Developer Drops Game Price To $0 Citing Android Piracy 433
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.
Good news everyone! (Score:5, Insightful)
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! (Score:5, Funny)
I need a +1 cranky mod option.
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:5, Funny)
There is - far less (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There is - far less (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:There is - far less (Score:5, Interesting)
People must be F'in cheap if they aren't willing to spend 99 cents. If I see a Kindle book for 99 cents I just grab it; I'm not wasting time trying to find a free pirate version. (shrug). So much for the "We would buy your product if it were cheap enough" excuse. It's been officially debunked.
Re:There is - far less (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
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
Something is inherently wrong with the society when a person with USD2 a day income is even considering to spend half of his daily income on fruit ninja
Re:There is - far less (Score:5, Insightful)
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: (Score:3)
I'd also argue that things like avoiding hassle and finding features you want isn't a guarantee at a
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think he's saying that at all - he's just stating the obvious, that if the vast majority of people "can steal and get away with it", they do. I'm not saying it's right, but it's obviously true. Harumphing about the moral high ground you hold isn't going to change anything.
The really hilarious thing about your comment is that right after you tell him to reevaluate his lack of moral standards, you tell us you download music for free and give us a rationalization for YOUR downloading! "It's not okay
Re:There is - far less (Score:4, Interesting)
Buy your music from independant artists and labels, not the RIAA goons and their "artists". You can support music without supporting the RIAA.
Pirating RIAA music doesn't hurt anyone, but buying non-RIAA music hurts the RIAA. They aren't really against piracy, they full well know that piracy doesn't cost them anything. Their faux battle against piracy is because file sharing is the independants' means of getting their music in front of the public. The RIAA has radio, they don't. The fight against piracy is really a battle against their competetion. If you buy two indie CDs, that's money you don't have to buy an RIAA CD.
I didn't RTFA, but these devs seem clueless. If they're going to pirate rather than paying a buck, either they're all dirt-poor (unlikely) or the legit version is in some way inferior to the paid-for version.
Giving it away "because of piracy" when some have actually PAID for a few is absolute idiocy. That said, Apogee made a similar mistake when they put DN1 and DN2 bundled with DN3D. I was pissed off, and wrote them abouut it. I'd already paid for 1 and 2! I was getting less value than those who hadn't bought 1 and 2.
It's easy to blame piracy, piracy makes a good scapegoat for poor sales of a crappy product, or poor sales after you've angered your paying customers.
Re:There is - far less (Score:5, Insightful)
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. [zdnet.com]
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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. .apk all over the world? The were still able to bank all the sales reported in the Google Market.
So what if people are emailing the
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, not keeping your mouth shut about the piracy, and suddenly announcing you're giving your game away because of all the "piracy" may get you some publicity that will increase your in-app income by even more than continued sales would have done. It's possible, and obviously it's what these guys are banking on.
And the beauty of that is there doesn't have to be any real level of piracy for this ploy to work.
Their refusal to reveal actual piracy numbers pretty much lends credence to this possibility.
Re:There is - far less (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
The article mentions the piracy rate for iOS, the rate is orders of magnitude smaller.
Unless you're reading a different "the article" than I did, no it doesn't. It doesn't say anything about the piracy rate on iOS and the word "magnitude" does not appear in the article text. The only claim it makes in terms of numbers, for either platform, is this paragraph:
If we go by piracy ratio, developers have come up with some rather starling figures. Korea based com2uS has said that some games have seen piracy rate as high as 90%. Appy Entertainment have seen piracy to the ratio of 70:1 i.e. for every 70 illegal installs, there in only one genuine purchase.
Also, if the piracy rate on iOS was in fact "orders of magnitude" smaller, with "orders" being plural, then that would assume a worst-case piracy rate of 0.9%. Various statistics floating around, like these [mtiks.com], show iOS piracy rates between 25% - 75% for various types of apps. Various developers, when they actually disclose these numbers, refer to worst-case rates at between 50% to 90%.
In other words, you're talking out of your ass. I guess you're strictly correct, though. The iOS piracy rate is zero "orders of magnitude" smaller than the Android piracy rate. So yeah, it's orders of magnitude smaller. Zero orders. It's also zero orders larger.
Re: (Score:3)
Also note that installing a pirated application in Android only requires ticking a checkbox, wheres in iOS it needs jailbreak, which is a frightening word for some.
Another theory (Score:3)
would be that iOS have less piracy because more users value the programs they use and with a sane pricing scheme that keep honest people honest only assholes will pirate. I work in a Data Center and admin around 150-200 servers running Windows, Solaris, Linux and AIX, but I don't pirate despite I have the knowhow because I value my job, and value the job of the developers that make the apps that I enjoy.
Re: (Score:2)
Not only that but there's a relatively simple solution with today's tools. Allow people to play the game for a bit for free but then make a single in app purchase to play it through to completion. As long as you're very up front about this then you're effectively giving people a free trial, and putting a block on piracy. I'm sure it's not a fool proof block, just look at the problems on iOS right now, but hopefully it's at least another step that doesn't harm genuine users but makes it a bit more difficu
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:5, Insightful)
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! (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
What? iOS handles this just fine. Got a new phone? Restore your backup from iCloud, most apps will just keep the purchases enabled. If you uninstall and reinstall the app then you just use "restore In App Purchases" button and they all re-appear.
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:5, Informative)
Are IAPs really that transient on Android? I must admit that I don't currently own any Android devices, but on my iOS devices, in-app purchases apply at the iTunes account level and are not only persistent, but also apply (without any extra purchase) to all instances of that app across different devices set to the same account. The iOS behavior where purchases are tied to your account and not to any particular device has made buying both apps and upgrades much more appealing to me than I originally thought would be the case.
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:4, Insightful)
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! (Score:5, Interesting)
Android apps on both platforms are pirated 2,300% more often for the Android version vs the iOS version
Where do you get this figure? It sounds absurd on the face of it (and the number is cited in a way to sound bigger, "2,300%" is 23 times - which I still don't accept without a credible source). Jailbreaking is far more common among those I know with iPhones than rooting is among those I know with Android phones. I don't know anyone who is willing to admit to pirating Android apps, and I know several different personal circles who traffic in pirated iOS apps.
I wonder if Android is either easier to figure out who pirated vs who didn't, or if something about the Android platform falsely inflates these "pirated" numbers. Most articles I've read that talk about Android pirating do nothing to describe how they meter this, so any reporting on it at all is specious as far as I'm concerned.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In the spirit of anecdotal evidence, at work there is a cluster of Android geeks. They each spend a couple hours each day talking about this torrent with all the latest software, hacked so you can sideload it for free. In one to one conversations with this group, they all admit that they NEVER once paid for an App. They feel that they are entitled to install as much non-refundable software as they can.
My little circle of iPhone users, only one has jail broken his phone, and he still buys a lot of apps.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:5, Informative)
You didn't cite a single source.
I thought I was pretty up-front about where those came from, and I don't think I presented it as my own, comprehensive research into the market intricacies of mobile platforms.
But if you wanted my search terms, I think it was something like, "piracy ios vs android" or "developer ios vs android". Going a little further for those who don't want to look...
First one was probably: http://www.diasks2.com/post/20172033158/ios-vs-android-a-comparison-for-first-time [diasks2.com]
or maybe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2012/jun/10/apple-developer-wwdc-schmidt-android [guardian.co.uk]
or maybe
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2012/05/android-app-sales-piracy-matters-seasons-dont/ [lifehacker.com.au]
There are about a billion more if you care to read them.
Second was probably: http://www.develop-online.net/news/38848/Android-app-pirated-2300-more-than-iOS-edition [develop-online.net]
Though here's one that says 90% - http://keyeslabs.com/joomla/blogs/i-think-im-becoming-an-android/136-android-the-perfect-piracy-storm [keyeslabs.com]
and one that says they had 83%, if you prefer - http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/05/wired-uk-android-game-piracy/ [wired.com]
Third was something like: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-ios-vs-android-fragmentation-2012-6 [businessinsider.com]
or
http://opensignalmaps.com/reports/fragmentation.php [opensignalmaps.com]
Of course there are another 8 gazillion results for each of these. I said only what I saw.
That aside, many of these are topics we've covered extensively here on Slashdot. If you think it's all FUD, you're obviously welcome to discuss and I'll be interested to see it. I have no real vested interest in the results besides being a user.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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! (Score:4, Interesting)
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).
More than three billion dollars paid to iOS developers. How much money has ended up in Android developers' pockets?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:4, Informative)
"google allows in app purchases via third party platform, apple does not. apple will take the 30% of everything, forever"
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/03/new-android-market-rule-prohibits-apps-that-use-third-party-in-app-payment-services/ [arstechnica.com]
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:4, Informative)
One crucial difference is:
"A key difference, however, is that Google offers exceptions for retailers of physical and virtual goods (including ebooks)."
Which is why Kindle for Android still lets you buy books directly from the apps, while Kindle for iOS is just a reader now.
All that said, it's pretty ironic - given that Win8 does not restrict in-app purchases to its store and does not mandate the 30% fee, that actually makes it more open than Android in some sense. Though on Android the rules only apply to those apps that are published through the store, and you can always sideload...
Did you read your links?! Stop making shit up (Score:5, Informative)
Did you read the links you posted? The first link has NO FIGURES at all. The second says this:
This year alone, the iOS App Store has provided developers with $3.4 billion in revenues, while the Android Market has delivered only $240 million to its developers.
That's way off from your "750 million and 500 million".
Why bother posting links if you're just going to make up the numbers anyway?!
Re: (Score:3)
The $3B number cited represented the 70% that gets paid to developers, not the 100% from which Apple still has not yet taken its cut.
Based on that, we can say that the 100% would be a very large pile of money.
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing keeping iOS apps from being pirated is the "jail" system. JB an iPhone, slap on a certain app [1] via adding a shady repo to Cydia, and start leeching.
Android is not built with just keeping people away from root as the single source of protection. Apps have the LVL functions to check if they are legit or not. In Jelly Bean, apps are encrypted per device and mounted via a loopback filesystem on the fly.
The reason why iOS apps have a less pirate rate is because in some countries where piracy is rampant, Android is available on the inexpensive devices. Where piracy goes, malware goes, so that is why we heard about malware running loose in Asian markets before it ever reared its head on US or European shores. iOS tends to be on more expensive phones [2], so generally people who can afford the phone can generally afford apps.
All and all, it isn't the OS that is the issue here. Android has a more robust security mechanism than iOS. However, Apple does a lot of work in being the gatekeeper, and ensuring their walls are high and stay high (especially with the fact that on newer iDevices that one can't save SHSH blobs on, all jailbreaks can be just one restore away from being gone and gone for good until a new one is made after Apple does an iOS update.)
[1]: The Dev Team and most people who use JB functionality abhor the pirates, because there are a lot of legit uses for a jailbroken device and pirating attacks the JB ecosystem as a whole. If they could block the pirate apps, they would, but there will be someone who would "jailbreak the jailbreak", so it would be pointless.
[2]: Expensive on a world basis. Just taking price comparisons in the US is different because in a lot of places, phones are not subsidized, so the user has to pay the entire cost. That is why the low end Huwei and ZTE phones are extremely popular.
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:5, Informative)
See that * next to crazyjj that you carefully omitted from your summary?
That means he pays slashdot. So he can see such articles 10 minutes or so before they post. He had plenty of time to write that up.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe you didn't notice the star next to the username, indicating the person is a subscriber and can see articles earlier. But keep pushing a conspiracy theory, it's so fun to watch.
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, with IOS, unless your customers are jailbroken, all apps have to be sold through Apple. So there's 100% piracy, although Apple only steals 30%, like any successful parasite.
Been working on a sales model that "tried" to take less than the 30%, however, when you start looking at the volume of product at $0.99 credit processing fees eat up most of that 30%. Now there are a lot of tricks to manage that (like how Apple will bundle purchases and do one transaction at the end of the day, but for the vast majority we just couldn't offer more than 70% on sales that less than $.99. Now for higher priced stuff, the credit fee percentage drops because most of it is tied in transaction fees which run around $.20 per transaction, so on a $10 purchase it is a much lower percentage.
We are looking at alternative models like dwolla that don't charge for transactions under $10.00 but not enough people are on that platform to build a business model around it.
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:4, Informative)
You realize that Google takes a 30% cut fom paid apps, too, right?
Re: (Score:3)
You know that Google doesn't force sales to be via their store, right? That's the developer's choice - unlike IOS. There are independent stores, or they can sell directly.
Re: (Score:3)
True, but then Google doesn't make the majority of Android phones. Some Android phones have come without the ability to sideload [geek.com].
Android is a platform to build a phone on--it's well out of Google's hands now, and while they've been trying to rein it in, I don't think it's clear yet whether or not they will be successful.
Just wondering (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure would be nice to have a "tip jar" donation button. *click* *click* *click* I sure would be sending quarters by the dozens...concept has been around for decades...
Re: (Score:3)
I've bought quite a lot of games and apps on my Android phone. [...]I have never come up against and form of annoying DRM. What ARE you talking about?
If you don't have an internet connection on your Android* for a while and use certain programs (that verify Android DRM almost every time), you will certainly experience what Android DRM is all about...
(* Like, if you use prepaid and run out of data, you fall outside your carrier's 3g network, you only use your wifi at home to download programs and use your android mostly for games on the bus... In these cases you will, eventually, run into the DRM system in a head-meets-wall kind of way that won't let you
Re: (Score:3)
That's the case with most mobile development (by number of titles). Mobile is low investment, low risk. If your game completely fails and you sell 5000 copies you're only out a few tens of thousands of dollars or small hundreds of thousands, which can be recouped by a single title doing very well. Make 20 games for 100k each and hope one makes you 2 million dollars sort of thing.
Part of game development is the creative exercise of trying to tell a story or come up with a compelling mechanic. The risk of
Because, you know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
That's about getting free in-app purchases not downloading paid apps for free.
Re:Because, you know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
So unhappy iPhone users and poor quality apps is what drives iOS app sales? Have you looked at Apple's customer satisfaction numbers??
Take a look at in-app purchases of iOS vs. Android.. Fewer than 2% [insidemobileapps.com] of Android users are likely to get off their wallet and spend a little cash
Sad (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sad (Score:5, Informative)
Sometimes it's appropriate. I bought Early Bird for Android. Later they made it free, which I'm OK with. What's not OK is making the free version (which I was automatically "upgraded" to) have intrusive ads.
Re: (Score:3)
I certainly wouldn't want to gamble my personal finances on it.
could have had activation as in app purchase (Score:2)
could have had activation as in app purchase. but stats show people are more likely to download and pirate a game that has an upfront cost(so you get wider circulation).
they got in-app purchases afaik in the game. that's why they're doing this free giveaway. and no they're not giving in-game gold to those who paid for it.
*Correction (Score:5, Insightful)
Developer drops game price to $0, failing to cite that it was a really shitty game that charged for upgrades.
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
I uninstalled this terrible money grabbing game as soon as I got to the store and found all the 'money' I'd collected in game was worth next to nothing, but I could get credits for weapons and other useful things if I just went and completed things on some websites, or I could just pay real money to get in game credits.
A horrible system, and nothing to do with piracy, all to do with a game designed PURELY to pull money out of people to progress.
Make a good game, charge up front and
Company you've never heard of changes pricing (Score:5, Insightful)
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: (Score:2)
Specifically went out of my way to side load the Amazon Store on my Android phone so I could buy a certain ad-ware-free version of a particular game. The Android market only had the free version and I found the ads quite annoying.
Of course everyone's heard about this game.
Never heard of the one with the whiney developer.
Re: (Score:3)
Well this particular app looks like a standard freemium app - in order to progress, you have to buy in-app purchases to get decent weapons and equipment. They start you out with a proper gun, then take it away on the third level - but of course, you can buy it back with real money. And they had the gall to charge a fee for the game in the first place? Not to mention in game ads for their other games, plus the usual obnoxious pop ups to get you to 'get free gold'.
Frankly its a rip off even now it's 'free'. A
Which is why streaming software is the way to go (Score:2)
As in, executables that run in a browser (e.g. spoon.net). Less piracy. At this point, there's no way I'd mess with a phone app, or an old fashioned installible. Either one will be pirated by a bunch of giggling teenage basement hackers in seconds.
Yes, I could go broke by releasing my stuff as open source instead. You first.
Re: (Score:3)
At no point have I ever, nor do I ever intend to, depends upon programs which I do not control. The "we control your data" model is bound for a big crash as soon as it causes a billion dollar lawsuit.
Re: (Score:2)
They just want to take away what remaining ownership you have over the software. That's all. Is that so bad?
Re: (Score:2)
"They" just want to take away what remaining ownership I have over the software I've written. That's all. Is that so bad?
Yes, if you're in business, it is. If I made cars, you wouldn't get them for free either.
Re: (Score:2)
What does that have to do with anything? Cars have little to do with the subject of copyright and the like!
"They" just want to take away what remaining ownership I have over the software I've written.
I don't believe you own the copy someone bought. The one on someone else's hard drive. Well, it's a good thing I can refrain from using things I think are garbage (like "The Cloud," where I lose all local access to the data, but that really only works for games).
Re: (Score:2)
There's controlling your data and controlling your application. It's quite possible to make a web app that stores files locally. I control the app. You control your data.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
And I wouldn't blame you if that was the case. Look, there's no reason to do that. It pisses people off and there are pretty standard formats for most things. There's also no reason to save data to "the cloud" either. Who needs that kind of liability? I'd rather you save it locally, in RTF or csv, preferably.
I'm glad (Score:3, Insightful)
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!"
It's not piracy (Score:2)
Re:It's not piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Ripp off! :-( (Score:2)
Information wants to be free. Why should programmers get a pass when musicians and moviemakers don't?
Re:Ripp off! :-( (Score:4, Interesting)
Not a specific person; the public as a whole.
If I sa my truckload of dirt costs a million dollars, and the public at large says it is worth at most 100 dollars, there is no way I can equitably sell my dirt. If I sell it for 100 dollars, I feel cheated, and consider the deal unequitable.
The cost to dig the dirt is inconsequential. The dirt could very well have cost a million to dig. It could be fabulously rich in platinum ore or something. The problem is the perception of value. If your product is percieved as cheap, and of little value, you will never reach equity in the transaction.
There are two things you can do:
1) don't sell high value dirt for 100 dollars. (High value games at .99 dollars.)
2) seek to improve public awareness so that people understand what they are getting, and why your dirt costs what it does.
If the second option incurs a cost sufficient that it negates any tangible value in getting the equitable price accepted, (yes, you start selling dirt for a million dollars, but it costs trillions of dollars to educate the public, making the effort wasted) it is completely absurd economically as an option, leaving only option #1. Don't sell high value dirt. Only sell cheap dirt, because it is all people will buy.
See for instance, my own views about the price of games.
I am completely unwilling to pay 60$ for a game. I will pay at most 45$, and that had better be epic in every sense of the word. I hold this assertion because:
I make 30k a year. This tabulates out to around 14$/hr. The equivalent of my life I expend to obtain your game is a little over 4 hours. Is your game worth 4 hours of my life? I don't believe it is. You might invest weeks or months of your life to produce the game-- no contest. The question is if it is equitable to demand 4hrs of average time spent working from the thousands of people you intend to sell it to. For the sake of argument, let's say you spent 2 years making it. (Straight up, nonstop, no sleep, total time spent == 2 years.) That is 17520 hours. At 4hrs per person, you would break parity at 4380 buyers. The average game sells millions of copies. At 1 million copies sold, that is a markup over parity for your time of 228%. Unless there are that many people involved in production, (which I don't see in the end credits...) that price is inflated. Usually games with the 60$ price point sell far more than that. Usually in the 5 to 6 million unit numbers. That comes closer to 1140 people spending 2 years of their life, nonstop, to necessitate that price, assuming equal exchange of time.
It is important to note: I do not consider your time to be more expensive than mine. I am angineer, who works in avionics. I am simply not union. My wage is equitable. If your rate of pay is necessary to be higher to have a decent quality of living, it is because your local economy suffers higher inflation than mine. By demanding the higher price as a flat rate instead of pricing for the local economy, you are expecting me to accept a bad deal. End of discussion on that point. If you had developed it locally, you would not have been paid as much for your time. Demanding that I subsidize your higher cost of living is unethical. My money is worth more to me than yours is. I expect to compartively more for it than you do. If you make 60k a year (twice what I do) you should adjust the price you think your game is worth against my pay grade and local economy's buying power. You will find that for the same equity you are demanding, you would have to be paying 120$ for your games. If you feel this is unequitable, congratulations. Now you know why I won't pay that price.
I am happy to pay at most 45$. To your buying power, that is a 90$ game. It had better be damned good.
Blanket price setting sets unrealistic prices, which people refuse to pay. Their refusal to pay that price is NOT unreasonable. The blanket pricing *IS*.
I don't care that your home costs a million dollars. Your home here, of comparable v
Free advertising on Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Gimmick? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Gimmick? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know if Google's store does this, but when you look at an App that uses in-store purchases, it shows you the most popular purchases. This has helped me find those sorts of games and apps (ie, the "free" apps that are not really free) and steer clear of them.
More great Slashdot editing (Score:5, Funny)
Madfinger Games has joined the long list of developers who have recently turned their paid Android based game, Dead Trigger, to a free one.
Just how many developers have written this one game, then? Oh, and it should be "into a free one."
The iOS version of the game still costs $0.99 and hasn't been made free.
Thanks for clarifying that, because when you said it still costs $0.99 I thought it might also be free.
Re:More great Slashdot editing (Score:4, Funny)
The Google Play store has poor app discovery (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
"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.
Rubbish.. (Score:5, Informative)
Keep your 'free' crap. And next time, at least TRY to mask your dishonesty a bit better. This bullshit isn't fooling anyone.
Re: (Score:2)
You have no idea the ancient evil you have just unleashed upon the world!
Re:Oh yeah, that'll show them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Do you have any justification as to what makes you entitled to pirate the applications? Just because you can?
Re: (Score:2)
Makes sense. He's figuring that he's making no money on this version. Better to buy your way into marketshare and hope the next version sells for something. That might be a terrible plan that will fail horribly, but much bigger companies have tried strategies of losing money to get marketshare (AMD for example).
For whatever he was getting before, which was probably in the single thousands of dollars, he has gotten free press on the android version (more players = more potential buyers of the next version
Re: (Score:3)
Explanation:
1. You "buy" the app and it can phone home all your juicy details
2. You pirate the app and it doesn't phone home.
So, if he drops the price to "free" then more people will get it via legitimate means than via piracy, so while he loses out on sale revenue, he gets all the data he was digging for instead.
Re: (Score:3)
More specifically - Even when it cost $1, 90% of the revenue from the game was in-app purchases.
No other game on Android that I'm aware of had an initial purchase price set when combined with the heavy pushing of IAPs post-installation.
You can have an initial purchase price, or you can push IAPs heavily - but you can't do both and have users accept that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
He didn't... Dead Trigger is a "freemium" app - given how critical in-app-purchases (IAPs) are for that game, it should never have had an initial purchase price assigned to it.
90%+ of their revenue was from IAPs to begin with.
They're blaming it on piracy - but plenty of other developers are having no issues with piracy. The fact was they put in a perfect recipe to drive people towards piracy - not making your app worth the money paid for it. Dead Trigger's reliance on IAP meant that the initial purchase price did nothing but anger users.
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly, it's a terrible, terrible game.
Well, actually the game seemed ok from what I played of it. And then it got to the store, and the way to buy things was to complete various things out of the game, like visiting websites or completing offers... OR you could pay to advance.
So yes, it was the lowest of crap types of apps, the Freemium. I HATE these apps with a passion and wish the whole concept would die.
Provide a free 'trial' version of a game so you can see how it plays on your device, then charge a f
Re: (Score:3)
Bah. Correction: you don't need to install a new rom on it to pirate I suppose (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bat86GeYTU [youtube.com] with 750k views)