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Indeed. I only learned recently just how rampant – not even half of the copies of a "App Store best of the year" game were bought. (https://twitter.com/ustwogam

Indeed. I only learned recently just how rampant – not even half of the copies of a "App Store best of the year" game were bought. (https://twitter.com/ustwogames/status/552136427904184320 https://twitter.com/ustwogames/status/552136427904184320) I wouldn't even have imagined so many people would even jailbreak their phones anymore.

pjc50 12y ago
I boggle at people going to that much effort to pirate such cheap games. Is there a region restriction issue?
- rhia 12y ago
  I know quite a few people who are too cheap to pay the < 1$ for most apps...
  - scrollaway 12y ago
    And I know quite a few people who are too broke to pay $1 for most apps. You are implying that people pirate $1 games "because they're too cheap to pay" which most of the time is just completely untrue - for a lot of people, it's a matter of not having the money. Some people here need to take a reality check break once in a while and look at people who don't make as much as they do.
    - lotharbot 12y ago
      If they somehow came up with the money to buy an iPhone -- $500+ unlocked, or $100+/month on a multi-year contract -- they don't "not [have] the money" to occasionally spend $1 on an app. They've just chosen to spend a lot on the phone itself, which might not leave much left over. Lest you think I'm speaking from a position of not understanding poverty: my salary in 2013 was $21k pre-tax, with a wife and a kid. I had a $10 flip phone and spent about $8 a month on minutes.
      - mschuster91 12y ago
        Stolen iPhones, back in the days when there was no option for remote wipe/disable, or used iPhones (some friend got a 1st gen iphone for ~20€) can be dead cheap. And honestly, I'd choose a working-order 1st gen iphone over any brickphone.
      - scrollaway 12y ago
        > If they somehow came up with the money to buy an iPhone -- $500+ unlocked, or $100+/month on a multi-year contract Looks like you need the reality check I was talking about. I can find you $40 smartphones in countries that aren't the one you're in. And by the way, $40 can still be a huge investment for such people (just like $500 is to a lot of people in the US). Edit: Those downvotes-without-explanation are really unnecessary, seriously. If you think I'm wrong, you very well may need a reality check yourself.
        lotharbot 12y ago
        > "Looks like you need the reality check" Please stop being rude. EDIT: saying things like "If you think I'm wrong, you very well may need a reality check yourself" makes it seem like you're not open to dialogue. It comes off as rude, arrogant, and accusatory. That probably contributes to the downvotes. > "I can find you $40 smartphones" I can find plenty of $40 smartphones at Wal-Mart and Kroger. But this thread isn't about $40 smartphones, it's about iPhones -- and, in particular, the parent to your prior comment mentioned knowing people "too cheap" to pay for apps despite owning (implied: relatively new) flagship phones. I know some people who are legitimately too broke to pay for apps, but they don't have new iPhones. Last year I didn't have a $40 smartphone, and definitely not a $500+ iPhone, precisely because it would have been a bigger investment than I could justify for a phone. I get that there are people for whom a $40 phone and $1 per app is too much money, but they don't have an iPhone6 or even an iPhone5, and they're not pirating the sort of apps that only run on those phones. The people pirating those apps aren't too poor, they're too cheap.
        scrollaway 12y ago
        > makes it seem like you're not open to dialogue. Complaining about downvotes without replies makes it seem like I'm not open to dialogue? I think it makes some people in here seem like they live in a bubble, to each their own huh? > But this thread isn't about $40 smartphones Actually, it is; GGP said he "knows people too cheap to pay $1 for apps" and that is completely valid for Android as well. The rest of your post's premise is wrong on that basis. I'm not claiming iphones are popular amongst that sector of the population. But even if I did, as someone else said below, actual pirated/resold iphones do cost around 30-40 USD making them just as accessible. Edit: And I don't mean to be rude, it just disgusts me how some people here are so full of money it doesn't even register that for some, $1 is a big deal.
- _lce0 12y ago
  it's not a matter of price, or restrictions, but more about how people interact with the platforms. They believe they already paid for the phone; they know they still need to pay their carrier for something they use but paying for software? common that's digital. copyable. wait! I need to tie my credit card to my phone? no way. I certainly can afford apps, but it's better to use them for free. why do they need to pay if facebook, gmail, whatapp... are free.. do you read the news? app developers earn billions! I know you need to pay for window, but I've using for free for the last 10 years you know.. Just read at the free games' reviews.. they complain and demand, without even thinking on giving a dime to authors.
tomaskafka 12y ago
Isn't this partially a result of selling iPhones in countries where majority of population doesn't have access to any means of payment that would work with App Store?
Karunamon 12y ago
Those numbers are somewhat sketchy if I recall right. Apple doesn't allow app authors to have access to an unchanging ID of a device, so if they're doing something like (number of changeable UIDs that touched our server) - (app store sales) = copies we should have been paid for ..then there's a huge problem with their methodology. It would fail on the basic use case of one user with one app store account installing the app on more than one device (especially with kid friendly games like this), or re installs after a device wipe, or reinstalls after a user with a busted phone gets a new one, and so on. As usual, bad statistics being used in defense of the piracy bogeyman. The number of people who jailbreak their phones is a tiny minority of iOS users, and the number of people who do so to pirate is an even tinier minority of that. Even as someone that has no moral issues with downloading apps for free, I can tell you that it's not worth it on iOS. The contrast between the "it just works"-ness of the app store, and the hoops you need to jump through to get free apps is jarring.
- bentcorner 12y ago
  Methodology on Android is also problematic, for the same reasons: http://recode.net/2015/01/06/mobile-game-piracy-isnt-all-bad-says-monument-valley-producer-qa/ http://recode.net/2015/01/06/mobile-game-piracy-isnt-all-bad... Five percent are paid downloads, so the ratio is 9.5 to 1, but a portion of those are people who have both a phone and a tablet, people who have more than one Android device with them. So a small portion of that 95 percent is going to be taken up by those installs.
  - mschuster91 12y ago
    > So a small portion of that 95 percent is going to be taken up by those installs. More! I have burned through four Android phones and three tablets with one google account. Everyone who upgrades their device makes "one pirated copy" by the logic of this study. And a huge portion of the current (licensed, not the chinese ones without a valid Google license) Android phones are likely to be upgrades for older or broken devices.

pjc50 12y ago

I boggle at people going to that much effort to pirate such cheap games. Is there a region restriction issue?

rhia 12y ago
I know quite a few people who are too cheap to pay the < 1$ for most apps...
- scrollaway 12y ago
  And I know quite a few people who are too broke to pay $1 for most apps. You are implying that people pirate $1 games "because they're too cheap to pay" which most of the time is just completely untrue - for a lot of people, it's a matter of not having the money. Some people here need to take a reality check break once in a while and look at people who don't make as much as they do.
  - lotharbot 12y ago
    If they somehow came up with the money to buy an iPhone -- $500+ unlocked, or $100+/month on a multi-year contract -- they don't "not [have] the money" to occasionally spend $1 on an app. They've just chosen to spend a lot on the phone itself, which might not leave much left over. Lest you think I'm speaking from a position of not understanding poverty: my salary in 2013 was $21k pre-tax, with a wife and a kid. I had a $10 flip phone and spent about $8 a month on minutes.
    - mschuster91 12y ago
      Stolen iPhones, back in the days when there was no option for remote wipe/disable, or used iPhones (some friend got a 1st gen iphone for ~20€) can be dead cheap. And honestly, I'd choose a working-order 1st gen iphone over any brickphone.
    - scrollaway 12y ago
      > If they somehow came up with the money to buy an iPhone -- $500+ unlocked, or $100+/month on a multi-year contract Looks like you need the reality check I was talking about. I can find you $40 smartphones in countries that aren't the one you're in. And by the way, $40 can still be a huge investment for such people (just like $500 is to a lot of people in the US). Edit: Those downvotes-without-explanation are really unnecessary, seriously. If you think I'm wrong, you very well may need a reality check yourself.
      - lotharbot 12y ago
        > "Looks like you need the reality check" Please stop being rude. EDIT: saying things like "If you think I'm wrong, you very well may need a reality check yourself" makes it seem like you're not open to dialogue. It comes off as rude, arrogant, and accusatory. That probably contributes to the downvotes. > "I can find you $40 smartphones" I can find plenty of $40 smartphones at Wal-Mart and Kroger. But this thread isn't about $40 smartphones, it's about iPhones -- and, in particular, the parent to your prior comment mentioned knowing people "too cheap" to pay for apps despite owning (implied: relatively new) flagship phones. I know some people who are legitimately too broke to pay for apps, but they don't have new iPhones. Last year I didn't have a $40 smartphone, and definitely not a $500+ iPhone, precisely because it would have been a bigger investment than I could justify for a phone. I get that there are people for whom a $40 phone and $1 per app is too much money, but they don't have an iPhone6 or even an iPhone5, and they're not pirating the sort of apps that only run on those phones. The people pirating those apps aren't too poor, they're too cheap.
        scrollaway 12y ago
        > makes it seem like you're not open to dialogue. Complaining about downvotes without replies makes it seem like I'm not open to dialogue? I think it makes some people in here seem like they live in a bubble, to each their own huh? > But this thread isn't about $40 smartphones Actually, it is; GGP said he "knows people too cheap to pay $1 for apps" and that is completely valid for Android as well. The rest of your post's premise is wrong on that basis. I'm not claiming iphones are popular amongst that sector of the population. But even if I did, as someone else said below, actual pirated/resold iphones do cost around 30-40 USD making them just as accessible. Edit: And I don't mean to be rude, it just disgusts me how some people here are so full of money it doesn't even register that for some, $1 is a big deal.
_lce0 12y ago
it's not a matter of price, or restrictions, but more about how people interact with the platforms. They believe they already paid for the phone; they know they still need to pay their carrier for something they use but paying for software? common that's digital. copyable. wait! I need to tie my credit card to my phone? no way. I certainly can afford apps, but it's better to use them for free. why do they need to pay if facebook, gmail, whatapp... are free.. do you read the news? app developers earn billions! I know you need to pay for window, but I've using for free for the last 10 years you know.. Just read at the free games' reviews.. they complain and demand, without even thinking on giving a dime to authors.

tomaskafka 12y ago

Isn't this partially a result of selling iPhones in countries where majority of population doesn't have access to any means of payment that would work with App Store?

Karunamon 12y ago

Those numbers are somewhat sketchy if I recall right. Apple doesn't allow app authors to have access to an unchanging ID of a device, so if they're doing something like (number of changeable UIDs that touched our server) - (app store sales) = copies we should have been paid for ..then there's a huge problem with their methodology. It would fail on the basic use case of one user with one app store account installing the app on more than one device (especially with kid friendly games like this), or re installs after a device wipe, or reinstalls after a user with a busted phone gets a new one, and so on. As usual, bad statistics being used in defense of the piracy bogeyman. The number of people who jailbreak their phones is a tiny minority of iOS users, and the number of people who do so to pirate is an even tinier minority of that. Even as someone that has no moral issues with downloading apps for free, I can tell you that it's not worth it on iOS. The contrast between the "it just works"-ness of the app store, and the hoops you need to jump through to get free apps is jarring.

bentcorner 12y ago
Methodology on Android is also problematic, for the same reasons: http://recode.net/2015/01/06/mobile-game-piracy-isnt-all-bad-says-monument-valley-producer-qa/ http://recode.net/2015/01/06/mobile-game-piracy-isnt-all-bad... Five percent are paid downloads, so the ratio is 9.5 to 1, but a portion of those are people who have both a phone and a tablet, people who have more than one Android device with them. So a small portion of that 95 percent is going to be taken up by those installs.
- mschuster91 12y ago
  > So a small portion of that 95 percent is going to be taken up by those installs. More! I have burned through four Android phones and three tablets with one google account. Everyone who upgrades their device makes "one pirated copy" by the logic of this study. And a huge portion of the current (licensed, not the chinese ones without a valid Google license) Android phones are likely to be upgrades for older or broken devices.