Piracy.

Adas

 

piracy isn't going anywhere. it's going to continue to make a profound impact on our industry (and others) and it will get even worse as things go more towards digital distribution.

sony has it kinda right, WOW and Steam seem better about it as well. we really need some serious login check, or whatever, to keep people on the straight and narrow.

tmCaffiene, or whatever his name is, had some point "piracy has no effect on sales" - i'm inclined to agree with this person, to a degree. based on what I have read, plenty of people pirate software "because they can" not so much "because they actually care to use the software they are obtaining." In that case I'd say a certain (large) percentage of things that get pirated would have been a no-sale to begin with, so in that respect, it's not as huge an issue as it could potentially be.

the larger issue with all of this - pirating of iPhone apps, of films, MP3s, etc is that these goods are seen as not having value anymore. This is bad enough already with piracy and further perpetuated with the unbelievably cheap prices of (those that are quality) apps on the Appstore.

 

steam has knocked down the piracy rate for alot of the games they host, but steam games still get pirated. just not as much.
i like the idea of steam though. if i lose a disc or change computers, i just download steam and they bring up a long list of stuff i've bought from them, download the list, back to normal.

 

Actually I guess like 1/10 people would buy a game they want if piracy wasn't an option. They could buy it but would rather get it free

 

ngcomo?

 

Strangest comment ever. Are you telling me that if 100% of people who played a game had stolen it... that the loss in profits would in no way be related?

 

He does have a point. Most pirates are young kids who can't or dont have any way to pay for the app. So lets say 95% of the pirates are kid and the other 5% adults. If the first 95% didnt download the app illegaly the developers would not benefit from it either because kids have no way to pay for them. If they did download the app illegaly then developers wouldn't benefit either. However the other 5% could pay for it so thats the only loss they have.

And my view on this whole topic: I dont see why so much fuss about this topic. Its been discussed a thousand times. And in my opinion, the developers should quit whining, they knew what they were getting into when they submitted their app to apple. NOT that i think piracy is right. We are talking about the Ipod/Iphone department. Losses are minimum when it comes to this. Developers are not gonna starve for a few hundred bucks less.

/thread

 

True, there've more than enough discussions on this...whatever we say it's not going to stop.

 

Also I would rather have somebody pirate something made by me if the person would not buy it otherwise. That way if they like the game they might tell others about it and they might buy it.

 

it is ESTIMATED that 50-90% of people pirate the game!?!?!?!?
ok seriously.
I doubt that that many people pirate, considering the amount of jailbroken iphones as to amount of iphones.
(compare 2.x jailbroken numbers, and not 1.1.x jailbroken numbers)

 

i think he was also talking about in general

EDIT: well, its also not that hard to believe that many people pirate iphone games

 

The estimate is of total users of any given game.. at least 1/2 of them will be pirates.

 

I think it is because the large number of games Appstore is rolling out everyday. Like for other consoles there are only 8-9 games (of big banners like EA, Ubisoft, Activison, Rockstar) every year that are pirated. In the appstore everyday hundreds of apps are released, It is bound to happen with such a wide range of choices. And hey we are only talking about games here what about the other useful apps?

 

You can't stop piracy. You just cant.

But you can try

 

It sounds like you refuse to understand the scale of the problem and downplay the issue. Let's look at some numbers to illustrate. I'll use rough approximations:

Rolando was a big release on its launch day, and on its first week let's assume it hit top 10 at $9.99. I don't remember if it hit #1 or not, so for this exercise let's pretend it was around #5 for its first week.

At #5 the sales of Rolando would have been roughly 5000 copies per day, generating ~$50k daily revenue. For its first week, the game therefore would have made ngmoco maybe $350k.

So, if the legal number of downloads was 35k on the first week, according to the news the overall downloads were anything from 70k to 350k.

This means a revenue loss of $350k-$3.35M depending on the piracy rate. Even if we take into account the silly argument of "most would not have paid for it anyways", the losses are $35k-$335k.

But hey, developers should just quit whining, right?

 

There`s no one but Apple to blame for this piracy issue on iDevices. I cant believe apple cant stop people from jailbreaking their iDevices. With a closed system where apple controls both the hardware and the software there is simply no excuse for them to let j/b happen in the first place. Most would like to disagree but the majority of people jailbreaking are doing it for pirating apps. Unfortunate few who use j/b for genuine reasons will be disappointed if j/b is stopped but I`m sure they`d be willing to sacrifice a little for the greater good

As long as j/b exists there`s simply no practical way to stop piracy.

 

Yeah and even if Apple fixes j/b people will stop upgrading and stay on lower firmwares to keep their jailbreak. Or another hole will be found to go around the whole system.

It's always going to be a cat and mouse game with Apple and the jailbreakers.

 

I agree.. Although I support hacking and jailbreaking.. I don't support pirateing.. And I do believe there is a big difference..

I remember back in the days when windows mobile tried to keep their systems closed.. And eventualy made their devices open to rom-cheifs (custom uis around windows mobile 5 and up .. Xda-developers) and their mobile device sales actually went up..

I think if apples was smart.. They would allow their ipod and iPhones to be customized and for 4th party developers to make custom uis (ie winterboaed, sbsettings,etc maybe custom firmwares) but not support pirated content.

I paid good money for my iPhone.. Why can't I customize it?

But even if.. I believe hackers and pirates will always be one step ahead.. It's unfourtunate.. But true .. And it will ALWAYS be the choice of the end user to pirate or not

 

They cant stay on a lower firmware for too long. And very soon their pirated apps will stop supporting the lower firmwares too. If there is one way to curb piracy on iDevices, then this is it. Nothing else can really work.

Atleast apple should go after those famous crack sites which host these apps. They make it way too easy for anyone who wants to pirate. If they cant stop them legally then use a bit of your coding powers and attack these sites. Replace the cracked apps with some software which bricks up the iPhone with a message saying...