
The huge success of an AppStore failure  - marksu
http://blog.gameized.com/2011/07/12/the-huge-success-of-an-appstore-failure/
======
toadkick
This old chestnut.

First, before I get started on the piracy bit, there are a few things in this
article that are cliche and offputting. The minute I saw these things, I was
immediately unsurprised about their app's lack of success.

"GAMEized is one of the newest game development agencies to take the industry
by storm, and we did it through an innovative marketing approach and solid
game development"

There are very few iOS developers who are taking anything by storm. Rovio,
Andreas Illiger, Newtoy...those guys took the app store by storm. The
developers of the other 400,000+ apps in the app store...not so much. Simply
saying something is "innovative" or "solid" does not make it so. What is
"innovative" about GAMEized's marketing approach? What is it that makes their
development so "solid"? If it their approach was so innovative, surely I
would've heard about their game before this article showed up on HN...

"After several hours of research and development..."

Why is it that there are so many iOS devs that think that they can spend
"several hours" doing anything and expect anyone to care? Name me one great
app that has come along and was profitable as the result of "several hours" of
work. Found one yet? Exactly...

"FingerKicks is an exciting and addicting game we developed for all iOS
platforms (iPOD, iPHONE and iPAD). It’s simple to play and exciting to master"

This is how damn near every single app developer describes their app these
days. If I see the words "addictive" or the phrase "simple to play, difficult
to master" or some other variation, I immediately choose not to download it.
Eli Hodapp from TouchArcade wrote a great a article about describing your app:
<http://a-13.net/post/8151551632/addictive-polished-gems>

Anyway, to the piracy bit. I'm sure many people upon reading this story
immediately began to imagine ways in which they curtail the piracy problem by
implementing some unique piracy detection method or other approach to prevent
people from illegally playing their game. Put those thoughts out of your head,
it's a waste of time. Pirates will _always_ find a way to get what they want
for free. And for all of your efforts to stop them, all that will have
happened in the process is that you will have lost valuable hours that you can
never get back conceiving and implementing those efforts, hours that you could
have spent instead _making your app better_. Does it suck that most iOS apps
have a 90% piracy rate? Sure. Is there really something you can do about it?
Perhaps. Is it worth your time to bother? Definitely not. Angry Birds, Tiny
Wings, Words with Friends...those games are not at the top of the charts
because of their innovative anti-piracy measures. They are at the top of the
charts because they are fantastic games.

A common fallacy is the believe that pirated copies == lost sales. This is
simply not true. There are an overwhelming amount of pirates who will get your
app for free _simply because they can_. There are only a handful of people out
there spending the time to actually crack the apps. Then, they post them onto
sites like AppTrackr or Installous, and the majority just download the apps
from there. If everyone had to actually crack the app themselves, the amount
of illegal downloads would certainly decrease, because most people just can't
be bothered to put that much effort into it. But when it's just sitting right
there, ready to go, then hey, why not? Most pirates will not suddenly start
paying for your app simply because they can't get it for free. It's also worth
noting that the perceived value of these pirated apps is low in their eyes.
They have no vested interest, and their level of enjoyment from the app is low
in most cases (based on analytics data from my own game, most people who
pirated the app never ran it more than once or twice, whereas most of the
people who actually payed for the app came back at least several times to
play).

As a point of reference, the guys from 2D Boy posted on their blog a couple of
years back on the piracy rate of World of Goo
(<http://2dboy.com/2008/11/13/90/>). Lo and behold, it was sitting around 90%.
In that article they have a lot of info backing up the oft-heard claims that
pirated copies != lost sales, and relate several points on whether DRM is
actually effective at getting people to pay for your game (spoiler: it's not).
Since then, they have released versions of the game on the Wii, the Mac, the
Xbox, and all iOS devices. And you know what? They made a killing. In fact,
the iPad version outsold all of the other versions combined
([http://www.tuaw.com/2011/02/09/world-of-goo-for-ipad-
outsell...](http://www.tuaw.com/2011/02/09/world-of-goo-for-ipad-outsells-
than-mac-pc-linux-wii-xbox-ve/)). Instead of spending their time worrying
about the pirates, they spent their time doing work that mattered, porting
their work to devices where there is a significant audience of people willing
to pay a couple of bucks for their game.

And you know what else? World of Goo is a fantastic game.

So, before the next time someone jumps to blame Apple for their lack of
efforts to prevent piracy on jailbroken devices, and making them the scapegoat
for the horrific failure that was their iOS app, maybe the lens should be
turned inward and there should be some reflection on why exactly their game
didn't attract _paying_ users. Odds are, you'll find that your game just isn't
that good.

------
alastair
Interestingly, the app store will still update pirated apps - purchasing them
in the process (without warning). If it were my app I would release a few
updates and see if snagged you any additional sales. Would make an interesting
follow-up article.

P.S No doubt this is a deliberate move by Apple.

------
econgeeker
This article is spam.

1) It has been repeatedly submitted to hacker news.

2) It is link-bait seemingly designed for hacker news

3) It is nothing more than a transparent Ad for their game that they "spent
hours" developing.

4) Nearly every sentence of the article is hyperbole.

5) The author has no credibility, and undermines the benefit-of-the-doubt with
every sentence.

6) It reads like it was written by a 13 year old.

Yet it is high on the first page of Hacker News.

------
fmavituna
2 things;

\- Apple would love to not getting jailbreaked, it's bad for them as well, yet
it's not like they have a magic wand, I guess they do their best on this. It's
quite pointless to blame Apple for that. AFAIK best track record is owned by
Sony PS3 on this subject.

\- Tons of people download pirated apps because they are getting it for free,
they would never pay for them anyway.

~~~
modeless
PS3 has the best track record? More like the worst. The XBox 360 has the best
track record here. There has never been a widespread software exploit of the
360, and MS are very quick to hand out perma-bans to anyone using hardware
exploits while connected to XBox Live.

~~~
dagw
You've been able to play pirated Xbox360 and Wii games for quite a while now.
Has anybody actually implemented a way to play pirated PS3 games yet?

~~~
yardie
Yes the PS3 has been busted wide and you can install and play games from the
HDD instead of the BDROM. What you can't do is get access to PSN. Sony has
been putting system updates into new and upcoming games and the crackers have
updated their custom firmwares to do the same.

------
ameen
TL:DR; Added value (DLC, IAP, Ad-free, etc) over-time would increase sales,
and a longer stay in the Top 10 charts.

99cents is nothing to an American, or an European, but to a Vietnamese,
Chinese or an Indian those are not "Nothing". Also, the concept of credit
cards hasn't quite been established in these still developing countries.
Carrier billing, or other alternate mode of payments would help (Nokia had
done some pioneering phone-wallet system) which could mitigate some of the
problems which push a prospective buyer to piracy. Also, as shpoonj had said,
apps can have various revenue streams, ads, IAP, dlc, etc. Also, including a
free stripped down ad-supported variant of the app on the AppStore would
discourage pirates as the same game would be available for free, literally at
ones fingertip.

Most developers view the AppStore as a "Write-once, Get rich" platform. Games
don't sell themselves, marketing, positive reviews, word-of-mouth, virality,
etc make an app to sell. The concept of sleeper hits doesn't exist in the
AppStore, where a flood of new apps appear each day. The conventional methods
of sustaining a product still hold key to success or failure. If you are
looking to launch a 99cents app with no support, your best efforts will land
you _upto_ 2-grand through a period of 3-4 months.

Again piracy will always exist as long as digital media exists. The only way
to beat them is to provide value which those pirates can't use, like
multiplayer, group-sharing, social features, access to dlcs, etc. The pirates
would tire after pirating an app once, the wouldn't possibly put in their
efforts to "crack" apps for each possible update you did. And pirate himself
would resort to just buying the game rather than pirate it to gain access to
any product with great updates, value. Eg: "The mighty eagle" from Angry
Birds.

And to those pushing for a jailbreak check to disable Game center access,
would only kill some sales. All pirates are jail-breakers, but not all Jail-
breakers are pirates! Most hackers jailbreak their iPhones to do much more
than Apple intended their h/w to do. Most prolific app developers come from
the jailbreak community.

------
suneliot
I guess the AppStore hasn't quite made 99cents seem like nothing. Users still
don't want to pay for anything, no matter how small the cost may seem.

Shouldn't most if not all iOS developers already know about
jailbreaking/Installous? If your revenue stream is 100% hinging on selling the
app (as opposed to in-app purchases or ads), then shouldn't you be cognisant
of the piracy issue associated with a jailbroken iOS device and not naive
enough to think that every copy of your app will be obtained legally?

I do think it's a shame that companies put a lot into creating a premium app
for the AppStore, which gets pirated and downloaded for free. But I don't
really see an end to this for the foreseeable future. Apple has already tried
to make jailbreaking illegal, but it failed to do so.

~~~
cageface
The only solution seems to be to write apps with an essential server-side
component. It's pathetic that $0.99 is till too much for the cheapskates of
the world to pay for somebody else's hard work.

------
timc3
"Apple has yet to reciprocate our devotion to them."

What fantasy world are they living in?

~~~
jsavimbi
The same one where people are hoping this rapture thing will work out for them
because they hate gays.

------
shpoonj
The lesson here is to know at least a little bit about the market before you
develop for it. The only people surprised here are the developers... and that
screams of being green.

After working with musicians for years, I've watched firsthand as they wait
anxiously for their albums to appear on what.cd. It's a compliment. It's the
best thing you can have happen. Because just like in the app store, you don't
make money from selling your product. You make money from the opportunities it
provides for you. Sometimes that means ads or getting hired to work for
someone else... it doesn't matter. If your product is how you plan to get
rich, you must be blind to the market.

~~~
shpoonj
Also, I'm surprised this made it to the front page again. I didn't notice any
changes since it was posted last month.

