The problem is that there really are quite a few people who actually believe and try to argue the position you just described, so I chose to address it in kind. Have you checked your rooster detector yet?
This just seems too quick. I know you have to maintain some momentum after release or you can get lost in the depths of the AppStore, but really... this fast? I fully intended to buy this at its original price when I had time to play (likely this weekend), so they're losing my 3 bucks. Or maybe not. I might just wait the sale out if it's really that good...
wow 1 week, and on sale already... Was waiting since I just spent $40 on 2 games in the store.. but I'll buy it and add it to my list of games that I need to play this lifetime..
I wasn't trying to make the argument that it was justified? It never is. I'm not saying that no one would. But piracy means that it takes no effort and no cost to download, so it is similar to how legitimate people act when a game goes free. Pirate A, we will call him Dipwad Cheapskate, heard about this game Spiral. Dipwad lives at home with his mom and has spent his allowance on cheesies and beer (dipwad is 39). He takes his iDevice that mommy bought him and loads a certain something on a jailbroken device and searches, then downloads the game. Would Dipwad have paid for the game otherwise? Highly doubtful. I would also like to know how often games that have demos are pirated. I talked about this a bit below, but I have heard many stories over the last 20 years in discussion of piracy, generally those cheap enough to pirate are cheap enough to simply move along and find something else that's equivalent for a lower price or free. People are inherently cheap and while I don't have loads of facts beyond my past experiences working for a wide variety of Internet and software companies, there's a lot of this which can be tied to basic common sense. People are cheap, games that are free have download numbers that literally blow even the best paid games out of the water. And like the explanation I made with Dipwad above, having interest in something is fine and dandy, but if you pirate at all, there's a pretty good chance you ARE cheap. And if you're a person who is cheap enough to pirate, either you'd just not buy it in the first place and pick free apps, of which there are loads, or you'd be far less likely to pay MUCH for a game. There is room for still more research to find if the same can be said on iOS that seems a trend on PCs, games that are more expensive than the average are much more frequently pirated. But the BIGGEST issue with the entire discussion comes down to the "chicken or the egg" quandary. We have no real data to prove that those 75% were so interested in the game that they would buy it if they couldn't have stolen it, this isn't KOTOR or Xcom or even Angry Birds. This is a fairly niche title that looks interesting, has compelling screen shots and is expensive. Each of those things would be more than enough to push someone over the edge scrolling through what is the equivalent of a candy shop where everything is free. But the issue of piracy on iOS is LITERALLY insignificant in comparison to Android piracy which doesn't even require anything more than clicking a button and a link to download cracked apps. It makes iOS look almost impossible to crack. And the computer install base is just wacky, with DRM, no DRM, DRM cracks and so on, it's not even comparable. Though I do remember the entire issue with World of Goo and its piracy rates, I think they were insane on the PC. So, the main question is what those 75% would do. My experience has proven that it's more likely that most of those people would just move on to another app UNLESS it was a really, really big name (KOTOR, Xcom, etc) and even then, I think a huge amount of people are such cheapskates that they would move on to something else. A few interesting articles: http://www.positech.co.uk/talkingtopirates.html http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120910/19261420335/dont-focus-why-people-pirate-focus-why-they-dont-buy.shtml I know this is highly OT and there's a good chance that the mods may see fit to delete this whole thing, but I also belive it is a fair and appropriate discussion that is worth having. Maybe there could be a topic regarding this in the General section with tight reins on the discussion of "how" which takes all of 5 minutes on the Internet to figure it out. The main ways of pirating don't require any sort of minefield, and while I am really disappointed in pirates I also don't think anyone should be published by a virus, even if they are stealing someone's hard work. I would also like to state that I fondly look forward to not needing to jail break as much, and I also do really hope that there could be a method that, even when Jailbreaking, could stop this insanity. Oh, one last issue with these mean tricks developers play on pirates, does anyone remember the dictionary app that tweeted on people's behalf that they were pirates.... When they didn't and aren't? Thousands of tweets were spammed because the company made a little mistake. Less creative, more functional.
For me its actually the past several weeks that the competition on the AppStore is very brutal..At the end of the day its just what game would really connect/spark interest to the masses..It is a brutal world..
You may not be justifying it but you are most certainly putting forward the exact case that virtually every single pirate out there uses in order to justify their theft. Games with free demoes are equally as pirated as any other game. Freemium games are hacked and pirated (iap wise) to death also. A very recent high profile freemium game has a massive problem in relation to iap hacking. I'd live to actually give the numbers in relation to how much hacking and cracking is done but I simply can't for particular reasons. But you can be assured it is substantially higher than you think. And android may be very easy to crack through a particular method but iOS, as it stands right now, is equally as easy. The simple difference in the two is that iOS users are more inclined to actually spend money on apps. The monetization figures when compared between android and iOS paint a very clear picture about buying habits. It doesn't change the fact that both are a complete joke in relation to security on that level. At the moment and for the next couple of months. After that we will see. And despite the fact that you certainly do seem anti piracy, you're argument about whether its lost revenue or not is simply a reiteration of what pirates use to justify piracy to themselves. It also isn't really a valid argument in the current low price environment anyway. And it also doesn't change the fact that 75% of a developers base has essentially stolen that product that they worked so hard on. As to whether that 75% would have bought it anyway is irrelevant to my mind, they still stole it. If I steal a Ferrari that I could never afford to buy, just because I couldn't buy it, or simply wouldn't, doesn't mean its not lost revenue or theft. An oversimplified analogy, I agree, but it still has some relevance. Of that 75%, we don't know for sure if any would have bought it but statistics would strongly suggest that a certain percentage would of bought it. Therefore lost revenue. Irrelevant of what the actual revenue number is. It would be best if you stopped making you're particular revenue argument because pirates are only going to see that as self justification. And nothing, to me, justifies stealing in such a way from people who have worked hard to make a product of this kind. And they even kept iap out of it to make it more gamer friendly. Its nothing short of a disgrace, the piracy part. The game itself is brilliant and visually amazing and should be an instaBUY, at any app store price.
It's really a darn shame about what's happened with the game, sales wise. I'm really tempted to pick this up just to support the developer, even though I don't currently have a device that supports the game. I do intend on upgrading in the next few months, so it's not that big of a deal.
I just got this idea if the developer offer other episodes through IAPs than it would reduce the piracy rate. I think that's why The room has an IAP to upgrade.
Not if it's done right! If u have to download or verify additional content through a own server(!) no one is able to pirate it. Ha! xD There's no pirated Walking Dead Ep 2-5 available, u know I hope the dev keep that in mind for future episodes.
Awful lot of white knights in this thread... Must be awesome to put yourself up on a pedestal so high above everyone else. Anyways this game looks pretty sweet.
Hate to be that guy, but the sale's over and this thread has gotten waaaaaay out of hand. Closing this thread down.
