Don't mean to pick apart your post, but... Oh well I felt you came across pretty rude and defensive for me asking a simple, relevant question. At the end of your post you say you sell your game/don't put it free just "because you can." But here its because of your vast understanding of economies, culture and marketing... just curious which one it is? Never mind... I'll just consider this a baseless attack for no reason. Oh I agree... if you spend all your time blaming piracy while letting that cover up the real reasons you have failed, then you won't be able to move towards fixing your issues, and you'll just be stuck in a rut complaining about piracy without actually improving what you did wrong -- but that doesn't mean you can't have an opinion that piracy sucks. Personally, I think piracy is wrong, I wish it could be stopped, but I don't lose any sleep over it -- we have actually been very successful so far with our sales and I really try not to pay attention to piracy % and all that because there is just nothing you can do about it. Are you asking me personally -- or is this a statement towards devs in general? Again, is this is a discussion or are you one of those people who just likes to be rude when someone responds to one of your comments and argue for the sake of arguing? I happen to think catering to a target age group is probably a lot more difficult -- if not impossible -- to do then targeting a "type" of gamer. Casual, hardcore, RPG fans, etc. Its probably a bit naive to think that there won't be people across the entire age spectrum who will enjoy say, Angry Birds, or conversely a more hardcore game like Zombie Infection, especially since there are a lot more "older" people now who grew up with gaming as a part of their culture. Congrats for "letting" people pirate your game "because you can." I think for most of us its beyond our control. Anyway, back to the original topic... is there anything you can do about piracy? I don't think so... I hear that most sites will remove your game from their servers if you ask, but that's going to be a lot of asking. Other then that, regardless of whether piracy is right or wrong or whatever this topic has turned into, really the best thing at this point -- imo -- is simply to ignore it and focus on what you can do to make your sales better, from marketing to making better quality games.
Foresaken_Media, I didn't say I had a vast knowledge of anything. I'm not even attacking. You asked me a question, I answered it. Why don't you ask Steve Jobs why he removed DRM from the music in the iTunes Store: "The simplest answer is because DRMs havent worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. " ~Steve Jobs, http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/ Yet the protection for Apps remain, and it is easily circumvented. And no I wasn't asking you personally about your demographic, and I have no interest in being rude. It really doesn't matter to me which side of the fence anyone stands on piracy issues. These same battles have been waged since at least 1906 and the concerns never change. No, 1906 is not a typo, it has been over 100 years. I am not foolish enough to think that I 'let' people pirate my game, but I am TELLING them to pirate it. Don't buy it. Steal the damn thing.
I agree that spending resources on actually fighting piracy is pointless. Actually often even worse as the anti-piracy means have a tendency of making the paid version more cumbersome to use than the pirated one. I can agree with this as well. However: Developers and others vocally defending piracy (like yourself) do nothing to help. If anything you send the signal to the public that piracy is OK. As this "mantra" is repeated over and over you are likely to turn more consumers into pirates. "Heck, even the developers thinks piracy is OK!" Your claims are designed to make it even harder to balance those sell-rates you talk of.
While you can't prevent piracy, you can only make it harder to do so. It's a war that will never end.
lol, the Robin Hood syndrome I was exactly talking about earlier. Obviously you are a young fellow, who doesn't plan on makin a living out of making indie games. Actually I guess it's more like the Las Vegas syndrome : I guess you released a very good game, which scored high and brought you hundreds of thousands, and now you're feeling so indestructible that long term revenue planning is completely out of your mind. You also still might be single, in your parents home, with no wife and kids to financially secure. And of course you might be pirating other products yourself, which would forbid your conscience to stand against pirating yours (and others aswell). Please tell me if I'm wrong about all that shit. edit : I can see on your twitter that you are a student. Point confirmed. (you got amazing painting skills, on a sidenote) Also may I ask you to wake up, this world of illusions won't last very long, you're not magically protected against a commercial fail, especially on the appstore, even if your next game ends to be awesome. What will you say to your bill checkers when you'll end up with 1000$ to live for 3 monthes ? Don't tease the fireplace too much, don't ask for piracy, it's just insulting for the ecosystem you're putting your work into. Plus meanwhile you're dangerously suggesting not only to steal your work, but also indirectly ours. I can't see any sane reason to ask for piracy. Once again I'm ok with understanding why some people fall into piracy, but never for the (growing) ones who are asking for it.
I am 40 years old. I've been 'borrowing' music for 30 years. I've paid for music for 30 years. I make a living that is suitable to my lifestyle and I do not live beyond my means. I am a single parent with a 17 year old daughter that lives with me. She started college at the age of 16. We can easily survive on less than $1000 a month, WITHOUT help from social services (wellfare, unemployment, etc.). I do not have a car payment, but I do have an iPhone bill which is one of my higher expenses. I paid cash for my MacBook and I do not own a credit card. I expect a huge backlash from developers, but you know what? I don't give a ****. You don't owe me anything, and I owe you nothing. We aren't friends and I don't subscribe to your ideals. We come from completely different worlds. I've survived on $1000 for 3 months (even less). It isn't ideal, but I have resources available to me. I am an artist, first and foremost. I just happen to have the ability to code. So you are both wrong and correct about me. If you think I have any influence whatsoever, whether it is the app store or piracy, you give me far too much credit.
Onlive and Gaikai are the best answer to piracy, in 10 years it will be the no.1 mainstream way of getting games.
I have an idea. apple should make a thing so when you first launch an app, it makes you type in your apple id password and then confirms you bought it. if not then the app wont launch.......come on they should be someone from apple here.
Sorry Flickitty then. You seem to be the real type of artist, so I understand your point of view. But we have to admit that you cannot really live with less than 1000$ everywhere :/ (in Paris for instance, it is less than the national minimum social insertion income) @SJP99 : cool idea
I do not expect all developers to understand my position. I respect their position, even if they go to the extremes of trying to prevent piracy. I think we need a careful balance in the system to make it work. My lifestyle hasn't always been this simple. About a decade ago I was paying $5100 a month for a 1000 sq. ft apartment in Manhattan, as well as $600 a month for parking. I do understand the extremes, and I know people have bills to pay. I wish Indie developing could support a lifestyle in Manhattan, but it won't. I live in Spokane Washington, which isn't as expensive as Seattle (the largest nearby city). $1000 a month is way below poverty level for this area considering the minimum wage is the highest in the nation at $8.55. Even a minimum wage job would bring in way more than $1000 a month. I'd also like to add despite my openness regarding piracy, my daughter does very little of it. The closest she comes to piracy is watching videos on YouTube. She plays free games like Runescape and listens mostly to free indie music. I guess that's her way of protesting my authority.
hahahaaa... you want to make people stop getting free is host working games (TOP games that people are addicted to) then have an second free update; until they don't know what's ahead of them; add final update to brick then it'll teach them a lesson to not steal. [re-edit] I don't really recommend stopping them anyway cause there will always be a cracker to crack whatever you were doing and whatever you were doing will waste your super effort and time. Just move on and create a new forms of code that people don't recognize. Keep moving ahead and no one will ever reach to your limit.
Force apple to make the app store open source like the other app stores then allow all functions benefited from jail breaking, and maybe, just MAYBE, Pirated games will go down, but aside from that fat chance, no.
