Developer Drops Game Price To $0 Citing Android Piracy

hypnosec writes with news of a curious way of fighting piracy. From the article: "Android based devices are being activated at the rate of million a day and users are downloading apps and games at a rate never seen before. Despite these promising stats, developers of Android based games and apps are not really keen on porting games and apps that have been successful on iOS to Android. Why? Rampant piracy on Android! Madfinger Games has joined the long list of developers who have recently turned their paid Android based game, Dead Trigger, to a free one. Originally priced at $0.99 on Play Store, the first person shooter game is now available for free . The iOS version of the game still costs $0.99 and hasn't been made free." Zero-cost, but certainly not Free Software; one has to wonder whether Open Source games with a "donation" build in the store would do better than proprietary games with upfront costs.

Comments

Good news everyone!

[crazyjj]

From Google:

From Jelly Bean and forward, paid apps in Google Play are encrypted with a device-specific key before they are delivered and stored on the device. We know you work hard building your apps. We work hard to protect your investment.

Well in about 5+ years, when developers can abandon earlier versions, that should really help out a lot.

And they wonder why iOS stays on top. It's not just because of numbers of hipness, you know. It's also because, for developers, it means not having to deal with Google's sloppy, haphazard approach in Android to everything the Apple does so professionally in iOS (especially when it comes to the App Store vs. the Android Marketplace). This is just another example.

Re:Good news everyone!

[johnlcallaway]

It's also because, for developers, it means not having to deal with Google's open, flexible approach in Android to everything the Apple controls with an iron fist in iOS (especially when it comes to the App Store vs. the Android Marketplace).

There .. fixed that for you.

Re:Good news everyone!

[SomePgmr]

I've owned both, and a quick google search looks to overwhelmingly confirm my suspicions. iOS sales outnumber Android sales 9:1. Android apps on both platforms are pirated 2,300% more often for the Android version vs the iOS version. Meanwhile, Android users (by percentage) are consistently years behind on system software, so there's little reason to expect any of this to change soon.

Of course, the list goes on. Let's not make stupid excuses for a bad market experience just because, as users, we like Android better.

Re:Good news everyone!

[DurendalMac]

And Apple is still making more from iPhones and the app ecosystem than the rest of the smartphone market combined. Yep, they sure got steamrolled!

Re:Good news everyone!

[pegasustonans]

Hyep, that would get cracked in about 43 seconds. Android crackers have cracked pretty much all in-app protections. We even have apps that crack other apps and remove ads from them.

Cracking apps is unnecessary. You can block almost all ads with a properly updated hosts file.

It's an elegant solution, which illustrates the difference between an open platform and a closed one.

Re:Good news everyone!

[nahdude812]

I won't do in-app purchases even for free apps, and even for apps I would have gladly paid several dollars for retail. The reason is simple: If I restore my phone, get a new phone, or even just uninstall and reinstall, I lose credit for that IAP.

IAP's need to be replayable for me to be willing to invest in them. I don't want to have to re-pay for your app each time I upgrade something or make room on my device. Some apps handle IAP replaying cleanly. Most do not. I'm not a gambling man, so if your model is IAP for a non-transient purchase, count me out.

Of course I'm the very small minority, so...

Just wondering

[Anonymous Coward]

one has to wonder whether Open Source games with a "donation" build in the store would do better than proprietary games with upfront costs.

Wonder all you want, the answer is no.

Re:Just wondering

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because people who refuse to pay $0.99 up-front are totally likely to "click click click" for dollars worth of donations after the fact. I'm sure a "tip button" is going to totally subvert piracy on Android.

Logic has been around for millennia. Perhaps you should try applying that.

Because, you know...

[JustAnotherIdiot]

Piracy doesn't exist on the iPhone, right?

Sad

[Sez Zero]

The number of "I want my dollar back" post at that Facebook link is really sad.

*Correction

[redemtionboy]

Developer drops game price to $0, failing to cite that it was a really shitty game that charged for upgrades.

Company you've never heard of changes pricing

[i kan reed]

Reports today indicate a small developer you've never heard of, has altered how they will finance a product you've never heard of. The pricing cited factors commonly referenced in the field the product competes in, but no supporting data was provided. Tune in at 11 for detailed analysis about how free products differ from open source ones, with a panelist who barely understands economics or copyright law.

Re:Oh yeah, that'll show them.

[bky1701]

More like they sell things in-game, and this was just a publicity stunt.

I'm glad

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you guys, but many I know say things like this to me, "Hey you're a programmer. You should develop an iPhone or Android app and make a lot of money!"

When I try to explain to them the reality, I just get trite responses back or their eyes glaze over.

There's plenty of demand for your product when it's free. Like when you help them with their computer problems (for free) and they say, "You should do this for a living!"

There is - far less

[SuperKendall]

The article mentions the piracy rate for iOS, the rate is orders of magnitude smaller.

Everyone expects some piracy, but when 90+% of your "sales" are piracy you cannot support any app - especially so if there is any server component, or any support load at all.

Re:There is - far less

[Dunbal]

If random people with illegitimate copies are allowed to use your servers to patch or for gameplay, then you are doing it wrong.

Re:There is - far less

[poetmatt]

usually if you want to claim that nobody's paying for your app you usually want to look at why. In this case, it's being a jackass dev and trying to force customers to pay for things in-game along with a paid app.

Is it that hard to figure out that your fans aren't as stupid as you'd like to treat them?

Re:There is - far less

[LifesABeach]

I was thinking along the lines of, "My app doesn't suck, people are pirating it!" One has to love the irony.

Re:There is - far less

[icebike]

If random people with illegitimate copies are allowed to use your servers to patch or for gameplay, then you are doing it wrong.

Or, you are doing it INTENTIONALLY.

The game in question supports In-App-Purchases, and in fact, to play the game to conclusion, most users will spend more money
for in-app-purchase of weapons etc than the game's initial purchase price. The game calls home.

These purchases can't (yet) be hacked like the reported hacking of IOS in-app purchases.

Its widely suspected that this was Madfinger Games monetization plan all along.

They planned to release at 99 cents, gain a quick couple hundred thousand downloads, recovering all of their development costs. (This isn't their first game, and they already had their game engine in the can from earlier games).

Then, magnanimously, when it became clear that you needed to make in-app-purchases, they planned to make it free.

They go so much flack for making it free after charging about a quarter of a million people 99 cents, that they decided to play the victim card.

But ALL THE TIME their game had been calling home for authorization at install, and ALL THE TIME they had allowed these pirated installs because they were intending to make their money on In-App-Purchases, and really didn't give a rip about piracy.

Its a suckers play, and most of the mainstream press as well as bloggers who should know better are falling for it.

Re:There is - far less

[Taco Cowboy]

People must be F'in cheap if they aren't willing to spend 99 cents.

 
To you it may be merely 99 cents but to someone in India it may mean the income of half a day of laborious work
 

Re:There is - far less

[icebike]

Did you ever stop to consider that perhaps it's easier to control in-app purchases than it is to prevent the initial pirated version from being installed?

I considered this for about 37 seconds, then realized it was not germane.
So what if people are emailing the .apk all over the world? The were still able to bank all the sales reported in the Google Market.

They had around a quarter of a million PAID downloads at the time they declared it free.

Regardless of being pirated or purchased, the money flow from In-APP will be the same. They knew this going in. Like I said, its not their first trip to the bank with games. If you can earn a quick quarter million in under a month, why make it free? Just keep your mouth shut about the piracy and bank the legitimate sales along with the in-app money.

Re:There is - far less

[rjstanford]

Although an amazingly large number of people in the US will happily spend half their annual income on a car that far outstrips their needs - often spreading that payment out over half a decade or more to do so. People aren't logical.

Re:Most of my friends who use Android don't buy ap

[SuperKendall]

I do not like paying for apps. I've never paid for apps and never will pay for apps.

And that's why I don't develop for Android.

Enjoy your "free", generally ad-laden apps.

Developers should find other business models.

They are, it's called "develop for platforms where you get paid".

Free advertising on Slashdot

[dmesg0]

1. Create a game with in-app-purchases, but sell it for 1$ instead of for 0$
2. Drop the price to 0 and get free advertisement on Slashdot
3. Profit! (from in-app-purchases)

But where's the ??? part?

 

Re:It's not piracy

[Andy Dodd]

Dead Trigger is fun until you reach the point where it pushes you to buy ingame cash with real money.

TFA leaves out a critical aspect of Dead Trigger - It was one of the only examples of a "freemium" game that relied HEAVILY on in-app purchases, which also had an initial purchase price.

Note that they're not citing any piracy problems with their more expensive (but not "freemium" in their payment structure) games.

The way the article is written, it makes it sound like the developer is hurting and this has dropped their revenues to zero - which is bullshit. 90% of Dead Trigger's revenue was from IAPs to begin with. Dropping the purchase price to zero helps them by exposing more users to their IAP push.

It's called ShareWare

[Anonymous Coward]

>Zero-cost, but certainly not Free Software; one has to wonder whether Open Source games with a "donation" build in the store would do better than proprietary games with upfront costs.

Yes, this has been around since the early 1980s and it died out around 1995. It was called Shareware, and huge amounts of software were released this way. Very few people ever "donated".

The Google Play store has poor app discovery

[Suddenly_Dead]

One thing I've noticed, which may or may not be affecting how little Android app developers are getting for their apps, is that the Google Play store is useless for discovering new apps. Totally useless. They display ads for a small number of high-profile apps, most of which would get a bunch of purchases regardless, and they rarely cycle those ads out. There's "Editor's Choice" apps, but those are the same high-profile apps and again are rarely added to. Otherwise, the only methods of discovery are looking at the top lists (which rarely change), or searching.

Most of the apps I have installed I had to discover elsewhere, including some terrific games (even terrific free games, which you'd think cheap Android users would really go for) which only have on the order of 1000 or so downloads at most, making them totally invisible as far as a user browsing the store is concerned.

No

[Tridus]

"Zero-cost, but certainly not Free Software; one has to wonder whether Open Source games with a "donation" build in the store would do better than proprietary games with upfront costs."

Seriously? $0.99 is too much so they pirate it, but if you open source it they'll give you money instead of just playing the free version?

Not a chance. These people are just cheap. They'll take the cheap option. Open source is not some magic fairy dust that is going to fix that.