How many times have you done it? Five times in your life? How many games have you "demoed" for free, and not paid for? A lot, I'd imagine. Regardless, if they gave you a new plate if you didn't like the first, it's their policy to do so. The App Store does not have that policy. And just because you think it should, doesn't make it okay to steal. The app store does have a return policy. If there's something wrong with the game, you can return it. It's been there from the beginning. But a blanket return policy would mean the death of the store, because there's these people out there that will buy a game, play it to completion, and then return it, cause they want everything for free. I didn't waste my money. I got to experience Flight Control for $1. I didn't like it. Am I happy I don't get my $1 back? No. But I'm certainly not sad about it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the game. Trying to get a return on it, because I didn't like it, is childish at best. But sure, you're entitled to feel like your money was wasted, no matter how much you and I don't see eye to eye on it. It still doesn't give you the right to play anything you want for free. You can do it. You won't get caught. Most devs will not appreciate it at all. You seem to be okay with that. So be it.
Ever been to Gamestop? You can return them. I've done it before. And on top of that I could go down to blockbuster and rent it. You and I have different ideas of wasting money. Your (appearently) fine buying an app then deleting it 5 minutes later. I on the other hand think of that as wasted money. Money that could've been used to buy something said person likes. I don't have an infinite amount of money to spend on apps I delete 5 minutes later. You might but I don't. You wanna know how many apps I've demoed and didn't buy? Probably about 15. Saved me at least $60. I'd do it again. I'm not a fan of wasting $60. Now, if you want the $0.10 I owe you it's a different story.
You cannot return opened items. You can trade them in, and you are not going to get the amount you paid for it, because it's used, and you already played it. You paid a price for the game, played it, and then you traded it in for a lesser price. And yes, you can rent at Blockbuster. Both of your suggestions involve you paying money before you get to play the game. That is the part you're skipping over on the App Store. No, you and I have different ideas of right and wrong. I believe it's wrong to play App Store games for free, just so I don't misspend a dollar or two here and there. You believe the opposite. The fact that you feel your money is wasted is completely irrelevant. Nobody is forcing you to buy games, and nobody is forcing you to steal. So what you're saying is you've stolen from 15 devs, and temporarily stole from several more. Gotcha. Next time you go to a movie, sneak in, and then pay for it after, but only if you liked it. Be sure to tell the manager how justified you feel about the situation.
I wish the TA mods would start permabanning people for admitting to piracy. The way some of these posters go about it is completely disrespectful, rude, and idiotic. Especially when many of the devs are posting here with us.
This conversation is useless. No one is going to convince anyone else. We have different views. You don't mind wasting money and I do. I'm not going to convince you any differently and you won't convince me. That and this is starting to get boring.
Sure, everyone is equal, but dude, you are flat out telling developers that you illegally stole something they worked on, just because you don't have the money to pay for a 99 cent app. You're a real douchebag if you think that's okay. Get a ****ing job.
The App Store is cheap enough as it is. I really don't get the concept of "wasting a dollar". Honestly, as long as you shop wisely you'll minimize your losses. I'm sure the majority of your buys are satisfactory anyhow. The way you're going by it is almost like saying you hate pretty much every app you spend money on. I disliked CJS as well. I got it on sale for $0.99. I deleted it after a while. I'm totally getting nightmares every night about that "wasted $0.99". Yeah.
This thread has gone in a negative direction, I'm guilty as much as anyone else. Less discussion on justification since we all have different opinions on that... More on justification regarding wasted time on anti-crack technology, which seems a great concern of aspiring developers... D:
Programmers As a programmer I just prefer to have a little fun with the pirates. Say for instance, and I would certainly not condone such behaviour Say for instance you put in a routine to check for a cracked copy easy enough the plist file will be modified md5 hash it ahead of time if it is changed it is cracked. Next generate a random number say in the range of 5 to 1000 and set up a nstimer to fire once on this interval. In the timer event runs a alloc loop that consumes all the memory and crashes the device. If you are really feeling evil run a http get loop against ********** or mega's servers if the pirates are going to cost you money you might as well make them pay also. There is a million other ways to have fun with these guys, be creative and have fun.
The kicker for me is that we're talking about (in most examples here) $0.99... yes one buck! I just find it kind of hilarious, I mean if you can't afford one buck for a game then why are you walking around with a $300 phone in your pocket? I went out for drinks last night and the tip I left the bartender is more than most apps on the app store. I don't expect anything special in return for the tip, I just enjoyed the fine service she gave me. Sure I could have tipped her less, or not at all, but next time I go back I know I'll get great service again.
Codepunk is raises an interesting point which is...one reason not to pirate is security. Pirates are operating on a level of trust that developers (or the people who crack the apps) aren't going to take any direct action against them. If piracy continues, and some developers really do believe that they are cutting into their sales, who knows what kinds of responses we might find to piracy in the future? Apple does review binaries (not perfectly) to prevent security abuses of software (I know bad things might still get through), but developers don't have much incentive to do harm to paying customers anyway. But if they don't like piracy, they could harm pirates. Unless Apple tests what happens when an application is cracked (which I highly doubt), vindictive code targeting at crackers could be inserted. And since the iPhone would already be jailbroken to run a cracked application, its security measure have already been weakened. Furthermore, especially in the case of programs using a server, detecting pirates is fairly trivial. Pirate might think they are anonymous. They are not. The security implications are actually a little bit scary if a dev was pissed off enough. I wonder if it is only a matter of time before we read about some vigilante developer taking things into his own hands. EDIT: I should probably add, this won't be me. But as someone interested in computer security issues generally speaking, this is a topic I have occasionally wondered about.
Okay this doesn't even have to do with piracy but it's just stupid. First off an iPhone is only $99. Second, maybe we can't afford wasting a dollar because we're paying our $100+ phone bill every month. Or maybe we just don'tlike wasting money. What if you got it as a gift? Maybe that's why you're walking around with a $99 dollar phone. And having the phone doesn't have anything to do with not wanting to waste money. Not wanting to waste money is just common sense.
I don't agreee with crimson's last post at all, and that's still irrelevant. On the "messing with pirates"... You're just begging an actually good cracker to come in and remove your self aware code... and well, you know the rest!
Wow man. If you live in poverty, I can understand the reason you don't want to spend a dollar. But heck, if you own an iPhone then surely you're somewhat alright money-wise. But right now all you're doing is trying to justify that if someone doesn't have the money they should be allowed to pirate. This isn't even the "try before buy" argument anymore, since you're hellbent on saying it's a waste of money anyhow.
Dorino steals from us and he knows it. He just wishes he didn’t have to feel guilty about so he comes here and starts his little Robin Hood routine to seek our empathy and our forgiveness. The price of typical iPhone application are way too low for big guns to take the AppStore seriously from a business perspective. Sure they need to maintain their presence in all venues of the video game industry but this is a tiny drop in the bucket of their bottom line. You are not stealing from the Steve Jobs and the Bill Gates of the world, the people who blow their money on private jets, fine arts and diamond-incrusted toilet seats. You are eating away that the revenue of independent developers who are trying to pay off the loan they took on their washer and dryer... You Mr. Dorino, are no Robin Hood. With all due respect to the fine arts of website design and your undoubtedly masterful Photoshop skills I don’t think you realize how much work goes into the development of some of these applications. Maybe if you did you would better appreciate the arrogance of your thread. Will I try to stop you? No. Does that mean I forgive what you and your ilk are doing and wish to appease your guilt? Hell no! A man is defined by his actions. If you realize that what you’re doing is wrong and you stop doing it then you might be forgiven because after all everyone is entitled to make mistakes. If however you decide to patch your guilt with some flaky excuse and decide to keep it up then you’re just another jerk in the world. Nothing more and nothing less.
