Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

App Store Developer Speaks Out On Game Piracy

Posted by Soulskill on from the arr-me-hearties dept.

theguythatwrotethisthing sends in a write-up of his experience releasing an iPhone game on the App Store. By using a software flag to distinguish between high scores submitted by pirates and those submitted by users who purchased the game, the piracy rate is estimated at around 80% during the first week after release. Since a common excuse for piracy is "try before you buy," they also looked at the related iPhone DeviceIDs to see how many of the pirates went on to purchase the game. None of them did.

9 of 762 comments (clear)

  1. First pirate! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Harrr!

    1. Re:First pirate! by Suzuran · · Score: 4, Funny

      We're all missing the most important question: How is this Apple's fault? It has to be Apple's fault! Everything is Apple's fault!

    2. Re:First pirate! by Seumas · · Score: 2, Funny

      Personally, I prefer to pay $65 for a game, take it home, unwrap it, put it in my console, play it for ten minutes, then discover that it's complete shit after they've already gotten a nice big chunk of my money.

      Also, isn't the app store where guys get insanely rich ripping off "scorched earth" from twenty years ago?

  2. App Store Shmapp Store. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Back in my day we were happy to plug in our Atari 2600 and slap in our favourite Space Invaders cartridge. We didn't need no "App store," what is that anyway, some place to buy appetizers? Oh I know, there's an app for that, god damnit Bobby Joe.

  3. Low attention span? by Veggiesama · · Score: 2, Funny

    One interesting note is that the most pirate scores are submitted for Story level, then Rounds, then survival. This is the same order that the game types show up in our menus. This may point out that Pirates generally have a lower attention span – they quickly move on to the next game.

    There's a really good reason why pirated scores are submitted in that order, and I would tell you, but there's a shiny red ball outside and I gotta catch it.

    BRB

  4. Re:Didn't think App Store piracy was that big by jimicus · · Score: 4, Funny

    When they finally mailed it out to us, 6 months after billing my company / me thousands of dollars for it,

    Is your company in the habit of paying bills for items you haven't received yet?

  5. Re:Didn't think App Store piracy was that big by ElMiguel · · Score: 5, Funny

    When they finally mailed it out to us, 6 months after billing my company / me thousands of dollars for it,

    Is your company in the habit of paying bills for items you haven't received yet?

    And if so, what is your company name and address, please?

  6. Re:Another example by happy · · Score: 2, Funny

    We're very open and transparent about our sales, you can see the number of users we have on our homepage. Currently it states 4,378 users.

    --
    http://blog.penso.info
  7. Re:An interesting corollary by McGiraf · · Score: 2, Funny

    There is an error in you math.

    Dead people don't get money.