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Tap-Fu Developer Claims 90% iPhone Piracy Rate
by Danny Cowan
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October 26, 2009
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Independent developer Smells Like Donkey has revealed piracy rates for its recently released iPhone brawler Tap-Fu. In its first week of release, more than 90% of Tap-Fu users were playing a pirated version of the game.
Smells Like Donkey and publishing partner Neptune Interactive note that since Tap-Fu's release on October 16th, the title rose from a 50% initial piracy rate to a peak of more than 90%. As of October 22nd, over 80% of Tap-Fu players are still playing a pirated copy.
The developer also counters arguments that piracy serves a "try before you buy" function for many users. In Tap-Fu's first week of release, Smells Like Donkey observed that "not a single pirate bought Tap-Fu after playing it."
Smells Like Donkey collected its data through Tap-Fu's online leaderboards, which require users to manually submit high scores. When sending a score, players also reveal whether their copy of the game has been pirated.
Tap-Fu's piracy rates mirror statements made by ngmoco VP Alan Yu at GDC China earlier this month. In his keynote, Yu claimed that ngmoco-published games typically suffer from a 50%-90% rate in their first week of release.
Smells Like Donkey attributes the platform's high piracy rates to the ease in which iPhone users can "jailbreak" their devices and run unofficial code. The developer claims that pirating an iPhone game is "MUCH easier than actually buying it on iTunes." Tap-Fu was pirated and made available as a cracked download less than 40 minutes after its initial App Store release.
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So what he is complaining about?
Companies need to learn, it does not matter how hard you fight piracy head-on, you will never win, and you will waste resources and anger your legitm costumers.
Don't concentrate in the not gained money, concentrate in the money to gain.
"So what he is complaining about?"
He has EVERY RIGHT to complain. A game that he/his company spent many hours of their life/lives developing is being pirated for almost nothing. 90% piracy rate, now THAT'S an "absurd" number.
Your comment, sir, sounds like nothing more than nonsensical pirate diatribe.
please tell me you are not trying to argue that it is OK that most are stealing because "some" companies make money. That is an absurd argument and has zero merit. No matter how much money is made it does not make stealing right. I find it even more interesting that you seem to think all of this piracy is fine in an industry that you have a desire to work in. Sure would be easier to find a job it companies were actually being paid for their work. You want to boycott a game; don't buy it. That is the most powerful tool you have as a consumer.
Piracy is a huge problem and it should be addressed head on. Until there is accountability it will continue. Tell me when was the last time you walked into a physical store and stole something? I can tell you with pretty high confidence that physical stores don't have a 90% steal rate. Its ridiculous to think that software should be any different. If people were persecuted for their wrong doings just like stealing from a physical store location, I bet not as many people would do it. You can try and rationalize illegal behavior with whatever crazy excuse you want, but its still not right. Personally I hope companies figure out a way to control this epidemic so that more of them can be successful and create new jobs as well as keep current jobs.
WHAT!!! How much easier does it get than entering your iTunes password? It's absurd that people are pirating $0.99 games, how cheap can you get?
You just put your name next to an endorsement for piracy on an industry website.
When somebody googles your name, that will come up. Is that wise?
Look at MMOs. An MMO goes down and the game you've invested money and time into is no more. It's like a breach of contract except the customer has no recourse...the company's gone as is the game.
Instead of looking for an argument, people need to look for solutions. We need to figure out a reasonable compromise where the legitimate customers don't suffer, the pirates have to deal with all sorts of crap to get the game, and the game companies get a solid amount of revenue from their games. Few people seem to offer up solutions. Everyone wants to just pick sides and argue. No one wants to organize a standard or at least an industry-wide consensus and push it through so that most games sport a nice anti-piracy system.
You know what else would help? The fear of consequences from doing something illegal just like in every other aspect of life. I can't wait for the day, it will come eventually.
I'd wait for that day too, even though I don't think it will come without the end users and publishers working together. I see the decline of single-player-only games in the future, as companies focus on the multi-player side of games for their revenue.
"The fear of consequences from doing something illegal just like in every other aspect of life. I can't wait for the day, it will come eventually."
As much as people hate on piracy (or defend it as the case may be) it needs to be recognised as a valid market force that exists for very good reasons. Unlike a grocery chain there are no consumer watchdogs, per say in the video game industry bar reviewers and on-line ratings. These are often unreliable (if you've found a trusted reviewer who reviews EVERYTHING that's great). Piracy is a natural market reaction to this. If consumer confidence is low (and it is with new unheard of companies), then far more people are likely to choose piracy as an option.
Also, with a lot of the big names taking more and more market share, consuming far more of a players disposable income with things like DLC, and subscription fees, consumers become less and less willing to fork out money on an ever rising game price, especially if this means risk.
Punishing ALL pirates, while serving to discourage piracy, is unlikely to result in greater net sales and in fact may reduce them. The rest of the economy will show you that. If consumer confidence is low when talking an individual product or company, then only an extreme lowering of price will result in enticing those people to take that risk (because it become an affordable risk), and this lower price across the board results in lower revenue from willing customers, resulting in revenue relatively close to what would have been received at the market price. Now once you start fining pirates, you actually reduce the amount of income they (as consumers) have to spend. Notice a vicious trend, this state intervention in fact enforces piracy, by making it necessary for previously fined players to repeat offend as their purchasing power has been artificially reduced.
Far more effective would be building a good reputation, raising consumer confidence, undercutting the rest of the market by a small margin (just enough to look good) making your product a more attractive and reasonable purchase option. In this instance Smells Like donkey should perhaps review if their game was in fact liked by the vast majority of people who pirated it, many of them may have quickly dismissed it and dropped it for another game. In fact the try/buy mentality may at least be partially represented in that piracy rate drop from 90-80%. They're further disserviced by the vast over-population of shovel-ware on the appstore, this automatically lowers consumer confidence, quite possibly to the point where unless they hear lots of rave reviews, or know a player who likes it, or unless you've released quality apps before, they may well be inclined to pirate rather than buy.
In my opinion, the whole problem with the software market is that it's being marketed as a product instead of a service, and that yes, people have far too much focus on "imaginary" lost sales. Instead of making it harder for people to be able to obtain and play games outside of commercial circles, make people WANT to buy your game despite the availability of said game elsewhere.
@Christopher Wragg
Piracy unfortunately isn't a good solution for lower consumer confidence; Demos work much better for such. And assuming pirates are potential consumers is not a very good assumption regardless.
@Paopao Saul
I doubt that will happen. There are situations where single player is far better suited than multi-player, especially in full-blown narratives. Not to mention forcing everyone to use your server is not always a good idea (see backlash against CoD:MW2).
@Jesse Manning
I would however decline. A full-blown anti-piracy system would be borderline anti-freedom of speech at best case scenario, simply because of the safeguards required to prevent any sort of communicative transfer. Not to mention that illegal doesn't always mean wrong, especially when there are so many legal loopholes.
@Jeremy Alessi
Technically, not everyone has access to a credit/debit card, and thus, an online account capable of purchasing games. Though I'll admit that's likely not the main reason for piracy regardless.
First I must say, piracy IS NOT STEALING, until you learn that, you will never figure pirated goods costumers and so will never have even a really small "win" against piracy.
Then thanks to Ken Nakai that understood exactly what I meant.
Then I must be even more clear:
CONCENTRATE IN MAKING A GOOD GAME THAT WILL SELL (btw: absurd profit I did not meant Blizzard... I meant more like those cool indie games on iPhone, that the guy spent 5000 to make and got like 40.000 back... yes, this is nothing to a big company, but to a single indie guy it is a absurd profit).
If you need to blame piracy for lack of sales, you are not making a not good enough game.
Look at Crysis, I saw they complaining of piracy and whatnot, but to me it looked more like whining than anything else, plainly because I don't saw even pirated copies around, Crysis is so hardware demanding and the game itself suck so much (the engine is awesome... the game is... meh, specially the last half) that the only people that got it, are pirates and only to see if their hardware can stand it (then they delete the copy... of course there will be no conversion, if your game suck, someone with a pirated copy will not have a reason to buy a legal copy...)
Don't focus on the money that you are not getting, focus on the money that you can get.
The diffrence between piracy and shoplifting is that piracy does not make you LOSE money, it only make you NOT GAIN money, and that is completly diffrent, and this is why a 90% piracy rate is not a problem, if you have 10 million players (I think that Counter-Strike has that) and 90% piracy rate, this mean that you still made 1 million sales.
If you was a store owner, than 90% shoplifting rate would mean that you had 9 million copies bought, paid and lost, and of course, the other 1 million sold would not recoup it. But games are not physical goods, you cannot steal them, you don't pay to make those 9 million pirated copies.
In the game industry, you need to know that a high piracy rate is completly nomal, if you for example sell a PC game to a family that has 4 kids, you will have sold one copy and 3 pirated would show up (the parents are not stupid to buy 4 licenses, they will buy one copy and pirate other 3). These 3 pirated copies will NEVER make any diffrence in your pocket, so why bother?
you clearly fail to see the problem that is quickly becoming an epidemic. The key to the problem is exactly what you stated, people don't "feel" like they are stealing because it is not a physical good. It absolutely is stealing no matter how you try and rationalize it. Imagine a world where piracy did not exist, would all those people that stole the game turn into purchases, of course not, but at least people would be voting with their money the right way, and I suspect a decent chunk of those would become sales. You seem to not understand the concept that if you don't think a game is worth the asking price YOU SIMPLY DON'T BUY OR PIRATE IT. Instead how about waiting for the game to be on sale, then any normal company will see a large spike in sales and realize that the original price point was too high.
You are so quick to say focus on making better games, but I have to ask do you think companies are trying to put out terrible games and are they forcing you to buy them? If all these games you mention are so bad, then why are people stealing them? Bottom line people want the games, they don't want to fork over the money and pirating is easy with no consequences so they steal. I think the recent article about 2D Boy's "pay what you want" experiment proves that point quite well.
@ Christopher
Piracy could be looked at as a market force, and my argument doesn't invalidate this at all. I simply am on the side that piracy is not the correct way to go about it. Again imagine piracy did not exist, the same market force could be seen when people simply chose not to buy the game which in turn would cause sales to drop and force the company to change or go out of business.
That is $18k or 9k of copies I as an indi developer, or a small development firm will never see or reap the benefits from. The only difference between a physical copy and a digital copy is the medium through which the product is transferred.
Just because piracy has been a constant doesn’t mean it should be tolerated and it certainly doesn’t mean that piracy doesn’t cost this industry money. While it’s true that some people would probably opt not to purchase software could they not so easily steal it (and yes, despite your semantic spin, piracy is theft) there are also plenty of people who would decide to purchase games if they could not acquire them illegally. As for those who decide not to buy games, so what? They don’t deserve the software I and others shell out hard-earned cash for so at worst, if piracy was eliminated or greatly reduced, thieving scum would be rightfully denied software.
Also, your defense of piracy in relation to quality is tepid and offensive. Even assuming that was the rationale that propelled piracy, I’m curious as to why you think the perceived quality of something justifies theft. If a game “sucks”, an adjective you so readily employ, then why are people playing it at all? The truth is that people are pirating quality software because they have absolutely no moral compass and foster within themselves an arrogant, juvenile sense of entitlement. Worse yet, people like you apply these transparent, flimsy arguments in some weak attempt to justify behavior you know is immoral, giving these fools license to continue.
I mean, do you really think physical media is the primary cost of developing and publishing a game? Do you realize that when a game is pirated, everybody who had a hand in making that game is being denied potential profits? Are you really so obtuse as to think piracy has no effect on the industry?
And here’s the real crux of this piracy situation: piracy is affecting the PC industry to such a point that many PC publishers and developers are now flocking to the consoles because piracy, while still present, is far less prevalent in that particular market. At this rate PC gamers may end up losing a great many titles that would otherwise have been released on the PC. As it stands now, many games are released after the fact on PC because publishers are frustrated with the platform and no longer prioritize it. Nobody likes to have their effort and hard work taken for free and console gamers tend to be less receptive to theft. (Or at the very least, the opportunity to steal isn’t as prevalent)
Piracy will never be eradicated but that doesn’t mean it should be tolerated or ignored. Unfortunately, there are far too many people like you in this world who justify immorality. The shame of this is that piracy effectively diminishes the hard work and artistry of those who make the games we love to play; when you take something without giving owner the proper monetary compensation, you are effectively saying that game, which represents the labors of many people, is worth nothing.
Whether you understand it or not, your stance on this issue de-values the medium and those who work within it.
I present arguments on why we should not waste our efforts in fighting piracy HEAD-ON (that does not mean that you cannot fight it in other ways...) and you people keep saying that I am endorsing piracy.
You will never understand what I am saying until you pay attention and stop thinking of pirates as evil scum that steal stuff and me as their defender...
And while you go stuffing your games with DRM and whatnot, I concentrate in making a great game that I know that it will be pirated, but the sales of the non-pirated copies will pay me anyway, while the pirated copies spread the word-of-mouth for me.
Also, the graph on the article linked above shows that the piracy *peaked* at 90% on the second day: the average piracy rate over the first seven days was actually around 80%. Then too, the leaderboard chart indicates that there's only been around 100 people playing the game in the first week - or an average of 15 downloads a day. Not a huge sample!
Anyway, the question here is: would a developer shift more units on a platform with no piracy on it? From memory, there was a study on Gamasutra from an indie developer on the impact of introducing new anti-piracy measures: in the periods between the new measures being broken, I seem to recall the sales grew by something like 0.1%. I.e. the people pirating the game were not willing to upgrade.
Xbox Live Indie offers a tantalising glimpse of a piracy-free world (or at least: while there are mod chips, I don't believe it's possible to pirate DLC). The raw numbers are also comparable: there's approx. 22 million Xbox Live users (34m+ consoles sold; MS claim 60% are on XBL); while the iPhone has sold around 25 million units and games on XBIG start at 80 MSP (approx one dollar or 0.65 GBP) and range up to 400 MSP (approx. five dollars).
(The only real issue is that Microsoft have not done a particularly good job of publicising XBIG, though you could argue that the sheer volume of titles on the iStore helps to balance this out)
XBIG's biggest killer app to date is "I Maed A game with Zombies in it": not only is it the best-rated game on the platform, but it's also been consistently at the top of the sales chart and experienced significant buzz on the internet. To date, it's had 122'000 demo downloads: according to my maths, that's just 0.05% of the available user base. Further, the game has a 15% conversion rate, raking in approximately 18'000 for the developer.
So: on a platform with no piracy, the best-rated game with the largest amount of word-of-mouth publicity gets a lower conversion rate than on a platform with rampant piracy!
The same ratio also seems to apply to the best-selling XBIG title: Rumble Massage has had around 300'000 downloads and the developer has received approx. 60'000 in revenue. Assuming the standard 70% royalties rate, that also clocks in at around a 15% conversion rate.
I understand what you are saying, but I don't agree that it is as easy as just "make better games." At what point do consumers finally take part of the blame? We as potential buyers also play a part in this mess. I do not think it is all the fault of the game publishers/developers or the consumers; it lies somewhere in between. As was stated above how much easier and cheaper can it be to have a 1-button click download for .99 cents and lots of people were still pirating. We just see the problem from different perspectives. To me pirating is a huge problem, even if the company is still profitable. I don't think of pirates as evil, instead I think of it as a natural progression when there are no rules and consequences in place for peoples' actions. Think Lord of the Flies storyline.
As to your brilliant forthcoming game, please let us all know what it is so at the very least we can compare it to the many other games out there on the market that you claim "suck." My bet is that your genius won't be recognized quite as much as you may think. Also, please note that if the idea of people enjoying your game without paying for it doesn't bother you, take comfort in the knowledge that it doesn't bother them either. When a person illegally downloads your game, they have placed a very clear price tag on your time and effort: 0$.
And what I stated is that people don't want a Crysis-like game, even for 0...
If you make a good game it will sell (if properly marketed too, of course), even if it has 99.99% piracy.
Make a bad game (or a good game with poor marketing) and even if you have 0% piracy, it will not sell.
When I saw Crytek complaining of PC piracy, to me it was blaming piracy for a game that don't sell because it suck in gameplay and need a behemotic machine, and when I saw complaining that DMC4 don't sold on PC because of piracy, they are blaming piracy for their bad marketing (seriously, me and a lot of people that I talked while researching the issue, even piracy dealers and DMC fans, told me that they first heard of DMC4 PC in the news about the complaining of piracy...)
How is my experience different from piracy on the PC or iPhone platform? If I "borrow" my friend's game for PC in the same way that I borrow it from him on XBOX 360 am I now committing piracy? What is the difference? That the game cannot be played at the same time on both consoles but can be played simultaneously on PC? In either case I am not going to buy the game, I am only going to borrow it.
Look what happened to DRM in the music industry which eventually led to capitulation and the proliferation of DRM-free music. Consumers responded to DRM by NOT BUYING music and instead simply copying it from their friends. Taking away something that is not illegal (letting my friend borrow the original copy of my DVD or CD without making his own copy) in an attempt to prevent something that IS illegal (letting my friend burn a copy of my CD) is not the answer.
The problem is that corporations have lost the spirit of sharing, assuming that they are simply losing sales. Instead they should consider that they have not made it easy enough for people to legally share their creations. They have instead tried to restrict the practice entirely in hopes that it will result in more money on the backend. This could even lead to lower quality products and reduced consumer trust. Why would I spend $60 on your game if it might suck and I can't return it because it has been opened or I have already downloaded a digital copy?
I'll continue borrowing console games and audio CDs from my friends until my PC has a big fat "Share" button right next to my entire digital library that's as easy to manage as walking into a real library and borrowing a book.
We're getting close, but we're not quite there yet.
Even if a game recoups its cost, is that really enough? The whole purpose is to maximize profits, which is what you personally should want for your own software endeavors. If you really do make a brilliant game (and maybe you will), don’t you deserve every last bit of revenue it generates?
Piracy will never go away but I cannot fathom your apathetic stance on the issue, especially if you are a game developer. Despite your own personal dislike for Crysis, it was a critical success but the sales were anemic and not proportional to the hype and accolades it received. Also, there are plenty of games that are quality titles but sell poorly so I can’t agree with that particular assertion either.
As much as I wish it were true, quality alone does not ensure the success of a game. Human nature is simply this: Most people will take the freebie if they have reasonable assurances that there is no penalty for their actions.
Sharing software isn’t the same thing as downloading a copy of an illegally obtained game, film or song. Once a consumer buys a game, they have every right to loan it out or even sell it. What they don’t have a right to do is copy and dump that game onto the Internet so ten thousand people can also own a copy of the game without paying for it.
So yes, there is a massive difference between what you are doing and what pirates do everyday.
Truth be told, corporations and artists aren’t worried about cases where people share or even make copies for their friends and families. While making a copy of a CD or a movie is technically in violation of copyright, I think most artists and companies understand the concept of fair use. The problem is that some people feel entitled to take everything for free and pay for nothing, an ideology that, when applied on a grander scale, can take revenue from people who rightfully deserve it.
"Personally I own relatively few games for my consoles but I have played hundreds by borrowing from friends and renting from Gamefly. I will never buy those games."
The problem with this logic is what happens to the ones you borrowed, but after playing thought that was a good game? I doubt you buy most of them after you "deemed" them worthy of a purchase since you have already played it. However if you do, then kudos to you.
"Why would I spend $60 on your game if it might suck and I can't return it because it has been opened or I have already downloaded a digital copy?"
You don't buy fruit much I am guessing. In the immortal words of Seinfeld: "I don't return fruit. Fruit is a gamble. I know that going in." The same applies to many things in life.
I find the 90% piracy rate maybe a little sensationalist-- I suspect that since the data was taken on a new release that the pirates may have simply had better visibility of the title and tried it as soon as it showed up vs. iTunes purchasers. It'd be interesting to see how they factor in to the overall number after, say, a month and then six and twelve.
The main thing I can't figure out is how on earth Apple has such as soft security implementation on their flagship products. (I mean seriously, you have *every* component you need there to make a very transparent, very nasty to work around security solution-- unique device ID's, network access, managed purchasing accounts via iTunes...)
"Also, the graph on the article linked above shows that the piracy *peaked* at 90% on the second day: the average piracy rate over the first seven days was actually around 80%. Then too, the leaderboard chart indicates that there's only been around 100 people playing the game in the first week - or an average of 15 downloads a day. Not a huge sample!"
The first thing that struck me reading the source was that the sample size is awfully small to be able to draw any meaningful conclusions from the data. Additionally, I think it's important to note that their data gathering relies exclusively on self-reporting. They don't draw any parallels between sales data from Apple directly. The data could just as easily indicate that paying users are less inclined to take advantage of the stat tracking and leaderboards they provide - perhaps indicating a difference in personality type and preferences in the purchasing demographic. Maybe their consumers are "casual" gamers, and the pirates are "core" gamers... In any case, I don't feel like they've provided enough data or drawn the proper correlations to count as conclusive evidence one way or another.
I'm not trying to diminish the importance of piracy prevention or discourage the work done by the developer to track this data. It is certainly in the industry's best interest to figure out why piracy occurs, and how to prevent, or at least discourage, it. However, it seems counter-productive to draw conclusions based on incomplete evidence from a single developer.
Just my 2¢
My thoughts exactly. These games are just getting more visibility on the pirate sites during the first week than on iTunes. It's not easy to gain visibility on iTunes but in truth that's how your sales are determined. If you release your game free for a week you'll see your normal paid sales double for a week after having a free Top 100 (in any category) game out for a week. It's very Newtonian.
Still I wonder how cheap people can be though. Here we are scraping the bottom of the price barrel and people are still just grab bagging the games. I don't care if I as a developer never see the profit and I'm certain than sales wouldn't increase by 90% just because those people don't pirate a game. I'm more concerned with the lack of control and restraint people have in our society. If you don't want to pay for the game fine, don't buy it but don't play it either. I would appreciate some mutual sense of respect. Currently, the pirates don't have a leg to stand on. I work hard to make games and it pains me to see them advertised on pirate sites. Instead of building these grand systems based around giving my hard work away for free I challenge the pirates to try standing on their own while making games.
Also: I may have been a bit unfair: the Story highscore table appears to be capped at 100. However, the survival/rounds tables only feature 73/78 names, respectively. It therefore still seems safe to assume that the figures from the first week are in the low-hundreds. As such, one extra person buying (or pirating) the game could cause up to a 7.5% swing in the metrics!
There's also other points to consider: looking at iTunes, there isn't a demo available for Tap-Fu so people are being asked to buy it sight-unseen, which some may view as a justification for piracy.
In the end, what we need is for a game to be released in at least four separate ways:
1) No demo, pirated option available
2) Demo and pirated option available
3) Demo only: piracy not available
4) No demo, no piracy
This is obviously very tricky to do, though it might be possible to implement something across the iPhone (1 and 2) and XBIG (3 and 4). Certainly, it was interesting to see that the XBIG demo-purchase ratio is roughly equal to the piracy-purchase ratio on the iPhone!
"The problem with this logic is what happens to the ones you borrowed, but after playing thought that was a good game? I doubt you buy most of them after you "deemed" them worthy of a purchase since you have already played it. However if you do, then kudos to you."
Why is that a "problem"? Take Halo 3: ODST as an example. I finished the single-player campaign in 6 hours. I already own 80% of the multiplayer content that ships with the game. Why should I pay $60 for this if I only want to play the single-player campaign through once and put it on the shelf? I'm more likely to play the game at all if I can rent it.
@ Roberto Alfonso
"so basically publishers need to rent games, not sell them. That way the profit will stay with them instead of GameFly. Or, as Onlive is trying to do, gaming as a service."
That's actually a great idea! In the above example I would gladly pay $5-$10 to have Halo3 ODST for a few weeks. That's what I do anyway with Gamefly! I would benefit from instant downloads and the developer and publisher would benefit from actual rental revenue going directly to them.
Apple is pretty smart and they make a money off of each sale, every pirate is cutting right into their revenue stream (to argue that those pirates would not buy a game if they couldn't "try before you buy", that is silly, I'm certain some will buy if they can't "try" first and some pirates never buy either way). They will probably come out with strong hardware/software encryption on the next generation of iPhones.
World of Goo has about 85-90% piracy rate (measured by high score list) and it's been out for a year, so do you still think 90% is sensationalist? You can never beat a "free" full priced game vs any limited demo or lite version. Why would they bother playing those when they have access to the "free" version, and the only real difference is 30 sec download time vs 10 sec download time.
Basically there are 2 population and they don't mix for most part. Pirate population which is about 10x larger than paying population, but if you put up a strong enough barrier the pirates will migrate to the pay side because they have too. The only barrier strong enough to do so, is a combination of hardware/software encryption or online verification (like how MMOs, BattleNet, Steam etc..).
The iPhone has no hardware encryption so your best bet is online verification schemes (perhaps piggy back off Apples DLC api).
"Basically there are 2 population and they don't mix for most part. Pirate population which is about 10x larger than paying population, but if you put up a strong enough barrier the pirates will migrate to the pay side because they have too."
Pirating software is a mentality. You either do or you don't. I bet there are very few people who "sometimes" pirate software and "sometimes" buy it. iPhone piracy as covered in this article is almost solid proof of this theory! It obviously isn't a question of cost; if I have $99 - $500 to buy an iPhone or iPod Touch I should be able to afford $0.99 - $9.99 games no problem. If I'm pirating them it's a conscious choice.
You are exactly right that there are 2 distinct groups of people that don't mix for the most part. But I disagree that putting up strong-enough barriers is going to convince anyone to change their ways. This is part of the problem when trying to fight piracy! There are always people who are going to do it until they are prosecuted, just because they can. They're not going to stop because it's a little harder to do; on the contrary they'll probably try even harder, and they'll make it easier for everyone else to do the same.
First, it is not allowed to be anonymous here.
Then I must say that 360 piracy rate is negligible from what the mass public knows...
I find so funny when I see people complaining of PC piracy and blaming P2P downloads, when I see in person that the console piracy is just much, much, MUCH bigger, it is HUGE, and is unknown to the industry, because you cannot track the physical copies going around... Or the industry don't want to fight the mafias (the pirated games dealers are so organized to provide a quality better than legal stores, that I doubt that they have no organized crime connections...)
Final note: I NEVER saw a PS2 without a modchip, and I saw only once a XBOX 360 WITHOUT a modchip... And some of the poeple that I know that has a modded 360 are playing fine on Live! and whatnot...
Now the PS3 I never saw piracy on it, really... I think that maybe is the cost of writing Blue-Ray discs and downloading huge games like MGS4...
I can't remember who mentioned it above, but it was noted that some of the high scores lists weren't full (only 70 or so out of 100 possible slots shown). This means we can probably assume that the overall awareness (pirated or not) is also extremely low (I'm taking a gambit on beliving submitting a high score of any kind doesn't take an extraordinary amount of work). With that in mind, a casual user who probably won't buy dozens of games in a day is a lot less likely to run into this game compared to a pirate who probably just checks up on some consistent online sources that they get games from (and since the barrier of entry is so low, likely goes through far more games than most other iPhone users). As such, a compulsive downloader is far more likely to play and get anywhere in this game compared to users who stick largely or entirely to iTunes purchases. And all of this doesn't even take into account the original $4 pricetag the game launched at (many early watchers on forums stated this was too high for them, which also probably drove off early iTunes adopters).
Effectively, what I'm meaning to imply is that it seems his product has far more visibility and likelihood to be played by software pirates then legitimate customers. This is probably why he ran into the case he has.
Also, article is ridiculously sensational. No other news aggragator had the balls to imply "90% piracy rate" in the title when that merely was the peak. Seriously, Gamasutra, you can do better.
You can take a look at the online high scores here:
http://tapfu.neptuneii.com/highscores/
Note that hero appears multiple times as well but note the nation of origin, so unless a person is flying to all those places to play the game as "hero" for some odd reason, I suspect they are different people.
Nono, see there's a difference between passively and aggressively stopping piracy. See, an aggressive strategy of "fine all pirates", is unlikely to make people stop pirating, it simply reduces the amount of cash flowing around the market, which in fact, enforces piracy. It's the simple chain of, less money = less consumption = less profit = reactionary raising of prices = more piracy, and this trend continues until people start realising they desperately need to recoup something and start lowering prices again. In the process though this could send a lot of devs out of business.
Now you have a hard and soft passive approach. The Hard Passive approach are things like DRM, previous market trends actually show that while this does actively reduce piracy levels, it also serves to reduce legitimate sales due to the [perceived] mistreatment of legitimate consumers. So this Hard approach, while not as drastically unstable as an aggressive approach is also flawed. The final approach is the soft approach.
The Soft Passive Approach is effectively not doing anything about piracy. Instead it's accepting it as an inviolate event, something that will occur regardless. As such react in such a way as to not prevent piracy but to minimise it (note each following factor also mitigates the piracy from a pirate of certain mentality). Making your product more attractive to legitimate consumers is the first step (and is what Helder is getting at). This doesn't only involve making a high quality product (though this helps), it also involves effective pricing, and bonus content. The promise of later free dlc (while not feasible for everyone) is a good example of bonus content making the product a more attractive option. Next is the reduction of consumer risk, the less risky your product the more likely someone is to buy it over a competitors. How is this done, well in the electronic world this is demo's. If someone gets to play your game before the actual purchase they will unequivocally know if this purchase is for them or not. Assuming (and it's a big assumption) that every consumer plays your demo you reduce risk by near on 100%. The last thing is consumer confidence and awareness. Your game may have some cool feature but if people don't hear about it they're not interested, low awareness leads to increased piracy and reduced legitimate sales, so this part is all about effective marketing. Confidence on the other hand is hard to acquire, companies like Blizzard, who are renowned for selling quality games, have it. Another good example is Infinity Wards current removal of dedicated servers as a great way to reduce consumer confidence. Undoubtedly simply because of that action they will have reduced their legitimate sales by some degree (an unknown degree but by some degree nonetheless).
Anyway the point is that in the soft passive approach the free market is allowed to flourish allowing both consumers and vendors to come to a value and quality in their products that is suitable to everyone. (tis kinda the point of having a free market)
Stop thinking people will refuse to download a game for free, even if it's a wonderful one.
Unless we are talking about highly consciencous people, and we all know they are a clear minority, every average human won't bother to give their money and will choose the free version if available.
Piracy needs to stop. For the sake of culture and entertainment.
The general population will only pay for something if one of the following is true
a) it has a good reputation (i.e. sequels)
b) it's more convenent than pirating it (i.e. the cost of purchasing is viewed to be less than the effort needed to pirate it)
c) there's some form of tangible/intanglible reward from purchasing (e.g. DLC, collectors editions, peer approval, etc)
Generally, games on the iPhone/XBIG/PSN/WiiWare don't have a pre-established reputation. The focus therefore needs to be on either providing rewards or making delivery more convenient.
"It is not a mischaracterization to say that conversations with the hardcore PC community about software theft follow these tenets:
- There is no piracy.
- To the extent that piracy exists, which it doesn't, it's your fault.
- If you try to protect your game, we'll steal it as a matter of principle.
It's like, who wouldn't want to bend over backward in their service? You need to know it, because nobody else is going to tell you: you guys sound like Goddamned subway vagrants. Of course when you speak exclusively to each other, it all sounds so reasonable."
I laughed because it is true.
The best analogy I can think of is an all-you-can-eat buffet. Because everything is free, you may put dozens of items on your plate you would never order as an entree, take a bite of each one, then throw the rest out. People who pirate games are no different - except for the legal grey-area.
I am not dreaming, I am only thinking like Juice and Wragg.
I did not say that making a great game will reduce piracy, I said that making a great game sell more legal copies (even if it gets even much more popular with pirates). Got it?
I don't think anyone is seriously going stop piracy but there are proven techniques to limit it. Online verification, combo hardware/software, online only games, etc.. When was the last time someone pirated WoW? or how long does a pirate last on Steam? or what percentage of games are pirated on PS3 or Xbox360?
@ddnguyen 278: Private WoW servers exist, pirating Steam games can be tricking, but isn't impossible, and no one could tell you a percentage of current-gen games on a given console could be pirated (but a cursory google search should illuminate the fact that it is quite possible).
You are either horribly uninformed or the worst troll I've ever seen, mate.
Who remembers paying $40 for a game back in the day only to find out it was *total* crap (let's see-- 'Blood Money' on the Atari ST ;-)? Felt a bit 'robbed'? Makes 'robbing' them back with a pirate version instead seem justifiable? (I think the same effect extended to music CD's with the "one good song" for $17.99 effect.)
I suspect that (easily/automatically) downloadable free to play demos might help the situation a bit. It weeds out some of the "try before you buy" argument for pirated copies. (Because regardless of initial motive, if the pirated copy is 'good enough', the probability for conversion is probably pretty low.)
Playing devil's advocate, one situation where piracy may be beneficial-- a 'viral' type spread of an otherwise unknown title (or one without a major publisher)... That could increase awareness and prime the pump for a successful sequel (or "name recognition") down the line. (ie, a pirated copy of Wolfenstein 3D when it came out leads to buying various Wolfenstein franchise versions on assorted platforms for the next twenty years because you remember the original fondly.)
In the days of ubiquitous digital distribution the "spread" that piracy enabled a decade or two ago is probably less of a factor however.
Another interesting point was the issue of renting console games. When a friend asks me about a 360 game, it usually falls into the "buy", "rent" or "pass" category. While I have played several games that were worth a rental but not a purchase, PC games seem to be locked into all or nothing sales. A possible exception would be post launch MMOs that give away trials and then just make money on monthly subscriptions.
As someone who recently felt burned by purchasing Borderlands for the PC via Steam without the benefit of a demo (which would have saved me $50), I wonder if the lack of a demo doesn't provide some short term profits from the older working professional demographic that is willing to take a risk? I know I really wanted to buy Brutal Legend and Batman Arkham Asylum based on reviews but after playing the demos, both games (while good) fell short of what I was looking for in a purchase.
It's not a factor in reducing Piracy (though it may have some heretofore unquantified effect, I'd be interested in seeing some numbers), it's about increasing legitimate sales.
Also as for demo's if you have a bad game, then yes a demo is a bad idea for those looking (solely) to make money, but if you know you have a great game on your hands then a demo should (in theory) attract more people than it turns away.
Also on the issue of borrowed games, those are numbers that are even harder to track than piracy, but if each person was to lend the game to 4 other people then that would be equivalent of an 80% piracy rate (assuming none of those people then bought the game, or that someone broke your game and another copy was bought =P). But it's unlikely that people will lend games around that much and so while lending may have a much lower impact on the market, if you individually lend a game around to 4 other people you could feasibly be considered just as bad as a pirate.
@Benjamin Marchand and Co
Stop accusing Helder of supporting piracy and/or pretending it will magically go away that's NOT what he's saying.
This;
"Piracy needs to stop. For the sake of culture and entertainment."
Is silly.
Piracy does not "need" to stop, nor will it, and certainly not "for the sake of culture and entertainment". Could people over romanticise or dramatise the issue any more?!