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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.

4 of 762 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Maybe the game sucked? by funkatron · · Score: 0, Troll

    I own the copyrights. There's no excuse for violating the rights of others

    How about this excuse: rights are just things someone made up and if I feel like it I can make up a right to violate them.

    --
    "Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
  2. Re:First pirate! by Draek · · Score: 0, Troll

    I don't know about you but I neither pay $1.99 for a cup of coffee, nor do I buy *coffee* for personal entertainment, so no the comparison isn't valid.

    --
    No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
  3. Re:First pirate! by Anarchduke · · Score: 0, Troll
    Well, according to the article, there is one thing that is Apple's fault:

    Once the phone is rebooted, all you have to do is download a cracked version of the app from one of the MANY places on the internet, add it to iTunes, sync, and you are done.
    NOTE: Surprisingly this is MUCH easier than actually buying it on iTunes!!

    When the process for pirating an app is MUCH easier than buying it, people are more likely to pirate. I would bet that if it were MUCH easier to buy it on itunes, people would spend the 1.99 for the convenience of easy download.
    There, Apple's fault. Are you happy?

    --
    who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
  4. Re:The one that isn't BS is.... by Cabriel · · Score: 0, Troll

    That's still horrible reasoning.

    For the record: I'm a food/beverage industry worker--the poor kind. I hate the MAFIAA but I still don't pirate. Why? Because the "try before you buy" mentality still means you're violating the author's rights to profit from his product. If you don't trust the author's worth, sopssa is right: don't buy it and live with it.

    2500 downloads for 1 lost sale

    [Citation Needed] Sounds like BS.

    You're enjoying the product without paying for it. It's not quite actual theft, but that doesn't make it right.