4 ms·

He theorizes that pirates actually might promote the game. My Flurry numbers beg to differ. My "unlocked" version of the game was pirated on July 15. Almost 20

He theorizes that pirates actually might promote the game. My Flurry numbers beg to differ. My "unlocked" version of the game was pirated on July 15. Almost 2000 new users ran it that day, and all but about 10 of them were pirated copies. So did I see my sales jump? I sold about 10 units that day, and 5 the next day. I don't think I've seen the numbers top 20 sales per day. If there are moral pirates out there, they didn't show up in sufficient numbers to make up for the devastation that followed. How about downloads of the free version? Over the next two days, it crashed from consistently getting 750-900 downloads a day to about 350 downloads a day. And because of that drop, it fell off the charts and continued to crash down to 100-200 downloads a day. So as nice as the theory is -- and as much as it might work for music, where the numbers are MUCH larger and there is some data supporting the theory -- it simply doesn't work for games. In fact, it pretty much killed my game, because of the way the market rankings work -- the crash in downloads meant it lost position, which meant even fewer downloads, and a death spiral ensued. So don't give me "piracy is actually good for your game!" when it killed mine. And it's still rated 4.5 stars, with tons of "Awesome game!" reviews, so don't tell me people don't like it.

dlss 15y ago
So notch was talking about piracy and his own game (minecraft). He basically says publishers should approach piracy as part of a game's marketing plan -- kinda like the free version you talk about here. As for piracy killing your game... bull shit. Every game eventually gets pirated. All the games above you on the charts have been pirated. Why didn't piracy kill them?
- SomeCallMeTim 15y ago
  They didn't all have premium versions to pirate? Angry Birds didn't. Some of the top games probably were noticed randomly by the right bloggers; a Russian blogger loved my game, and it's sitting in a nice comfortable position in the Russian Market ranking, for example. Angry Birds was probably featured in EVERY blog that deals with Android games. Some of the top games also have annoying but effective viral marketing components; I've so far avoided stooping to those depths. Some of them probably had better marketing plans. I'm a programmer, not a marketing expert. And if someone inside Google decides randomly to feature a game, then it's set. My game WAS featured on AppsLib, a secondary market, and after it was no longer featured it stayed on top of the free apps ranking at #2 for weeks. As in, the #2 downloaded APP, not game. Unless you know more than anyone else outside of Google about the actual algorithm Google uses to determine how apps rank, you have no clue as to what could have caused a game to fall -- but a huge fall happens the SAME DAY it was pirated. It's not proof, but it's a very suggestive correlation. Just because it doesn't match your world view doesn't make it garbage. What's indisputable is that the piracy DIDN'T give me a boost in sales OR downloads, which completely invalidates the "piracy is just another kind of marketing" theory. There's a lot of random luck involved in getting to the top organically, and the process is potentially fragile unless you've got a lot of cross-promotion you can apply from other apps. Or a lot of money to buy ads. I had neither.

dlss 15y ago

So notch was talking about piracy and his own game (minecraft). He basically says publishers should approach piracy as part of a game's marketing plan -- kinda like the free version you talk about here. As for piracy killing your game... bull shit. Every game eventually gets pirated. All the games above you on the charts have been pirated. Why didn't piracy kill them?

SomeCallMeTim 15y ago
They didn't all have premium versions to pirate? Angry Birds didn't. Some of the top games probably were noticed randomly by the right bloggers; a Russian blogger loved my game, and it's sitting in a nice comfortable position in the Russian Market ranking, for example. Angry Birds was probably featured in EVERY blog that deals with Android games. Some of the top games also have annoying but effective viral marketing components; I've so far avoided stooping to those depths. Some of them probably had better marketing plans. I'm a programmer, not a marketing expert. And if someone inside Google decides randomly to feature a game, then it's set. My game WAS featured on AppsLib, a secondary market, and after it was no longer featured it stayed on top of the free apps ranking at #2 for weeks. As in, the #2 downloaded APP, not game. Unless you know more than anyone else outside of Google about the actual algorithm Google uses to determine how apps rank, you have no clue as to what could have caused a game to fall -- but a huge fall happens the SAME DAY it was pirated. It's not proof, but it's a very suggestive correlation. Just because it doesn't match your world view doesn't make it garbage. What's indisputable is that the piracy DIDN'T give me a boost in sales OR downloads, which completely invalidates the "piracy is just another kind of marketing" theory. There's a lot of random luck involved in getting to the top organically, and the process is potentially fragile unless you've got a lot of cross-promotion you can apply from other apps. Or a lot of money to buy ads. I had neither.