on Piracy and some Dev's were talking about the various options they have to try and ward it off. I believe there were a number of people who felt that they should not modify the game so that if it detects a cracked version it breaks the game. They felt that by doing so the game may garner the reputation of being buggy (even though only cracked versions are "buggy") which would be even more detrimental than even the piracy itself (paraphrasing here). I think you've got the right idea to maybe implement a pop-up with a link to iTunes and maybe some sort of plea or message. Actually I wouldn't bother pleading with them but some sort of message with an iTunes link.
Interesting stuff that disproves three stupid arguments: - People would buy games if they were cheaper - People do only test the games and buy them afterwards - People that use the programme intensely (they appear in the highscore list), are mostly buyers.
The game launched at $4 - this is not cheap for an appstore game. It's too early to judge this. It will be interesting how many people use pirated copies for more than a few days.
Nice article. But I think Apple should do something. It's not only to the developers to resolve piracy issues. The OS should do it. Blacklisting keywords application pirate, I do not know how... Apple should also focus on better treatment and management of new applications/games. Because this is not fair to any developers that featured applications to be selected on the itunes/app stores for over a week or two (without really knowing how or why) and others are largely forgotten without any chance to be seen, even if their games are excellent. Why not just rotating one or two months new apps in the selected section? And by rotating, I mean every time you click on the "selected" section. Because we already have the top 25 for the current best apps and games. In short, before focusing on pirates, they would also be good to look on the side of Apple to offer us an Good App Store that "help" all the developers and not just the most "lucky" and/or more "fortunate" of them. After that, a good app is a good app, the "Top 25" should do the difference.
If I were to create an app, I'd make it detect a cracked app on startup and display a message along the lines of: "You are running a pirated copy of <app name>. If you are interested in this app please purchase it using this link <link to app>, or try the lite version <link to lite>. When you press continue this pirated app will automatically close itself."
80% sure that the game would not even pass through Apple quality controls. And that's another problem : Apple don't let developers properly defend themselves ... They do not authorize nested downgraded versions. For the company, DRM are sufficient enough.
maybe this is a strategy of Apple, leave the system crack-able so it atracts millions of users..and in the future they will install a more draconic protection of apps as i'm sure they could do
In comparision to other iPhone games, it might not be cheap but compared to Indie/XBLA/PSN/WiiWare/DSWare games it is not that expensive.
