Rampant Piracy Forces Dev To Give Away Game

PUBLICITY STUNT.

Their previous title(s) have sold well over 100,000 copies at $4.99 a pop.

I think they're doing just fine.
 
Jasec said:
Just because they are successful, it's not ok and the developers shouldn't feel "ok" either due to the success. Pirates still make millions lost of revenue.

Same can be said for console games. Most of the time prices drop around 1-2 months after launch but people still pirate. Sad but the if they can't pay $1, they won't pay shit.
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Exactly, people have long excused their piracy by claiming "prices are to high" and/or other BS excuses, but the truth is a large percentage of those pirating movies, music and games would continue to do so even if all prices dropped to $1 and all that would change would be the excuses they use to try and excuse their actions.
 
ripken204 said:
personally I don't understand app store piracy....
it's easier/faster to get games from the app store than it is to pirate them.
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I can't really speak to app stores. I wouldn't be caught dead with a smartphone and their crappy games. But, I wonder how many Android users don't have app store accounts. Or, how many get frustrated sorting through the crap to find something good? Or, how many Android customers are generally turned off of the Android app store because prices are often higher than a dollar and higher than the iPhone app store.
 
I posted this on the same story in a different forum:

A study conducted by Yankee Group and Skyhook revealed last year that Apple customers download six times more paid apps than Android consumers. It also showed that Android developers make "much less" money from the sales of paid apps than Apple iOS developers -- 75 of those developers blamed the loss of revenue on "rampant piracy." 53-percent of those developers said Google is "too lax" on its Android Market policies, whereas 27-percent saw Android piracy as a "huge problem."
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I don't believe these numbers actually indicate what's going on. I have an ipod touch, and don't really peruse the app market much (mainly just use it for watching netflix), and I was surprised to see that there really aren't any free apps worth much of anything in the Apple iOS store. Maybe a handful of free versions of games that are ad-sponsored versions of paid games. Contrasted with the Android store that has an overwhelmingly large number of free (and also bad, but that's beside the fact) apps. It is only logical to assume that iOS users would buy more apps--there are more apps that are not free in the apple app store.

I use an android phone and an android tablet, and I honestly didn't even know that piracy was a problem. When I find an app worth buying, I buy it. If it looks like crap, I don't buy it (and usually there's a legit free alternative to some extent--in terms of "productivity" apps and the like). To be honest, until this article, I didn't even know there were ways to get paid apps without paying.

Here's the thing--if a game is $0.99, and the dev is complaining that they are not getting the revenue they were expecting and that it's due to piracy, I honestly refuse to believe that the game would otherwise have done well. $0.99 is a throw-away purchase. If the game looked to be any good at all, people would buy it. If it wasn't, they won't. It's not like we're talking about a $100 game here. Most people don't think twice to buy a $0.99 game.

This all just reeks as an excuse for not producing the product they thought would net money. SOOOOO many other games and apps are extremely successful despite this "rampant piracy." Explain that.
 
Stone Cold said:
A dollar is nothing. No one pirates a game to avoid paying a dollar. Money is over-rated as a factor in media piracy. IMHO, piracy is mostly about convenience.
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Lol sorry I've heard some excuses but this one made me really laugh. What is more convenient.

Put card into account. Click buy. Click play.

Or

Find non virus version. Try again. Try again. Download the sideloader. Read instructions. Read again. Reload that didn't work. Load. Play


Never at anytime has it been more convenient and easy to buy and play
 
teh_chem said:
This all just reeks as an excuse for not producing the product they thought would net money. SOOOOO many other games and apps are extremely successful despite this "rampant piracy." Explain that.
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There are soooo many games and apps that are extremely unsuccessful. Most Apps and games aren't successful. ;)
 
Never heard of the game, but even when Amazon gives away a "free" game on their free app of the day program, if it has IAP enabled or a pay2win kind of system built in, I won't even bother downloading it to try it out.
 
Ashbringer said:
Have you tried overclocking the phone? Any custom roms installed on the phone?
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Not yet. I rooted my phone to get rid of crapware and to block ads (EVO 4G only has roughly 512MB of system memory available). The phone is giving me enough issues at the moment to keep running the stock ROM until I get a new phone in Oct.
 
The piracy thing is BS. You don't see Wal-Mart offering stuff for free just because a bunch of people shoplift, do you? Everyone complained that there was an upfront fee on a game that required in-app purchases to play. So instead of just saying "Yeah we were trying to rip you off. We're sorry." They just scream piracy and use that as an excuse to make the game free. Also it gives a mediocre game a little extra publicity.
 
I never heard of it until the [H] posted this. I'm agreeing with those calling this a publicity stunt.
 
Major_A said:
Not yet. I rooted my phone to get rid of crapware and to block ads (EVO 4G only has roughly 512MB of system memory available). The phone is giving me enough issues at the moment to keep running the stock ROM until I get a new phone in Oct.
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Well a custom rom might breath life back into the phone. For example they would have drastically changed the kernel, as well as updated the OS. Since you've already rooted the phone, you've done some of the work.

HipKat’s Ultimate Guide To Everything Evo 4G

Fairly up to date ICS rom for your phone, but still beta and missing 4G capability.

Unofficial CM9 for your phone, with the same problem.

A really nice and stable Gingerbread rom for your phone.

Also here's a video of your phone working with ICS. They also seem to have Jelly Bean working on your phone, but like all phones it's alpha.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMdWAL7bBrk
 
DW-UK said:
Could this be a sympathy based publicity stunt to get money for a game that no one plays?

Same old argument: Successful games are heavily pirated. Unsuccessful ones are not. You don’t get “Call of Duty”, “The Elder Scrolls”, “Angry Birds” etc complaining about piracy.:p
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The developers of World of Goo disagree.

Why would people go through the bother of pirating a shitty game? I never understood that particular canard.
 
lilbabycat said:
PUBLICITY STUNT.

Their previous title(s) have sold well over 100,000 copies at $4.99 a pop.

I think they're doing just fine.
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THIS. As mentioned on slashdot, they make their money on basically required IAP (in app purchases) to progress in the game. The whole $1 to $0 was a publicity stunt.
 
chart


I think that says it all about this game. Was never popular in the first place until it went "free", and I doubt piracy had much to do with it, if at all.

I think I bought Shadowgun on a steep sale at some point...kinda pissed that I did knowing how shitty this company is now. Plus I never play it so it was a waste anyway. :p
 
Sounds like a bullshit stunt to get publicity. Now the whole internet knows about the game! I suppose whatever works to push their wares...
 
teh_chem said:
I posted this on the same story in a different forum:



I don't believe these numbers actually indicate what's going on. I have an ipod touch, and don't really peruse the app market much (mainly just use it for watching netflix), and I was surprised to see that there really aren't any free apps worth much of anything in the Apple iOS store. Maybe a handful of free versions of games that are ad-sponsored versions of paid games. Contrasted with the Android store that has an overwhelmingly large number of free (and also bad, but that's beside the fact) apps. It is only logical to assume that iOS users would buy more apps--there are more apps that are not free in the apple app store.

I use an android phone and an android tablet, and I honestly didn't even know that piracy was a problem. When I find an app worth buying, I buy it. If it looks like crap, I don't buy it (and usually there's a legit free alternative to some extent--in terms of "productivity" apps and the like). To be honest, until this article, I didn't even know there were ways to get paid apps without paying.

Here's the thing--if a game is $0.99, and the dev is complaining that they are not getting the revenue they were expecting and that it's due to piracy, I honestly refuse to believe that the game would otherwise have done well. $0.99 is a throw-away purchase. If the game looked to be any good at all, people would buy it. If it wasn't, they won't. It's not like we're talking about a $100 game here. Most people don't think twice to buy a $0.99 game.

This all just reeks as an excuse for not producing the product they thought would net money. SOOOOO many other games and apps are extremely successful despite this "rampant piracy." Explain that.
Click to expand...

Completely agree with you... I don't think there is enough people that know where or how to "pirate" a game to make any difference to micro-app sales.

PC games on the other hand, tend to have a customer base that would have a larger % of people that would know how and is more comfortable with getting/installing pirate versions.

Saying pirating is causing issues for mobile software in pretty laughable looking at the "average" consumer tech level. The mobile boom only occurred once ease of use vastly improved.
 
dandirk said:
Completely agree with you... I don't think there is enough people that know where or how to "pirate" a game to make any difference to micro-app sales.

PC games on the other hand, tend to have a customer base that would have a larger % of people that would know how and is more comfortable with getting/installing pirate versions.

Saying pirating is causing issues for mobile software in pretty laughable looking at the "average" consumer tech level. The mobile boom only occurred once ease of use vastly improved.
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Yeah, I think cost is a large part of it. I have an extremely hard time believing that many people are pirating $1 mobile apps. $60 PC games, sure, a larger percent. $1000+ apps like 3D Studio Max and Photoshop? Probably even more piracy (for personal use).
 
Netrat33 said:
There are soooo many games and apps that are extremely unsuccessful. Most Apps and games aren't successful. ;)
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Sure, no disagreement there. But in this particular case, their more-expensive previous game was fairly successful (100K+ sales at $4.99 price). Many other $0.99 games/apps sell quite well. But when their $0.99 app doesn't sell well, it must be due to piracy? Why does their other app sell fairly decently while it could just as easily be pirated? It's just an excuse for their app not doing as well as they wanted--not because piracy actually impacted their sales.
 
Any company that uses the scumbag "pay to cheat" model should, at best, go out of business.
 
Whew, for a second I thought this might make some of our friendly neighborhood theives reconsider their actions.
"Nice" to hear that all y'all are as set in your ways as ever.

On a sadder note, this is a loss for the honest gaming community. The money pulled in from sales could have funded further game development.
 
rihno13 said:
Whew, for a second I thought this might make some of our friendly neighborhood theives reconsider their actions.
"Nice" to hear that all y'all are as set in your ways as ever.

On a sadder note, this is a loss for the honest gaming community. The money pulled in from sales could have funded further game development.
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A loss for the honest gaming community? Holy shit man. It's a thieving pay to win cash shop game that sold like shit so they are blaming piracy. Piracy has nothing to do with this game doing poorly.

This game falling is a good thing and hopefully it encourages this dev to move to a less greedy business model. I doubt it will though since their first reaction is to blame piracy.
 
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