Utter crap. Pure b******t. Aside from that complete b******s, Microsoft, Adobe and other significant companies spend money, time and resources on tackling piracy - and yet they fail. All their work is out and cracked very soon after release (if not before). So how it is otherwise tackled here I don't know. But please don't fall for that "try before you buy" crap. Don't pretend you are not harming the dev because you ARE.
how is that bullshit? its fact.. that microsoft/adobe thing is completely different as they offer a try-before-you-buy already whereas in most cases, apple doesnt on the appstore. that "crap" is true. people do genuinely use cracked apps as a 1day trial to see if the app is worth it or not. and trying before you buy is in NO WAY harming the dev at all. pirating is.
There's usually a lite version to try. No lite, no buy. Too bad for the dev. I don't see why anyone should be so desperate to try something that they must resort to warez.
Then you're way off. 90% of people jailbreak for cracked apps? I live in Hong Kong, and basically all iPhones come jailbroken yet I know dozens of people who have an iPhone and not one of them knows anything about pirating apps. As for 70% of people here downloading cracked apps? Where did you get that random percentage from?
Yeh I guess I was wrong, a jailbreak is out (just checked). But, I'm not sure you get the logistics of the app store either. OK server costs, approval staff, redownloads etc. will add up, but how many apps are there on the store? Even free apps give Apple money (advertising) and if the rate of piracy is to be believed, almost every paid app is getting cracked and losing 40% of total sales. Apple are like the massive developer responsible for every app and they wouldn't be running the app store if it wasn't making them money. I guarantee that it makes more than the iTunes store what with thousands of applications out all giving away parts of their profit to Apple. Didn't Flight Control come out and say they got 1 million downloads (this is official downloads)? Let's use the 40% piracy rate, that's $400,000 gone begging from 1 app. How many apps are there on the store? Granted not all games are as successful as FC, but some charge more too. I reckon Apple are losing millions to piracy, so you definitely can't accuse them of lacking motivation to stop piracy. The truth is, they, like every other major company, can't do it. The entire music industry can't stave it off, so why do you think Apple can do something about it? Huge giants like Microsoft, Adobe, Sony haven't managed to shake it off, and I don't see how Apple can either.
For those who still believe in the try-before-you-buy myth, we're keeping great stats on users who register for a Harbor Master account. Note that this is just users who register for the online account - so this represents a small percentage of the total pirates. And these are players who play regularly and happily eat our bandwidth. Number of pirate users: 13,120 Number of pirates who converted to the full version: 90 ... So there you go. That's a 0.6% conversion rate from try-before-you-buy to buy. Most people are quite happy to keep trying indefinitely without that pesky buying part
I deal with people who say "Here are all the latest hits! All the new releases! But remember, only check them out for 24 hours and then if you like it you must buy it. Support the artists!" Yeah right. It's theft. Doesn't matter how you dress it up or what you say to make yourself feel better or feel that you are taking the righteous path, you are stealing.
@Nattylux: Noone said that people use the cracked apps as a try-before-buy solutions. The people say they are ment to be that. @others: Why do you care? I mean... If you aren't developers, why do you say pirating is bad? I personally don't say it's bad, but I also don't say it's good. It's there, and I don't think anyone can change that.
Its bad coz if devs lose money coz of piracy then they wont be investing their time and money into appstore games
This is typically what most people seem to not understand : Piracy makes game devs stop involving themselves in quality, and to an extent it just makes them flee from the appstore. I'm myself putting all my soul & sweat into a game since January 09, but seeing how piracy is growing slowly takes me away from iDevice support. And I'm not the only one : Just google "iphone piracy", you will find several blogs about devs having totally stopped their appstore activity because of piracy. Unless you don't mind having only fart apps left on your store, you should care more. Seriously.
http://torrentfreak.com/how-piracy-can-boost-iphone-app-sales-090125/ It's an interesting read, go for it!
Our "Pig Air" game was the 4th most pirated game about 4 weeks ago and traffic to the leaderboards reflected that. But believe me, it did not translate into sales. Piracy as try-before-you-buy definitely a myth. I know those who do it and will buy if they continue to play. Most don't, tho. And we have the data to prove it.
Except the title is wrong. An accurate title based on the article is "Publicity boosts iPhone app sales". arn
I know it's a cop out and its not an excuse for piracy... but the high level of piracy does not suggest that those people would actually buy the application. There was an article about it regarding music piracy. Just because somebody pirates a song does not mean that they would have bought the music. Fortunately for musicians there are other means for revenue ie:concerts. Perhaps some enterprising individual will find a way to capitalize on the piracy. In app purchases are a step in the right direction, unfortunately so far in app content has been total crap. Although the level of piracy is high with iDevice software, but the fact still remains that somebody, somewhere is making money.
Reviews arent a great way to know a game. People raved about Fieldrunners and 7 cities but when i bought them I only played for 5 minutes and was done with them. $6 down the drain :\ Now I'm just pickier with my games, I try lites and try to see many videos before I buy them but I still buy the occasional bad game (dark raider, not bad, just not for me). These type of sites arent the best to find out which apps are the best....Minigore anyone??? I do wish more people would put out lites at least. I bought strategery based on the lite. And there's some games that are more expensive that I havent bought and probably will not until they become dirt cheap or there's a lite to try beforehand. Other games like galcon labs are a direct buy, same likee geoDefense swarm. etc... my point was, reviews are not always a great way to find out something about a game. Not justifying piracy just putting that point across.
btw, i heard somewhere that android has a great customer system where you can return things within 24 hrs of purchase. Of course all the android devs are pissed off b/c the people pick up their game for a quick 2-3 hr play and then get their money back. I dont know how this adds to the conversation, or if that issues has been addressed. But its worth noting for those who argue that there are no money returns for apps. I think all apps should have a lite, simple. It wont get rid of all the issues but i think it would help a lot.
