Developer says piracy forced Dead Trigger Android game to go free

D

'Unbelievably high' level of unpaid-for downloads despite game's $0.99 price
*static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/7/23/1343045940751/android-dead-trigger.jpg

With 400m activated devices and another 1m added every day, Android is on a roll. So why are many games developers still wary of porting their iOS titles to Google's platform? Piracy is a key reason.

Developer Madfinger Games is the latest company to fuel the debate, after changing its Dead Trigger game from paid to free on the Google Play Store. The zombie-themed first-person shooter launched earlier in July for $0.99.

"Regarding price drop. HERE is our statement. The main reason: piracy rate on Android devices, that was unbelievably high," the company posted on its official Dead Trigger Facebook page, comparing the game to its previous title Shadowgun.

"At first we intend to make this game available for as many people as possible - that's why it was for as little as buck. - It was much less than 8$ for SHADOWGUN but on the other hand we didn't dare to provide it for free, since we hadn't got XP with free-to-play format so far. - However, even for one buck, the piracy rate is soooo giant, that we finally decided to provide DEAD TRIGGER for free."

The company's post was likely in response to criticism from players who had paid $0.99 for Dead Trigger in its first few weeks on the Google Play Store. Pocket Gamer reports that a number had posted one-star reviews after the change, angry at having paid for a game that is now free.

Developer says piracy forced Dead Trigger Android game to go free | Technology | guardian.co.uk

My opinion are exactly the same as the few top rated comments in the below link

Dead Trigger is now free on Android, devs blame rampant piracy on Android - GSMArena Blog

so sad...

V

Hope it is not thier last game for android.

can't we kill piracy

^yes we can with jelly bean.

In JellyBean, applications will be encrypted with a device-specific key so they can't simply be copied and uploaded to the Internet. This means more legitimate sales for developers.

Source

^that jelly bean encryption will also be hacked...

iOS is more affected than Android from piracy

^is it??

exactly i read it in some comments too

The best way to beat piracy in the digital world is to do what Microsoft does. Piracy or not make sure your products are well known and widely used. The relatively smaller paid user percentage out of a bigger slice will offset the loss by piracy.
Also proper pricing is important. An 8$ price for a mobile game in India will indeed be considered high.
Access is another factor. Very few people here in India own a credit card. Compare that to the n number of people who own an Android device today. So they have less access to paid content. Nokia is doing the correct thing. They are stitching up deals for Nokia Store with cellular operators so that one can buy direct using the phone bill or prepaid account balance. Eg. me

Lack of a refund policy. For a free game, one can try as many as one likes and keep only those whom we like. Not possible with a paid game.

My views are somewhat different. Don't know about other Countries, but in India, it'll take another decade to reduce piracy.

Even if you give the product at lower price, you still won't be able to change an Indian mind which will think "Why should I pay for that if I can download it for free..?? I'm already paying for my net connection".

Actually 90% of people still thinks "I invested in getting the Device / PC and you want me to pay for the Software too..??"

No one thinks in terms of Developers perspective.

One cannot change the culture overnight. And people need to be exposed while growing up to the idea that one has to pay for digital goods. And for that to happen they need to have avenues of buying things.

It would really be interesting to see the opinion of Symbian developers in India in this context.

R

* Typical Android owner:
- Cheap
- Never buys an App or
media
- Their only enjoyment is
overclock the hardware or putting some cool
animated screensaver
- The whole Android game
is to see who's firmware
and juiced OS build runs
faster than each other Where's the ecosystem
here?

N

Piracy is one of the vital reasons Android became so famous. Easy access to apps for those who don't spend a penny but want to enjoy all the luxuries. Slowly developers will leave android, the same thing happening to Windows right now.

This is really sad. Almost every app is available pirated.

And we've ad-blockers too in Android.

How are developers supposed to earn?

android haters or ios lovers see whats cooking

Dead Trigger goes free on iOS, where piracy is apparently also a problem | The Verge

this proves developers have a problem not piracy

I don't have a single pirated app in my phone

and will never have .. if I cant afford a $0.99 app then I should not be carrying a smartphone in the first place. I still dont know the mentality of people here in India, they subscribe to stupid services for 30 bucks, download "HOT" photos for 5-10 bucks via their GSM provider but still cannot buy a worthwhile app they would use for a longer time period.

RCuber said:
I still dont know the mentality of people here in India, they subscribe to stupid services for 30 bucks, download "HOT" photos for 5-10 bucks via their GSM provider but still cannot buy a worthwhile app they would use for a longer time period.

+1

RCuber said:
I don't have a single pirated app in my phone and will never have .. if I cant afford a $0.99 app then I should not be carrying a smartphone in the first place. I still dont know the mentality of people here in India, they subscribe to stupid services for 30 bucks, download "HOT" photos for 5-10 bucks via their GSM provider but still cannot buy a worthwhile app they would use for a longer time period.

+1 from me,

I recently bought Jkay mod Deluxe setting app which is worth for me but what about stupid apps with high prices.

Example spb shell 3d launcher sells @ 829.50 what about that.

amjath said:
+1 from me,

I recently bought Jkay mod Deluxe setting app which is worth for me but what about stupid apps with high prices.

Example spb shell 3d launcher sells @ 829.50 what about that.

only dedicated SPB users or someone very new to Smartphones will use that .. I used to use SPB products on windows mobile 6.1 days, it was something new and exciting.. now I prefer simpler interface (Launcher Pro Plus user here

).

people should not buy high priced apps which do not provide a demo version, they should check the reviews and also see if the app satisfies their needs.. also there is refund option so if one doesnt like the app they can get a refund(I think after some deduction).

I don't have android phone but I am faun.

RCuber said:
I don't have a single pirated app in my phone and will never have .. if I cant afford a $0.99 app then I should not be carrying a smartphone in the first place. I still dont know the mentality of people here in India, they subscribe to stupid services for 30 bucks, download "HOT" photos for 5-10 bucks via their GSM provider but still cannot buy a worthwhile app they would use for a longer time period.

+1
Buying a app is very much worth it. Not only it supports the Dev but you also get regular updates and can use all features. I too donot have even one pirated app on my iPod Touch or dads Android. Although I havent bought that many applications but whenever I see a good deal on a discount I get it without second thoughts

RCuber said:
only dedicated SPB users or someone very new to Smartphones will use that .. I used to use SPB products on windows mobile 6.1 days, it was something new and exciting.. now I prefer simpler interface (Launcher Pro Plus user here ).

people should not buy high priced apps which do not provide a demo version, they should check the reviews and also see if the app satisfies their needs.. also there is refund option so if one doesnt like the app they can get a refund(I think after some deduction).

Yeah u r right, but many devs dont give demos and refund option came just few months back so piracy too much, hope it ll reduce. But what these dead trigger devs are going is absolute publicity

amjath said:
Yeah u r right, but many devs dont give demos and refund option came just few months back so piracy too much, hope it ll reduce. But what these dead trigger devs are going is absolute publicity

can you name a few apps which don't give demo (no games), cause I am not much aware about those.

refund was available from a long time .. but the limit is pathetic and practically useless - that's 15 minutes

In December 2010, Google added content filtering to Android Market and reduced the purchase refund window from 24–48 hours to 15 minutes

source - wiki.

dead trigger devs, soon...loadsa money donated to them..dosh...dosh...dosh

RCuber said:
can you name a few apps which don't give demo (no games), cause I am not much aware about those.

refund was available from a long time .. but the limit is pathetic and practically useless - that's 15 minutes

source - wiki.

WTH 15 minutes?

RCuber said:
can you name a few apps which don't give demo (no games), cause I am not much aware about those.

refund was available from a long time .. but the limit is pathetic and practically useless - that's 15 minutes

source - wiki.

I can name only few which I currently play

Where's my perry

Cut the Rope: Experiments

Temple Run: Brave [no big difference than Original Temple run]

I wasted money on where's my perry and temple run brave :'(

15 minutes What the ... is it???

To all n00bs...
If google play serves device specific encrypted apks for every download request... you will need 100,000 super computers to decrypt...
Right, encryption can be hacked.

however google is trash, i don't think they don't have computing power to serve encrypted apks to every phone out there.. who knows.. whatever.. don't care

N

It is also free on iOS as well. This is nothing but purely a publicity stunt. dev has not released any numbers to prove their point.

Dead Trigger is now free for iOS devices as well, points a finger at piracy again - GSMArena Blog

raman0890 said:
* Typical Android owner:
- Cheap
- Never buys an App or
media
- Their only enjoyment is
overclock the hardware or putting some cool
animated screensaver
- The whole Android game
is to see who's firmware
and juiced OS build runs
faster than each other Where's the ecosystem
here?

WTF..what makes you think like this ? I have purchased every single game/app on my device.
Irrespective of OS , it is the mindset of people.

a_k_s_h_a_y said:
however google is trash, i don't think they don't have computing power to serve encrypted apks to every phone out there.. who knows.. whatever.. don't care

LOL...nice try

AFAIK, Decryption will be done on device and not on server.

RCuber said:
can you name a few apps which don't give demo (no games), cause I am not much aware about those.

refund was available from a long time .. but the limit is pathetic and practically useless - that's 15 minutes

source - wiki.

15 is fine for apps but for games it needs to be 30 min..the reason they reduced it to 15 min because people used to finish playing the games in few hours and then refund. Google was forced to do this because of pressure from developers.

the game has IAP, makes more market sense to keep the entry point free
ye this looks like publicity

C

but piracy is also booming on i-platform so why blaming android platform

It doesn't come to me as a surprise.

sling-shot said:
The best way to beat piracy in the digital world is to do what Microsoft does. Piracy or not make sure your products are well known and widely used. The relatively smaller paid user percentage out of a bigger slice will offset the loss by piracy.
Also proper pricing is important. An 8$ price for a mobile game in India will indeed be considered high.
Access is another factor. Very few people here in India own a credit card. Compare that to the n number of people who own an Android device today. So they have less access to paid content. Nokia is doing the correct thing. They are stitching up deals for Nokia Store with cellular operators so that one can buy direct using the phone bill or prepaid account balance. Eg. me
Lack of a refund policy. For a free game, one can try as many as one likes and keep only those whom we like. Not possible with a paid game.

I agree. Even me and many I know download from other websites because we can't pay even if we want to because the modes of payment are often credit card or paypal. I know many who donot want pirated content. I wanted to buy humble bundle but cant.

a_k_s_h_a_y said:
To all n00bs...
If google play serves device specific encrypted apks for every download request... you will need 100,000 super computers to decrypt...
Right, encryption can be hacked.

however google is trash, i don't think they don't have computing power to serve encrypted apks to every phone out there.. who knows.. whatever.. don't care

We're talking about encryption/decryption, not encryption/brute-force cracking.

Theoretically speaking, it would need a simple key to decrypt, which would already be present on the device for which the content was encrypted in the first place. You place a request via your device or assigned account, the server wraps the original content in a sort of encrypted package using the device's unique key (or something). The intended device can easily decrypt and use the content.

On topic, it seems like a publicity stunt by the developers. The piracy numbers for all ecosystems are readily available. If it was piracy that caused them to switch to a free/freemium model, they could have thought about it right at the start. Blaming piracy on each platform and then switching to a free model only shows the lack of planning on their part. Their PR dept. and business strategy dept. needs a kick up their arses.