Opinion on Pirated Apps

[dangerz]

I'm an app developer (just started, nothing amazing).. the first app I've ever sold on my own though was through the app store. I just thought I'd share my opinion on the whole application cracking/piracy scene.

First off, I see it as a completely separate entity than jailbreaking the phones. Those phones are ours, not AT&Ts or Apples and I see no reason why they feel they can limit our use. I'm not renting the device, I purchased it.

As for cracking/pirating the apps.. I noticed a pretty big hit to sales once my app got cracked. It's only $.99 and it's not like I sell a lot anyway, so it was easy to see the difference. I guess my question is why do people still pirate the app if it's so cheap? I'm not claiming to be a messiah of software. I've also pirated applications before, but my reasoning was usually that I couldn't afford the software that I needed. When I had the money, I had no problems paying for what I wanted. I felt that if someone were to put a lot of time into something, there's no reason not to repay them if it wasn't unreasonable.

The reason I'm even caring is that I'm working on a multiplayer game. I don't agree at all with DRM and have no intentions of implementing it. One thing I'm worried about though is if people start pirating the app, I won't be bringing in enough money to keep maintaining the servers. What can I do, besides keeping the app as affordable as I can, to entice users to actually pay? I have no problems with the initial piracy to check the game out. I'll even be releasing a free version to give people a general idea of the game because I think the fact that you want to try something before purchasing it is a very valid reason to pirate. I'm just wondering what approaches would help encourage people to purchase the app, rather than just play it for free? Clearly they have money considering they spent at minimum $200 to purchase the device it's on.

Any information you could give me would be great.. Also if this isn't allowed to be spoken about, I apologize and feel free to lock

Roy

[armaankhan]

I think the thing about piracy is that it's one of those things you just have to live with. People will always opt to get something for free rather than pay for it, no matter how low the price is. That's just human nature, and it has nothing to do with how much money one makes. I know people who make six figure salaries who won't pay five bucks to rent a movie because they can download it for free over torrents.

As a dev, your best option (other than draconian DRM, which will eventually get cracked anyway) is to just hope that enough people like your app well enough to pay for it.

[s0mah]

If the game is going to be priced at $.99, then release it free with ads.

[dangerz]

Originally Posted by s0mah

If the game is going to be priced at $.99, then release it free with ads.

Actually I'm not a big fan of tge advertising I've seen on the iPhone.

I also run Pwned.com on the side. We used to have banner ads on the site in certain spots. We thought that it took away from the site though and didn't integrate well, so we took out as many as we could without breaking the contract with our ad company. Once the contract is done, we plan on removing the rest.

The ads I've seen in most games have been really crappy. The game looks really nice and then there's a banner across the bottom that doesnt fit at all. What we did is worked with the individual ad people and got ads that work with the site.. something that integrated with the header so it didn't look completely off from the site. If you go to our site now, it looks much, much cleaner and our users are a lot happier.

Maybe I can figure something out where I can integrate them into the game.. just enough that you notice 'em, but not enough to take away from the gameplay.

[starjimstar]

Originally Posted by s0mah

If the game is going to be priced at $.99, then release it free with ads.

+1
That is probably your most favorable solution if you are really taking a hit due to piracy.

http://www.admob.com/

[Eli]

You guys are seriously overestimating the amount of money you make including advertisements in a game. Generally speaking, the only one making any money on advertising is the company that is hosting the ad service.

Granted, some money is better than none... But to say if you are going to sell something for 99 cents you should just give it away with ads is a terrible business decision

http://www.pinchmedia.com/appstore-secrets/ Start at slide 23.

[dangerz]

Originally Posted by Hodapp

You guys are seriously overestimating the amount of money you make including advertisements in a game. Generally speaking, the only one making any money on advertising is the company that is hosting the ad service.

Granted, some money is better than none... But to say if you are going to sell something for 99 cents you should just give it away with ads is a terrible business decision

http://www.pinchmedia.com/appstore-secrets/ Start at slide 23.

I never put my faith in full ads. Always felt that they just got in the way and never provided anything useful. Maybe we can come up with a better way of integrating advertising into the game without burdening the user.

[starjimstar]

Originally Posted by Hodapp

You guys are seriously overestimating the amount of money you make including advertisements in a game. Generally speaking, the only one making any money on advertising is the company that is hosting the ad service.

Granted, some money is better than none... But to say if you are going to sell something for 99 cents you should just give it away with ads is a terrible business decision

http://www.pinchmedia.com/appstore-secrets/ Start at slide 23.

I suppose it depends how much Roy is making to begin with. Maybe an add supported version would be the way to go. What is your app anyway, Roy?

[Zincous]

Originally Posted by starjimstar

I suppose it depends how much Roy is making to begin with. Maybe an add supported version would be the way to go. What is your app anyway, Roy?

Traffic lights: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=10107

[dangerz]

Originally Posted by starjimstar

I suppose it depends how much Roy is making to begin with. Maybe an add supported version would be the way to go. What is your app anyway, Roy?

I wrote Traffic Lights.. it's not a huge app, it was my first. This is for another app I'm working on which has a backend server to it. I'm just worried about being able to provide a solid server for the people that paid -vs- having to also work with people who pirated.

I want to try to avoid what happened to Stardock pretty much