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App Developer: Android Designed For Piracy
Following news this week of a game developer who turned the Android version of a game free because of piracy concerns, software developer Matt Gemmell has written a lengthy post explaining why he thinks Android apps are laboring under a broken business model. "People have to get paid. There has to be a revenue stream. You can’t reliably have that revenue stream if the platform itself and the damaged philosophy behind it actively sabotages commerce. If you want a platform to be commercially viable for third-party software developers, you have to lock it down. Just like in real life, closing the door and locking it helps make sure that your money remains yours. Bad behaviour has to be more difficult than good behaviour - and good behaviour means paying for your software." He also has some harsh arguments about some of the assumptions and philosophies underpinning the an industry built on an open platform. "Nerds like to say that people care about choice at that level. Nerds are wrong. Nerds care about choice, and nerds are such a tiny minority of people that nobody else much cares what the hell they think. Android is designed with far too much nerd philosophy, and open is gravy to those people because it’s synonymous with customization. ... Open is broken as a money-making platform model, unless you’re making the OS or the handsets. Most of us aren't doing that."
Windows as a platform, at least until Vista/7/8, did nothing to enforce app piracy. That was left purely to the developer. App development was as open as could be - MS imposed no restrictions on distribution and left DRM and similar to the application developer.
Can the author of this editorial kindly explain why there are numerous profitable applications for Windows, during the XP era?
"Nerds like to say that people care about choice at that level. Nerds are wrong. Nerds care about choice, and nerds are such a tiny minority of people that nobody else much cares what the hell they think."
I think this guy just sold me my first Android phone. Also:
"If you want a platform to be commercially viable for third-party software developers, you have to lock it down."
Yeah, because no one ever could figure out a way to make money selling Windows software.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I see, I would probably buy another game instead but I guess that's just me.
Fuck you, control freak asshole. If you want to sell your products then you need to provide a compelling case to your customers. Otherwise, you need to accept that your shit will be pirated and you need to figure out if what you are selling covers your cost. And if you're feeling real insecure, figure out your own security system.
But don't go saying that I need to be treated like the enemy by my own property. My property is mine and will do as I say. You are welcome to have your software on my property, but it isn't going to bow to your demands and fulfill your wishes.
Mat Gemmell is an authoritarian asshole who hates that people are free to do with on their Android devices. I bet he hates PCs with a burning fury and would prefer I have no freedom whatsoever. I bet he's pissed that I can choose not to buy his software. Fuck him.
make apps good enough to pay for? I hear a lot about piracy on cell phones, I don't see a lot of evidence of it. I know a lot of people with android phones, I've never really seen any of them pirate an app, even those who regularly pirate software on their PC or whatever. Why? Because most apps aren't worth pirating. I have a handful of apps that I've paid for because they're valuable and unique enough for me to do so. Most I don't, because most apps are so simple, even if there is a good paid app available there is almost certainly a free app that is just as good. Sure I could pay for a nice alarm clock or twitter manager, but I could also download one of the hundreds that are available for free or are supported by ads. Adding a tirade about "nerds" just makes me think this guy maybe should have taken a few minutes to breath before writing this up. If you want me to take your opinion seriously, how about not insulting me throughout?
In addition to a lot of the arguments being made here against Mr. Gemmell's rationale, he's not even thinking creatively about the alternative ways a revenue stream could be generated. Case in point: I just played a Flash game yesterday that shows a video ad while loading. The ad unlocked additional features of the game for that playthrough.
But Mr. Gemmell doesn't consider developing new, innovative possibilities like this. He just wants the cash, and will happily use the "locking down" of other peoples' machines on a widespread basis to achieve this. Where's the "locking down" of the property rights that are supposed to come with buying something, like an Android? If it's my device, why wouldn't I have root? It would be apropos if Mr. Gemmell made enough money to buy a car, only to have it stolen within the first couple of weeks.
Mr. Gemmell makes it sound only right for companies and developers to "protect" their [currently-only-imagined] profits, but it comes at the expense of the property rights of the users. So he argues for further inroads on users' access to their own machines, while attempting to make it seem natural, fair and just.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
We need a follow up to, "Area Man Constantly Telling People He Doesn't Own a Television", "Area Man Constantly Telling People He Doesn't Own a Smartphone".
Or more to the point. Piracy is a lot more apparent to a software developer that can't sell anything.
> Piracy is a lot more apparent to a software developer that can't sell anything.
Exactly. People with a product people want find ways to extract money from the transaction and laugh all the way to the bank. Losers whine about the unfairness of life.
Sorry, people made heaps of money selling games on the PC and piracy was and is rampant. Every pirated copy is NOT a lost sale. Every pirated copy isn't even a total loss if worked right.
Option one is a world of locked platforms with no piracy. It comes in two flavors, a Hell on Earth police state to enforce it or a land of skittles shitting unicorns that deosn't exist. Option two is what we have now and pretty much always have had, where piracy exists and is a problem but not an insurmountable one. Hollywierd is awash in cash despite the easy duplication of their wares. Multibillion dollar software houses were built on platforms where half or more of the players were running bootleg copies.
Democrat delenda est
What a jerk. He probably wants to eat food, buy a house, see a doctor, and raise a family. :-) Open source sharing is great with programmers, but with the rest of the world it's a one-way street.
The TFA is not arguing against open source, he's arguing against open platforms. He seems to have a problem with the fact that Android, for example, lets people sideload apps from outside the app store, which to him means that they can rip an app from one phone and install it on another without paying him.
In other words, he is basically complaining that Android gives users enough freedom that they can use it to engage in piracy. And advocates for iOS and other platforms which constrain all users on the grounds that they cannot possibly be allowed to do anything that might be used to undermine the ability of app developers (and the associated Apple cut) to make profit.
So, yes, he is a jerk. He thinks that his right to make money following a particular business model overrides my right to own a device where I retain full control. I sincerely wish him to go out of business.
I feel sorry for you.
Perhaps you should switch careers to something you enjoy doing.
I'm guessing most of the full time developers reading /. also do some programming for fun. Perhaps because they really want to have a certain type of application, or because they think they have an idea that'll make them rich. Maybe because they read about some algorithm and would like to have a go at it themselves or just because they enjoy the act of creating something new. Some even program for fun because they enjoy being part of a community. There are probably dozens of other reasons why people develop code in their spare time. But most of all; there joy of doing something is in itself reason enough to do it.
I feel sorry for you if you lost your passion for development and became a soulless office drone.
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I've read what the man has to say, and it really is as offensive as the summary makes it to be. He basically says that walled garden is a good thing because it prevents users from pirating apps, which is good for (his) business. He doesn't care that users are limited in many other legal activities as a side effect - he actually acknowledges it, but then immediately dismisses it as "something only nerds care about". In short, he really is that much of an asshole.
I judge coworkers on ability by what apps they have on their phone; it makes it a lot easier. :) (My phone makes calls. Only. Yeah, you can still get those.)
You sound like a condescending twat and I'm glad I don't work with you.
The Precious and I were simply agreeing with you.
Nasty hobbitses. Always correcting our grammar. We know perfectly well what we were saying, don't we, my Precious.
Take off every Sig. For great justice.
Looks to me like it's gone from $1 to free malware.
Unless the dev can explain a reason why a game needs:
retrieve running apps
Allows the app to retrieve information about currently and recently running tasks. Malicious apps may discover private information about other apps.
Other than the obvious reason that it wants to know everything you're running on your phone to report back to the developer.
Fuck him and his shitty 30 year old game.
>>>When people get reamed by some physical product (hehe), they don't go steal the next version of that horrible product
I do.
When an ebay seller sold me a DVR that didn't work and refused to take it back, I then bought a second DVR from the same guy and claimed "It never arrived," and got a refund via paypal. So I had two DVRs; the first one that was broke and the second one working (which is what the seller should have sent immediately instead of refusing to help).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
People will pirate pretty much anything, as long as there are people who are willing to crack and people who are willing to download. There's nothing you can do about it.
The scale of piracy, however, is highly dependent on the quality of the pirated version compared to the original. As long as you do everything you can to make your paying customers happy, there's no reason to worry. Business models based on DRM, DLC, etc. that do nothing except annoy your players, will see a higher piracy rate simply because you made the pirated version that much more better than what you sell.
I remember this same kind of thing happened back in the old days. There was this one operating system that later had a GUI laid on top of it called Windows. It seemed like everything was pirated including the OS itself. Anyway it completely hampered the industry. The incentive to write software was destroyed by piracy as more floppies were copied than paid for. The industry went into a downward spiral and nearly collapsed several times over the last few decades. The software industry hobbles along today and hardly anyone has even heard of Windows and nobody makes any money off of it.
BTW the same thing happened in the music and movie industries. Ever since the introduction of cassette tapes for both audio and video the industry has struggled to stay afloat. We see this mostly as budgets and revenues for music and movies continue to shrink.
Okay that was a little sarcastic but I think the doomsday view of piracy is a little overboard. Every industry has shrinkage when it comes to products. The is partially caused by damage to product, sometimes shelf-lives, but mostly theft. In some areas it can be more than 5%/month and physically removes the product from your possession in addition to the time to buy/use/display that product.
So where do we go from that. Well a store takes precautions to limit factors of shrinkage but only so far. They don't frisk customers down but they may tag everything and try to put sensors by the doors. This is marginally effective. Difficult to remove packaging also helps to reduce theft but annoys customers. Stores also take their shrinkage into consideration when calculating overhead. If 5% of your product evaporates you have to make up for it in your prices.
Now how can we apply this to software. Well some precautions can be taken but they generally aren't very effective. It only takes one person out of billions to figure it out and share it. So you have to weigh the costs of implementing copy restrictions which includes the man-hours to develop that code and the inconvenience to paying customers. The shrinkage rate needs to be taken into consideration. Software shrinkage would be unsustainable if you actually lost product every time but you don't. There is opportunity costs but no costs associated with replacing the product.
It's sort of a mix between shrinkage and market penetration. What software are you creating? What is the piracy rate for that type of software? If there's a possible market of 10,000,000 people and similar products suffer a 90% piracy rate then you better plan on having at most 1,000,000 people when planning costs. If it's not worth it, then it's not worth it. It'll be okay. Some companies will make money and some won't. Maybe think of it as advertising costing 90% of your revenue.