OK, so basically I'm getting annoyed by piracy. Knife Media has lost 1000's of sales to careless pirates who think nothing of stealing our apps. So what am I gonna do about it? Here's the plan. I propose that 20+ developers get together and create a once shown app startup sequence video to educate players about piracy. We need to form some sort of alliance to stop this, or at least make them feel bad about it. I'm asking well known developers as well as small timers to join together and fight piracy. If you are big time, all the better. If small, this is beneficial to you too. The video we need to make will display once, then never again. It will have branding (the anti-piracy initiative logo, etc.) and a humorous cartoon segment to show the folly of their selfishness. Not only that, but to give developers a face we can all upload and combine our 5 second "I'm X from company X, and I lost X amount of dollars to piracy" video monologues. Tell me what you think, but let's get this rolling. I have experience in animation and design so I should be able to get the basics done. I'll need support for this to gain momentum. The more on board, the better. I really think we can do this. VIVA LA REVELADOR!
90% of iOS device owners probably don't know that piracy of apps exists and think that you can only get games through the app store, do you really want to let them know that it is possible to download them for free?
Plus, crackers will be crackers no matter what and seem to crack anything even if they're not particularly interested in the title anyway. I know nothing annoys me more as a consumer than having to watch that stupid anti-DVD-rip film: "You wouldn't steel a car... don't copy" or whatnot. I JUST BOUGHT THE BL*ODY THING I am not a part of the problem. People downloading films never have to put up with this crap, you always risk annoying the paying customers which might actually make people more positive to the idea of pirating...
+1 Don't show your pain, there are some anti-piracy code that will slow down piracy and not make it so mainstream. I have no clue why developers choose not to use this code.
I agree with the respondents. Pirates simply do not buy games. Therefore, I'm not going to waste time and money "educating" anyone at the risk of alienating the paying customers. I hate those anti-piracy messages on DVDs and Blu-ray, too. Pirates never see them. Far better to spend that time on polish. Also, claims of lost revenue due to piracy are dubious for many reasons. There is an entire ecosystem for games and media, and like it or not, pirates will always be there. Far better to convince pirates to support you if they like your game rather than shame everybody with anti-piracy messages. Our plan is to release frequent updates with the occasional IAP. This way, paying customers from the App Store will have a pain-free way to keep up with changes. Make things simple and easy for paying customers and ignore the pirates who will have to jump through constant hoops to jailbreak and install updates. In short, make the paid version a better value in the long run than the pirated version.
I don't think it makes sense to lecture your paying customers. Instead, I think it makes more sense to target the sites that make it easy to download content illegally. I posted a thread on this forum that might be helpful to you... http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=72600
5% of iDevices are jailbroken. Why are you worrying about that tiny slice of the pie instead of the other 95% of the market? Also, one pirated unit is not the same thing as a lost sale.
And honestly, I really think you shouldnt´t. In Addition to the replies of the posts of Photics, swiftest, Epox, NickFalk & matt1413 (so far) all you come up with is to punish PAYING customers. you are about to to all the mistakes the PC and Consoles Game industry has already been done. Having to watch Anti Piracy warning for a game I just bought or having online checks is the best ways to annoy customers. Plus pirates are pirating because they don´t want to pay. They never would have payed for you products in the any way in the first place. my $0.02
We don't have to show it to paying customers - just pirated copies (using isGenuine). It would send them a nice message
It isn't true that a pirated copy is a lost sale, neither is it wrong. A few pirates actually would buy a game they want if there's no chance to get it free. But I believe that it is also Apple's turn to do much more against software theft & piracy. Apple is the distributor, in the end - and obligated to protect the products they sell for you. They take quite a bit of a share - 30% - from every sale, so I guess it should also be in their interest to get their commissions. Maybe like a special signature in every app which makes it unable to put it on different devices except the ones from the original buyer. Dunno, but there might be no final solution versus piracy - but they have to make it as difficult as possible for these greedy idiots.
Although I certainly agree with the posters responses above, I still quite like the idea of app developers getting together in a marketing effort against piracy. However, I think the approach can be made much more effective by completely switching who to target... Instead of giving attention to the pirates, focus it on the honest customer — a thank you message for supporting developers. This will indirectly make pirates feel guilty (much more effectively than targeting them directly), while also making our real customers feel good about themselves, and hopefully make them less likely to ever become a pirate. I suppose this could be done as a one-off message at the beginning of an app, or it could be a wider marketing effort throughout the Internet in general, utilizing 5-10 second ads prior to game trailers, banner ads, official certification of iOS gaming websites as supporters of the initiative, etc. It would take a lot of effort to get enough devs on board, and you guys would really need to believe in it.
I do not think there is any hope of any person who downloads something for free, feeling guilty about doing it. They just do not care and as mentioned before, these should not be viewed as lost sales as they would never have bought your product in the first place. As for measures in place to stop them...... We live in the real world. They are gonna crack whatever you put in the code. I knew a guy who could crack Securom in less than 20 seconds. It cost the games publisher tens of thousands of dollars to put the protection on and 20 seconds later it was gone. All the protection ever does is annoy the guy who actually purchased the game. Maybe Apple could lock the app to the users device, but what if they then upgrade their phone? I think we as developers should spend our time focused on our customers and not worry about freeloaders who are always going to be freeloaders. Just my 2 pennies
There is no such thing as anti piracy protection. Every single game out there has and will be cracked. And it doesn't matter how you punish/educate anyone. Best thing to get sales though? Make a great game people will want to support you for. Period.
I like this, don't think it'll change the mind of many pirates, but it might keep some of the people thinking about using cracked apps think twice.
We're planning on putting in a small note in our credits screen thanking the customer for buying and supporting the game, and explaining the long road of development. It'll have little personal tidbits from the people involved in the making of the game. If the pirate plays the game long enough and bothers to read the credits, he might decide to buy a legit version. Who knows? If not, it's an honest note of appreciation towards the paying customers regardless.
Nonetheless, as I said in another thread: these pirates and their sites make lots and lots of money with your cracked apps. To be precise - maybe more money as the most of you make with your apps on the AppStore. So there's still a need to fight them.
A good idea, but they're incredibly unlikely to buy it if they've already completed it. I think we somehow need to express this as early as possible.
I pretty much agree with this. Our statistics show less than 10% of our usage coming from jailbroken devices. So we don't really worry about it.
Hmmm The thing is about piracy is devs don't lose like they say they do. If I was to download 50 games, chances are I didn't have the money to purchase all of them. So there was no money to go towards the devs anyways. Now a dev would say that if you can't buy it then don't play it. But even if I do play it I still didn't have the money to buy. So the devs don't lose anything to begin with. Now if i was on the way to buying the game and someone said 'hey! Save your money! Did you know you can get it free?' then yes the devs lose. But most people only have a little bit of spending money and it somewhat can be irresponsible to spend your only funds on entertainment instead of saving or diapers lol. I'm broke. And I have an addiction to gaming. The free money left over at a months end must go to my children. Not games. And because my money wasn't ever going to you in the first place, me downloading your game takes absolutely nothing away from you. And do not advertise anti piracy, it only educates the masses that they CAN download anything free. I just spoke to a guy on the phone yesterday and had mentioned the PS3 hacking community and he was blown away. Never heard of it. But it was to late, he will now go from a customer to a pirate. To prevent piracy, why can't devs force an 'Internet check'? Warn customers that this game requires an Internet connection check or they cannot play it. It's a bold move. Maybe perhaps a dev can do a one time only hash check type of thing to confirm legitimacy. I dunno if that can be cracked or not. What about the inapp purchase thing game loft did with that sacred game? Only the demo is on the app store, and you have to buy the full version from inside the app. I'll be honest, I downloaded the pirate copy of that game but it was still only the demo. So i paid $6.99 and got the full version. Pirates do buy games too. I have a ton of apps I paid for. And the whole 99 cents thing sets it in stone. Devs like game loft, triniti, and chillingo start games at 99 cents and dominate the app store in sales. All of a sudden a 99 cent game like angry birds jacks up to several dollars and now piracy is the issue. Make a friggin console quality game, then leave it at 99 cents and I guarantee piracy won't be an issue for you. Hackers will always hack and be successful at doing it. If it is engineered it can be reverse engineered. Period. So stop trying to fight piracy. Instead do what many companies have done and either offer cheaper priced games or free mmorpgs lol. Free mmos have 0% piracy rate. Learn from em. I will always download pirated games. Namely because I don't have money to spend. And the few games I do buy are either once in awhile pricey purchases or every now and again 1 bucks purchase. But i have an addiction to gaming. Be it puzzle, racing, or rpg. I'm always switching from one game to Another before I even beat the last. Piracy is here to stay people, and until someone can make a console like the ps3, which lasted many years before it finally was hacked, then your games will be pirated. And remember, in the USA it's not illegal to download music movies or games, its illegal to upload them. (the you wouldn't steal a DVD , purse etc commercial specifically says at the end "buying pirated movies is a crime" not downloading) And the 14 year old girl years back got in huge crap for downloading 6 ac dc songs, she didn't get in trouble for downloading them, she got in trouble for sharing them. I love games and I will support any company that I think deserves it. But the ratio of your game being pirated to legit, your still making tons of money from the 90% of users who don't pirate content. Stop crying over pennies. Sketch OHG Creator.
Get lost, pirate. First: you are stealing. You are using things that don't belong to you. You just have no right to play them. It doesn't matter if you're broke. There are so much free games on the AppStore. Furthermore, At least 7 (!) games are going free on a daily base by sides like FAAD, OF, GFAAD, DAD and FAC. Second: do you also use your neighbours car without being allowed to? Or do you tap the wire without paying? Are you going into restaurants and eat for free from the salad bar? No? Hmmmm..... Third: you said it: you are addicted. Does the term "drug-related crime" mean anything to you? Are you sunken so deep that you have to steal for your daily fix? You are a leech, calming yourself down and soothing your guilty conscience by actually buying games. Do you believe you recieve absolution by doing this? But why am I telling you this? A guilty conscience needs no accuser. I am so glad I haven't your attitude to morality. And last: people like you are the reason that apps get cracked and made available to download. I hope you get banned here, as soon as possible.
