Closed for business - Android vs. iOS

Business and Project Management Discussions
#121

Except that many games are not tied any specially to Steam. What makes them sell is the small price for limited amount of time (and good exposure for that deal), just like it works for HIB. This has nothing with piracy, just pure business. Also AAA titles are often overpriced, or they’re just not that much worth for the individual (like I would buy most AAA games for 5E only, otherwise it’s not worth to me, because even when some are good enough to entertain me, it’s nothing great, though I don’t mind waiting few years for price to fall).

Steam games are pirated, or activated on accounts used solely for that game and then shared or exchanged.

This works well, though there are exceptions for very popular games. Look at Counter Strike scene, the pirated one is so strong it’s total alternative to the official one, they do ‘official’ leagues and clan matches within it.

Not that easy when it’s done as dedicated servers so anyone can run them. Privately, or with some web of trust for bigger community.

#122

Using word ”quality” I mean interesting (about games)
(you can’t say interesting about quality of service ;))

The more interesting MMO game for customers the more time they spend on it
before go to another more interesting game(According opinion of the customers)

+starcraft 1, dota(war 3)
“iccup” like example

The irony is that many ppl using it, even have the official version of the game,
and all because there you can find a better opponent than on official servers (quality of service, more interesting)

#123

@kaffiene - Thanks for replying, and the clarification.

#124

I agree with what Jezek says about Steam’s successes, but what I really don’t understand - I mentioned it previously - why doesn’t the pricing argument work for Android sales?

If Steam makes tonnes of sales when the price is low, why are Android apps selling for a few bucks so often pirated? (I’m assuming that this is true) That is something I just don’t get.

#125

Another interesting example (IHMO) is modo. When some folks from lightwave left and formed luxology their intent was to create a groundbreaking 3D package that was affordable. The first version (in my non-digital artist opinion) was freaking awesome and priced at something around 300USD (if my memory serves). Whatever the price was it was significantly cheaper that updating my version of lightwave would have cost. Sadly modo was very heavily pirated. Although there’s no reasonable way to estimate the loss in income that piracy caused, it isn’t unreasonable to assume that the impact was significant. Now modo will cost you about 900USD (if you convert from some other art package) or about 1200USD otherwise. The legal consumer would have very much benefited from them being able to maintain a lower price point and the increased competition that would have caused. Could that have happened if their product had been less pirated? We can’t know.

Note that (IHMO) talking about reasons software companies fail when discussing piracy is at best a “red herring” and at worst disingenuous (not targeting anyone here). This isn’t to imply that I disagree with what is being said, but the context in which something is said is equally important.

Out of intellectual curiosity can anyone that insists on “illegal copying” vs. “stealing” define what difference is?

#126

Stealing a physical object leaves the owner bereft of that object. Illegal copying does not.

#127

stealing is a competition / exclusion problem
copying is a free-rider problem

#128
  • I acquire the customer data base of a company that does direct sells. I sell that to direct competitors. Stealing or not stealing?
  • Same as previous except I get hookers, drugs and parties instead of cash. Stealing or not stealing?
  • Same as previous except I did it just for “kicks”. Stealing or not stealing?
  • Repeat the previous three, except I’m giving to non-competing companies. Stealing or not stealing?
  • Generalize all the previous to the vast majority of industrial espionage.

Don’t see any problems here?

#129

1 the other company can use the custer base data: they can act as free-riders (no effort to search for customers)

2 A hooker beeing spend time with can not spend time with another one: exclusion problem

3 dooing for the kicks : if you dont give away or use the data, you still cost the company
legal and security consultant costs.

#130

This is why the definition of “theft” in law is so specific: it covers only one very, very clearly defined offence. Did you know that in the UK if someone “steals” your car, and they get caught with it, they are not actually charged with “theft” - they are charged with “taking and driving away” (and driving without insurance but that’s another story). To be “theft” there has to be a clear and provable intention to deprive the owner of something permanently of it; in this case the thief would have to actually attempt to fence the vehicle, ring it, destroy it, or break it for spares, etc. I believe that most other countries use a similar distinction. Given this, it’s impossible to steal something that is copied… except that the law uses the word “theft”, not “stealing”. Stealing is an ambiguous term which is what causes all these daft arguments over niggly semantics.

The various offences otherwise that Roquen has listed are covered under various other, different, laws.

Let’s call copying my games ripping me off. That sounds about right.

Cas :slight_smile:

#131

Minecraft proves that if you make a very appealing game, you will make a shit-load of money.
Thats all I need to know.

#132

much to its success was that it was easily accessible for people to try it out.

#133

I wish people would stop using Minecraft as an example of anything. Please get it into your heads that Minecraft is an utter, total, complete outlier. Damocles is right about why it caught on, but only scratches the surface of the tricks it used.

Cas :slight_smile:

#134

@Cero - what makes successful game is black magic. Some great games sell like shit and some shit games sell like hotcakes.
@Damocles - again where the entitlement? Someone makes a product it’s up the them to choose if you can “try for free” or not. It’s a stupid move to not do so in some manner but hey that’s their choice.
@princec - I’m not really poking for “legal” or “moral” points, but more of language and implied permissiveness that choice of words create. If someone wants to call it “illegal coping”…whatever, but I’d be nice if everyone that makes a specific choice of terms actually thinks through why their doing so and is that choice internally consistent.

#135

It’s be nice if the internets were right, but there we go :cranky:

Interesting point raised back there: if prices are so low why is Android piracy so rife versus Steam?

Answer: (my hypothesis)

  1. Steam has no refund policy, whatsoever. If you even try a chargeback your entire account is terminated and you lose everything. No comeback.
  2. Android has a 24hr refund policy, which unfortunately still leaves you with the .apk which you can copy before refunding.
  3. Android users are, shall we say, more tight than iOS users. Piracy isn’t the only reason stuff is free on Android - it’s also because many many users are too tight to pay for anything in the first place, which is why they have $100 Android phones instead of $300 iPhones.

Cas :slight_smile:

#136

Another thought, if some company can’t get enough money from selling, maybe they should’ve invested less into the creation? There must be then some point where it’s balanced between quality vs sales/costs.

There are lot of tricks to create something great without need to use big movie-like budgets, and also to get rid of people on payroll who basically don’t contribute anything (or even have negative impact) to the project?

Or are there some utterly failed polished indie games out there?

#137

People value their products more on Steam.
Its their assets they paided much more for (than 1$ on Adroid) and
associated to their account.
Psychiologically this has this “treasure chest” effect.

On Android it feels like a ranom left basket in the community kitchen.
Lots of questionable free stuff. Take it or leave it.
Why pay money. And when paying 1$ I see it as throw away item that I dont
want to hassle with payment too long.

Also Steam filters the entries a lot, whereas everyone can post stuff in the Android Store.

#138

Again, is there some sort of proof (like some stats before and after the price change or something) that the users who pirated it would buy it? Or was it mostly users trying it out and not doing much real work by using it? There was good reason why Blender back then when it wasn’t opensource had personal edition. And anyone doing things professionally tends to have legal copies of their tools, also the costs are typically covered within just few months.

If the price increase helped them to get funds they expected while not offending most of their customers, then it was right move. If they seek for affordable tool they can always create some lite version without some professional features or something.

#139

Sounds like Google’s fault mostly. Read that in the most recent version of Android they’re adding locking the purchased app to given device by signing. I don’t think that most users use rooted devices or alternative opensource builds of Android.

I googled some concrete example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2012/jul/23/dead-trigger-android-free-piracy

In this example they mention the piracy ratio was 9:1, if I remember World of Goo had similar ratio and still was big success. Maybe they should price the game for like $5 instead of rubbish $.99. Setting too low price (unless it’s limited deal) make it look cheap (=bad). If someone is willing to pay they can usually afford more than $1, and even if it was priced $0.01 it would still get pirated a lot. So no point of too much lowering of price.

#140

Absolutely! I knew a number of people way back using pirated copies of Macromedia Director which I think was selling for +£1000. Personally (and maybe cynically?), I believe that they and others deliberately made such software easy to copy, to encourage people to spend time learning it, and once they’re hooked and need to use it professionally - bamn! http://www.myownlittleworld.org.uk/whimsy/dealers.htm :wink: