"Unbelievably High" Android Piracy Drives Dev to Free-To-Play

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

One stinking dollar for something they actually enjoy. And they don't want to pay. Fuck pirates.

 

[FamoFunk]

I've never brought a game off the Android market, neither have I pirated one.

I like the fact a lot of games on the Android market are free and yo have a little advert instead, I'd much rather that than pay for a game I'll un-install in two days. If I really like the game I have no problem throwing some money at them to show my support.

 

[zumbledum]

Even a s***** game can give you more value than, say, a candy bar from a gas station convenience store. Are you saying that it's alright to steal candy bars (or anything else) if you feel they're overcharging for it?

Don't make me pull the "Pirating is copying, not stealing card." and I don't know about you but I get great satisfaction from candy bars.

Except that when you buy a game (or any piece of software), you're not simply buying a copy of the program; you're buying the right to use that program. When someone makes a copy of it and uses it without buying it, they're stealing it in the same way that someone who takes something off of a store shelf and walks off with it is stealing it - they're using it when they don't have the right to.

im not defending them but this isnt right and why its not theft, if you walk into a store and steal a candy bar that store no longer has that bar, when you pirate a candy bar they still have their bar, you have created an extra not taken away from them. yes of course lost sales but the crime isnt theft, simply legally speaking its not the same thing.

 

[MonkeyPunch]

Don't make me pull the "Pirating is copying, not stealing card." and I don't know about you but I get great satisfaction from candy bars.

That quip never worked way back when and it sure as hell doesn't work in this context.
(specially as that run-on-the-mill quip relies on lexical semantics rather than any form of practical logic)
We all known what is meant by pirating. You are unlawfully acquiring something and evading the cost.

Yes you are copying the data when you pirate a game, but what you are stealing is the developers time, effort and money.
You are also simply stealing money.
Game on your phone = 1 dollar in devs bank. Game on your phone but no dollar in devs bank = money missing.

Also anyone saying that the game couldn't have been worth a dollar. Look at this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpzkCTe76Bc].
Anyone saying the above, I hope really contributes something great to society because for them to say that, what they do job wise, must hugely eclipse the skill, time and effort it takes to make something that looks that good.

 

[Alma Mare]

I love the rage in this thread. I personally haven't pirated anything since bloody forever ago, back when digital distribution of games was shite and there was no local game store, but I still have to say I'm on the side of piracy in the great majority of the cases. It doesn't matter if it's five hundred bucks or a single cent, you provide a demo or you can just gtfo the market right now. If you add intrusive DRM, you don't deserve even that single cent and I hope your product gets pirated by every damn user in the world.

Piracy has been around since even before the days of C64s and it'll be around a hundred years from now. It's the only thing that can combat the endless greed and vile business practices of the publishers that have no qualms about fucking over their customers. Want to combat the piracy? Make it redundant. Make your product worth it. Let people see that it is indeed worth it.

If you don't show that it's worth it, people will pirate it instead of potentially wasting money on shite and supporting a shite dev. If you don't make your product worth it, people won't pay for it. If you don't make piracy redundant (i.e. avoid Draconian DRM) then you'll have waved a red flag in front of a bull. Don't be surprised when you get gored.

There's also a whole bunch of other advantages to piracy including but not limited to the grapewine effect, viral marketing, name recognition and brand establishment and so on and so forth. There's a lot of names and brands that have (through piracy) been recognized as good quality and have earned loyal followers and customers as a result. I was one of them, ending up actively hunting down products from specific devs and publishers so I could support them.

So yeah, I have no problem with pirates. Hell, I endorse it. Go steal every damn game that strike your fancy (digitally, you pillock. No physical media. THAT is true theft.) and play them all. Then, once you've identified which ones are worth the money, hit Steam or whatever and buy a proper copy of it.

Oh, and game piracy on Android makes me giggle. Who gives two shits? There hasn't been any decent games on those devices yet. Pop that bubble and let that market die properly instead of letting it suffer on artificial life support.

This, pretty much. Also, by turning his game free to play he just allowed all them pirates to become part of their costumer base. Wonder if he will give piracy credit when his nickel and diming starts paying off a lot more.

 

[PingoBlack]

What piracy? That is a game from a developer of poor clones.
Nobody payed for it because it sucks, not because of piracy. I don't even want to download it for free.

Piracy my ass, their problem is competition. Just look at number of sold copies of good games on Play store.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Don't you just love it when the times change and business is forced to innovate?

No, because fuck those lazy, cheap-ass pirates who feel that ONE FUCKING DOLLAR is too much to pay for a game.

Usually means the game wasn't worth buying for the price they were asking, if your game is one dollar, that's saying a lot.

More like fuq those lazy, cheap-ass businesses who feel that ONE FUCKING DOLLAR is too little to pay for a game.

Change with the market not against it.

You are obviously a child or an adult with the mental capacity of a child. Grow up.
Or better yet, stay the course and go get a job that doesn't pay you anything (volunteer) and tell me all about how you plan to "change with the [employment] market" and pay bills.

Meh better than being a sheeple with no brain of their own.
Hate to say it but facts tends to side against your easy and false logic.

Haha, Sheeple. You sound like a unique radical free-thinker just like the endless hoard of other jobless teenagers living with their parents who spend their days posting on the internet. Logic cannot be easy or false. You have a long way to go before you will begin to sound more intelligent that a single cell life form. I wish you well on your quest to be taken seriously.

Like it or not pirates are part of the equation and if taped bring in more money than trying to ignore them or worse yet lock up all information and criminalize the smallest of violations hell by decades end we should have more MP3 violators locked away than druggies... *sighs and shakes head*

 

[Toilet]

And this is why the Ouya will fail.

 

[antipunt]

You can put emulators on Androids?.............

>_>

*looks down at Samsung Galaxy S3

>_>
<__<

 

[Alterego-X]

Taking advantage of some one else labor, with out paying for it isn't stealing?

That's right, justify away, it makes crime so much easier if you believe you're not doing anything wrong.

No, taking advantage of someone else labor without paying for it, isn't stealing.

Stealing is stealing.
Taking advantage of someone else's labor without paying for it, is taking advantage of someone else's labor without paying for it.

And thanks for the blatant truism, OF COURSE crimes that are morally justified are easier to commit than unjustifiable ones.

 

[Alterego-X]

That quip never worked way back when and it sure as hell doesn't work in this context.
(specially as that run-on-the-mill quip relies on lexical semantics rather than any form of practical logic)
We all known what is meant by pirating. You are unlawfully acquiring something and evading the cost.

If it would just be semantics, then what do you think, why would it constantly be argued? Why do people keep insist on pointing it out that it's theft? No one ever feels the need to say things like "burglary is theft", or "robbery is theft". These are also terms that are legally different from "theft", but the difference really *IS* just lexical semantics, so no one needs to argue that.

Yes, piracy is unlawful. But there is a difference between laws like "Thou shall not steal", and "You shall not violate your neighbour's right to charge you money for digital copies of his creation". The former has been a self-evident moral law since the very concept of "laws" exists, and is the cornerstone of all civilization. The latter is an extension of 17th century printing laws, that were written to make industrial mass publishing possible. It's a product of it's time, and not necessarily needed.
There are many hypothetical ways to profit from work, that don't exist, because there are no laws to guarantee them. You can read a newspaper that someone left on a bench, you can listen to a street fiddler, etc. The only difference between these and downloading an Android game, is that software piracy happens to be illegal.

Are you "stealing" from the street fiddler if you are not choosing to give him money, yet you listen to his song? If you say no, you are basically saying that the legal definition of what is and what isn't allowed, should make the distiction between the moral sin of theft, and your personal rights to enjoy content around you.
[/quote]

 

[Alterego-X]

As to newspapers on park benches - that's even more esoteric, because nobody just 'leaves' their copy of a digital game on a 'park bench' when they're done with it. I don't think there's a situation that is analogous there, actually.

No analogy is perfect, but from the economical angle of the issue, it is a similar situation. The business model is based around customers paying for content, yet there are copies that people can get for free, whether or not they planned to buy a new one for themselves. It's a form of freeloading.

I don't see any way to claim that reading a newspaper without paying is moral, yet playing a game without playing is not, without stating that the former's legality gives it's morality.

On street fiddlers - a busker playing music is operating under a different system than a game studio putting a game on the market at a non-zero cost. The busker is producing his music for free, and asking for donations. The game studio has a price point they expect the consumer to pay.

You aren't stealing from the busker because the busker's 'wares' are offered freely. Donations are optional, and the request is only implied anyway. The game studio, on the other hand, is not giving their product freely when they ask for a dollar amount. So your analogy breaks down there.

That's kind of just an extension of the argument from legality. Of course, if there would be a legal option to ask for a policeman standing near every street performer, and randomly punish a few of the people who are lingering around for too long without paying, then many musicians would live with it, and there would be a flourishing street performance industry that would expect us to pay. On the other hand, if digital copying wouldn't be criminalized, then gaming and other digital mediums would be very different, and creators wouldn't have a reasonable way to DEMAND our money as an obligation that every user has to play.

Piracy can't be immoral just because artists always have an inherent right to force their expectations of any business model on us, because they don't have that right. They can't block streets to make us pay, they can't charge for screenshots of a game (fair use laws stop them), they can't stop you from reselling used content (in most countries), etc.

There is no such rule as "artist can do anything with their content, and sell it however they want" there is only a list of things that they can do with it, and the line is drawn at "charging for digital copies". That the line is drawn there, and not at, say, "charging for physical copies" or "merchandise exclusivity", or whatever, is an arbitary choice.

Saying that all people who want to change that line, and might even go ahead of the laws and illegally practice this system now are thiefs, is like saying that everyone who wants to lower the age of consent from 18 to 16 is a rapist.

 

[Ukomba]

Taking advantage of some one else labor, with out paying for it isn't stealing?

That's right, justify away, it makes crime so much easier if you believe you're not doing anything wrong.

No, taking advantage of someone else labor without paying for it, isn't stealing.

Stealing is stealing.
Taking advantage of someone else's labor without paying for it, is taking advantage of someone else's labor without paying for it.

And thanks for the blatant truism, OF COURSE crimes that are morally justified are easier to commit than unjustifiable ones.

Interesting, sounds like a justification for slavery to me. Your comments lead me to believe you've never actually created anything of value yourself.

I could quote the dictionary at you, but you've already made up your mind. So I doubt showing you that the official deffinition disagrees with your personal definition will hold any weight.

All criminal justify their crimes in some way. So you'll forgive me if I'm not impressed you have a justification for yours.

 

[Antari]

Its this simple Mad Finger games, make something origional and you'll have more customers than you can shake a zombie's disembodied arm at. If you give us another generic copy-cat zombie shooter, you shouldn't be shocked if it gets pirated to the hilt. What makes your game better than the other zombie shooters that have come out? Because its on a phone? Because its only a dollar? ... None of that makes any difference if its just a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. Which from what I've seen of your game it is. Am I sad you got pirated? Not in the slightest. If anything I feel sad for the people who were crazy enough to try out your game. Next time try thinking of something you came up with. Don't just try to ride the wave someone else started. Then you might see some success. Until then, have fun explaining it all to your loan advocate.

 

[Nurb]

When people are getting screwed by their contracts and software they can't uninstall or certain restrictions on how to use their devices, it's hard for them to care about piracy.

 

[lemby117]

Well, I have a Android and honestly, if a Game isn't free and I really wanted it, I would pretty much have to pirate it to get it in the first place considering that, atleast here, Google only accepts Credit Cards and those aren't big here.

Yeah plus when you consider how open source android is I don't want to use my credit card as it is easy for them to get nicked

 

[Alterego-X]

All criminal justify their crimes in some way. So you'll forgive me if I'm not impressed you have a justification for yours.

All PEOPLE in general justify their actions in some way. Terrorists, freedom fighters, arsonists, firefighters, corrupt politicians, civil disobedience protestors, soldiers, bullies, thiefs, pirates, PC fanboys, console fanboys, Christians, atheists, racists, adulterers, scientologists, bronies, assassins, cannabis smokers...

Some of their actios may or may not be illegal.
And some of their actions may or may not be immoral.

So you'll forgive me if I'm not too concerned by your repeating that truism, along with the rather meaningless fact that piracy is one of the illegal ones.

Interesting, sounds like a justification for slavery to me.

Yeah, because taking advantage of others' work without paying is the same thing as slavery, right? That's even more of a stretch than calling it theft.