That review was a bunch of BS. I was pissed reading review and score. Game is fantastic in an App Store filled largely with copycat games. Glad other sites like App Spy, 148apps and Touch Arcade gave it a good shake. Support this game guys. I know a lot of people have been excited over ports lately, but it's this kind of talented, creative and original devs that we need to give our money to so we also get great originals on iOS.
I was wondering about their sales the other day since the game couldn't manage to stay in even the top 200 paid games for the iPad. It never even entered the top 200 paid games for the iPhone. I was getting worried we wouldn't see the future episodes like the case with Ash II, but it looks I don't have to worry about that, at least. Sucks that sales are so poor though. Still making my way through it. There were only 11,000 scores on GC when I checked last night, and if many of those were from accounts that had pirated the game.. Edit: Last week was probably the most competitive release week of the summer so far though.
PG is harsh and their reviews are often brutal. Reading through it as someone who hasn't played the game, it honestly was not really a bad review. It points out that some elements in the game are a bit rote, there are some areas where the action gets a bit challenging and that the camera is a bit fiddly... Nothing that sounds like a huge issue. It takes a lot to get over a 6 for them, so I generally add 2 to whatever their number is As for the piracy, I seem to say this every time I hear it - these people download games that are released, whether they play them or not. New releases get funneled through and it is so easy to just hit a button and get those "0 day" releases. For iOS, those numbers seem crazy but they mean little to nothing honestly. You can take a game that goes heavily under the radar and it'll have huge piracy numbers. Does that mean those people who are pirating it would have purchased the game? Highly unlikely. I rememeber reading the blog post of a children's app I purchased. They were saying how they had thousands who pirated their game and saw it as a direct loss to their revenue, but it was a game so under the radar that very few people would have even seen the game, but when a game is free, they'll simply download or for downloads sake. Look at when a game goes free? How many of us have downloaded it just because and never play it? I have easily 500+ games that are like that for me. BUT ON TOPIC..... This seems interesting enough that I'm "In Like Flint"! And I like supporting devs who are committed to making games that they love. Shame this is happening to them.
I think this game was just overshadowed by x com. And lack of recognition and marketing. People have been asking for quality and here it is, but you can't make sales if they don't know it exists. Edit: general public that is, the people who frequent touch arcade doesn't really count as the majority of the market is out there
See my comment above. In iOS especially, pirated doesn't equal lost sales to any major degree. Maybe 1/50 people who pirate games would have bought them anyway.
This statement makes no sense. Those people are interested in gaming so if piracy did not exist at all, a majority of those people would be buying games.
People who pirate/steal iOS games would be PAYING for iOS games if they didn't have the ability to pirate. Like a lot of other honest gamers, I have bought and paid for 30+ games that were $4.99 or less and haven't even played them yet and might never. I bought FFT, KOTOR, & Xcom and haven't even played any of them yet either. Does this mean that pirates wouldn't pay for games either that they might not play if they had no way to pirate? I think they would pay too. People who pirate games download all these games and pay zero for them. If they download 100 games and pay zero for them then they contribute zero to the system. If they couldn't steal the games, then they would just pay for them like the rest of us. This is lost sales for the developers regardless if they actually play the games or not. I would punch someone in the face if they told me in person that they pirate games and that it isn't stealing because they wouldn't have paid for it anyway. Edit: Just to clarify, this comment is directed at people who pirate, not the person I quoted above.
Cygnet already covered my argument on the matter, really: pirates who claim that they "wouldn't have bought the game anyway" can't be believed because of the simple fact that they did pirate and play that particular game. If they weren't interested in the game, they wouldn't be playing it in the first place; there's no reason to believe that they'd be any less interested in the game itself just because they couldn't pirate it, and as such it isn't a stretch to believe they would then readily find "other" (read: legitimate) ways to own it.
Well, the dev's got my $2. This is a title I was planning on spending $5 on when I had the money to spare, but figured I'd wait due to a lack of available space. I'll work up some good karma by recommending it to my friends.
Look, sometimes it's just cool to pirate randomly for the sole purpose of pirating without any awareness of, appreciation for, or intent to use what your are ripping off. Half the time these people don't even know what they're downloading, they just know they didn't have to pay for it. "What's a Spiral Episode 1? Who cares?!? It's free to pirate!" Makes sense to me. There may be legions of casual games who would aimlessly try Spiral without buying it; but those people also probably aren't likely to jail break their device and trek the online virus minefield of pirated downloads for IPA files.
I think the only reason the pirating rate is 75% is simply because the people with money that are serious into iOS gaming seemed to put the majority of their attention on XCOM. I love that we have so many options for new games each week. There's no software drought like with consoles and traditional handhelds, but the flip side is that competition is high. It's a consumers market here and when smaller devs give up after a week or so and go on sale or free, it shows they aren't confident in their product. Had this been a slow week I think Spiral Episode 1 would have done better. The number of pirates would have been about the same but the number of purchasers would have been higher... still for a new series I bet we would still have seen a sale within a month. Then there's one other key factor. This is "Episode 1". It's sometimes hard to support something when it sounds like it's incomplete. It is good the dev says they have an agreement to make Ep2 & 3. Still it's an uphill battle to get customers to buy into a new series like this. Heck sometimes it's hard for me to even get into a series until after all the parts are out just because of past experiences with other series that didn't make it.
This piracy debate is verging on the ridiculous, particularly by those saying the pirates are people who wouldn't buy it anyway, so its not lost revenue. Rarely have I seen something so misinformed. There's multiple ways of detecting pirated apps beyond simply the leaderboard versus sales. It can even be tracked in app as every app does actually know if its cracked. Other methods I'm not going to mention here. And its really as simple as this, if they determine the piracy percentage through gamecenter leaderboards, well then the pirates are playing it. If they are playing it, well then it is lost revenue. Whether they would have bought it or not is irrelevant. They are playing it. They stole it. The dev lost revenue. Simple as that. And even to follow the argument of random piracy and what not, a percentage of those that pirated it would have bought it if the method to steal it wasn't available, hence lost revenue. Perhaps all those who doubted that piracy was an issue on iOS will now see it for its truth. Being in a position where 75% of the downloads of your game are stolen ones is hugely disheartening and an awful shame. I hate to see this happen to any developer, especially one who makes an obviously excellent product as this one. I've heard piracy numbers from many developers and some are simply shocking and a disgrace. And it is a directly contributing factor to why you'll see more games only playable while online. As much as I used to like my tweaks such as sbsettings, the sooner iOS 7 is out, the better. Beyond closing the door on jailbreaking, there will tighter security to try and stem these issues. And even though jailbreaking has legitimate uses, the damage is just too much. Even senior figures behind the jailbreak scene considered blocking piracy means (and even succeeded to a certain, but not enough, extent). Its terrible that this is happening but I'm glad Pixel have stated the piracy numbers as it will make people more aware of the issue. Their percentage is relatively high in 99cent iOS perspective (yes, pirates still steal 99c games) but actually not so much in their original price category. Unfortunately, they are not the exception that proves the rule. At the new price point, they'll still have 25-35% piracy rate. And just to be clear (although I'm sure it already is) I hate them cursed pirates. I'm with gilgilad on his last line in his post. And to those who say the pirates wouldn't have bought it anyway, thats a ridiculous perception that I couldn't even begin to understand or even waste further time trying to counter. Its almost in support of the pirates. Piracy is not a grey area, its one of those black or white ones, its simple theft. Edit. To Pixel, if they're reading, its very understandable the steps you've had to take and I sincerely hope that the new price point dramatically increases the legitimate download numbers. Absolute best of luck with it. Edit 2. Had already bought it at original price, simply due to the universally positive reaction to it in its own thread. Don't really know what game Jon Mundy reviewed but I don't think it was this one. Or they just don't actually play games at Pocketgamer any more as they really have gone off the rails in a big way in relation to reviews.
That's not a particularly convincing argument, considering you can't just randomly run across, download and install an IPA file entirely by accident on to a stock iDevice, so the 75% piracy rate isn't being generated by a bunch of clueless computer-illiterates arbitrarily downloading stuff. It's an even less convincing argument when the piracy rate measurements are based on the number of people actually playing the game, not just downloading it. We know rather well that most legitimate buyers on TA never seem to get around to playing even half of the games they pick up, so there's no way that many pirates just happen to be "coincidentally" downloading and committing time to playing Spiral out of all the hundreds of random apps they're supposedly harvesting for the sheer fun of it.
Things like this make me understand and even respect developers who adopt an in-app purchase pricing model provided I deem the overall cost to be fair. On one end they get pirated to oblivion and on the other people who will buy the game want a near coffee cup cost low price. I intend to do just that, as soon as I can get to wifi. Have you checked your sarcasm detector lately?
i'll skip too many eye patch people not my kind of game = adventure = skip yeah legit gamers have backlogs of games they don't get around to playing etc. as well as the downloaders on torrents / usenet / forums / irc, that download to collect or play test as a hobby. i know friends back in the days that had 1,000's of games and rarely played any of them and they did no damage to the markets/company. just wasted money or funding the cd/dvd/disc market of hard drive companies also they didn't sell or trade there stuff they downloaded. they seemed more to me like collectors / playtesters. now if there are 1000's of multiplayer non-legit users on servers then that can hurt the company knowing there are players using there game and the cost to run the online servers etc. i can understand iaps. but i want the full game and won't adapt the unlock full game via iap. because if i delete it or the company does/changes name etc i still want my full game to play (on my backup drive). as iaps don't follow that way.
