I didn't answer your question, because I didn't exactly understand what you were getting at. Now that I see what you mean, I just don't agree. I think the vast majority of people who steal apps, have legitimate access to them, and rather than buy them, steal them instead. I think that there are plenty of the 95% of piraters of Rally Pro who would have bought it if they couldn't have stolen it so easily.
Whether they would have bought anyway or not doesnt matter. Why is it ok to just take something that a Dev is selling without compensating them for all their hard work?
What if the app had a server backend? Developers have to maintain servers, it costs money. A particular app has a 90% piracy use rate, thats 90% of people who haven't paid a thing taking up bandwidth. It can get very expensive.
Well, yeah they have legitimate access to them. (Besides the localization issues, which can still be done though). And yes, I completely agree, a percentage (We'll never know how many) most likely would have bought the app could they not have stolen it so easily. And that's where this all ends, because to my knowledge there's no way of knowing who would have bought it, and who wouldn't have bought it (had they not been able to steal it). That's a good point, I never thought of it. You are completely right, all server-requiring apps will be harder affected by piracy.
How to put this...hmmm Alright so let's start with "They wouldn't have purchased the app anyway". This doesn't mean they should be entitled to it. I will never be able to buy a Porsche but that doesn't mean I can just go out and take one. It's amazing how flexible people's morals are just because it's not a box on a shelf. How people think that for whatever reason, they deserve the right to enjoy something they didn't pay for. It's bullshit and people that do it can use whatever excuses they want to justify it but it's still wrong. Just because they don't have the money to pay for the apps they want, doesn't mean they should get the for free. That would mentality drives me wild and I just can't understand that line of thinking. Plain and simple if you want to play games you should pay for them, otherwise they can't make more/new ones. People who say 'It will still happen anyway, they make enough money anyway, blah blah blah' don't understand that happens because people actually PAY FOR IT. If everyone adopted their stance nothing would make money. It's not fair or right for everyone else to carry lazy cheap bums on their back.
Shouldn't it be Touch Arcaders Against Piracy? Since we have already established some evil members download cracked apps.
@ Tesio: Of course they shouldn't be entitled to it if they're not going to pay for it, but that's not what we're arguing here. We already established that stealing is bad, and it's a pretty universal agreement. But thanks for retyping it. This isn't about "is stealing right", but rather "would they have bought the app if they couldn't have stolen it" Like I said, there isn't any way (to my knowledge) to know if the people that had pirated the app would have BOUGHT it if they didn't have the means to get it for free. Honestly, we understand that stealing is bad and just because you can't afford it doesn't mean you should get it for free. @ Palfince: I agree
To those of you that are ok with piracy: Now, what if you has a app on the App Store and you put a lot of time,effort,money into it and you found out that the app's piracy rate was 70%? Wouldn't you be mad,sad,frustrated? I sure would be. Well, you pirating a game is what those priaters are doing to your app. If you don't want it done to you then don't do it to others. Anyways, great idea for a group.
No that's what you were talking about, I wasn't talking to you or responding to your points. If I was I would have probably quoted people. I was making a general statement for the pirates that read this thread to hopefully take in and just think about for a few seconds.
Answer this then.....There is a brand new PC game that just came out. You consider going to the store to buy it but it but you figure it's not really your type of game, so you dont get it. Then a friend sends you a link to a website where you can download the very same game for free. You jump at the chance and do it. Is this alright? According to your logic, it apparently is.
There's absolutely no way somebody could know the answer to that, which makes it a stupid question to ask in the first place. Of course you can't be sure that people who pirate games would buy them if pirating wasn't an option. Chances are if it's a popular/big name title, then they would have purchased it anyway, but if it was a less popular game and they weren't going to buy it either way, how does stealing it make it any better? Realistically, the majority of people who (in this case) pirate apps know exactly what apps/games they're stealing. People aren't gonna sit and download one game after another with no clue as to what they are. They know exactly what they are, and choose to steal them because they're greedy.
Why isn't there a way to verify legitimate purchasers in cases like these? If every iDevice has a unique ID, why doesn't apple share those IDs with devs, so that only legit apps can access resources like that? I mean, I know that would be more complicated than I'm making it seem, but I'm shocked tight-fisted apple hasn't done more about this problem already. After all, THEY'RE missing profits here too. They kept iTunes music pretty tightly locked up for a while there.
Good job, you just narrated a scene in which the person would have actually bought the game if they didn't have access to a pirated copy. It doesn't prove anybodies point right or wrong, it just illustrates a scene that could happen. I never said stealing is right. What I'm trying to get it, as how many people would have ACTUALLY bought it if they didn't have access to a pirated copy. No it's not alright, didn't I already say it, like three times: "Piracy is bad, as well as stealing, and I am not for it". Don't know how my logic plays into this, I'm just trying to prove that we have no way of knowing who would have actually bought the game (if they didn't have access to a pirated copy), and therefor (Unless the game requires a server, costing the dev money) not hurting the devs profit. I'm sorry, I just thought it was directed to me when you said "They wouldn't have purchased the app anyway" (Because I said that). Exactly (To the first thing you said), we don't know (Like I already said if you had read my posts), and therefor we can't prove how many would have, or wouldn't have bought it. Therefor, we can't assume how much money the devs would have lost, right? And like I said before, stealing doesn't make it any better, I honestly don't know why people keep saying that to me, because never did I say 'stealing makes it better', I'm just pointing out that you can't claim it hurts the devs because we don't know who would have bought it or not. But it's a good point on the big name/popular apps.
I seriously can't take this "They weren't going to buy it anyways so no harm done" crap anymore. I am having a hard time understanding the fact that someone who can afford $200+ iDevice can't spend a a few cents on an App. I'm sure they can. Then why do they pirate? Coz why pay when you can get it for free. Pirates aren't from a different planet. They are just like you and me and will pay for stuff if they need it. They just found out an easy way to get stuff for free and that's tge only difference between a pirate and legit buyers. They'd definitely buy these apps if pirating is no longer an option. Definitely not as much as they were pirating. They'd probably just get 5% of paid apps compared to what they were downloading earlier. And my guesstimate with all these figures is that the devs will easily double (probaly even more) their sales if piracy is stopped. So don't give me this crap anymore that it's no harm done as they weren't going to pay in the first place. I just wish apple does something really solid here finishes this piracy problem completely like Sony did with PS3.
Did you actually read what the hell i said? The person in my scenario didnt buy the game, and wasnt planning to. Once he realized he could get it for free, he stole it by getting the cracked version.
We have no way of knowing who would have and who wouldn't have, so you can't say they definitely would have bought them. As for the $200+ device, you never know really. And for that '5%' that they would get instead of the 100% they would pirate pretty much backs up my point that they wouldn't buy it if they could pirate it (They could pirate 100%, but when they can't, they buy 5%) It's not 'crap', it's a perfect possibility. Either way, you don't really say anything useful. You just narrated one of the two possibilities, and besides that, my reply answers everything else about your post.
The "most of them wouldn't have bought it" argument comes up a lot but even those that wouldn't have bought it become a statistic. When a dev sees 90% piracy rate and shitty sales they don't care that most of them wouldn't have bought it - they see a demoralizing statistic and end up wasting time and money on antipiracy measures, raise their prices, or give up on the platform. More piracy = fewer games. It's as simple as that.
It hurts developers because x% would have bought the game because they can afford an iDevice and most people can't afford an iDevice. If developers don't make enough money then they will quit developing new games and everyone loses. Developers need to be able to earn a living and piracy will make sure less are able to make a living at it.
@ Frank: That's true @ Dave: I worded it wrong, it does hurt the dev but we don't know how much (Yeah dumb error on my part, goes against everything I've said previously).
