Comments on: The Megagames http://www.bruceongames.com/2007/10/04/the-megagames/ A veteran's view on marketing games Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:01:38 +0000 hourly 1 By: Jeff Murray http://www.bruceongames.com/2007/10/04/the-megagames/comment-page-1/#comment-8929 Jeff Murray Sat, 03 Apr 2010 01:40:27 +0000 http://www.bruceongames.com/2007/10/04/the-megagames/#comment-8929 When your piracy stats are coming back 20 times higher than your sales stats, that's a serious problem and it's one that Apple still haven't dealt with head-on in regard to the iphone. Developers have almost been forced into this pay to play in-app purchase model because the iphone piracy rate is so incredibly high. A new release on the app store is likely to be pirated literally within hours of release and the mobile market is such an oppressive and expensive market dominated by the communication giants that many people get their iphones cracked because they just want choice of network provider. Since the devices are all too often already cracked, it's an easy step to download pirated games onto the devices. I've heard (and I've worked on) games that were stung by up to 90% piracy rates. So how can developers make money? Free to play. No option any more and no support from Apple to stop the insanity (you can't tell me that they couldn't put out an update tomorrow that would detect and disable cracked devices). Software piracy is still killing the industry and it's also forcing game designers to change the way games work. In my opinion, limited and held hostage by the technology to include upgrades, content pages and other useless crap! Anyway, LensLok was a total pain and I hated it, but I recall hating the colour chart equally since I had trouble telling the difference between certain colours! Gah! Great blog - keep up the good work :) When your piracy stats are coming back 20 times higher than your sales stats, that’s a serious problem and it’s one that Apple still haven’t dealt with head-on in regard to the iphone. Developers have almost been forced into this pay to play in-app purchase model because the iphone piracy rate is so incredibly high. A new release on the app store is likely to be pirated literally within hours of release and the mobile market is such an oppressive and expensive market dominated by the communication giants that many people get their iphones cracked because they just want choice of network provider. Since the devices are all too often already cracked, it’s an easy step to download pirated games onto the devices. I’ve heard (and I’ve worked on) games that were stung by up to 90% piracy rates. So how can developers make money? Free to play. No option any more and no support from Apple to stop the insanity (you can’t tell me that they couldn’t put out an update tomorrow that would detect and disable cracked devices). Software piracy is still killing the industry and it’s also forcing game designers to change the way games work. In my opinion, limited and held hostage by the technology to include upgrades, content pages and other useless crap! Anyway, LensLok was a total pain and I hated it, but I recall hating the colour chart equally since I had trouble telling the difference between certain colours! Gah! Great blog – keep up the good work :)

]]> By: Murray Rigluth http://www.bruceongames.com/2007/10/04/the-megagames/comment-page-1/#comment-267 Murray Rigluth Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:42:26 +0000 http://www.bruceongames.com/2007/10/04/the-megagames/#comment-267 Bruce, You know my stance on piracy :) BUT, I don't they are stupid. When I was younger, I would pirate everything going, not because I couldn't afford (I probably couldn't have), it was soley the challenge. Now that I'm getting older - I just dont have enough free time on my hands - so rather than mess around pirating - I just purchase. I think this is a logical progression for most 'pirates' Also - as we both know - the proliferation of IP into the hands of pirates can be a very useful (and cheap) distribution mechanism - you just need a robust way of protecting the IP content at a given time and forcing the 'buy' scenario - even a small percentage of converts will add a huge chunk to top line profitability, as the distribution costs have been £0.00 I think I still have a LensLok somewhere, courtesy of Simon Goodwin :) Bruce,

You know my stance on piracy :)

BUT, I don’t they are stupid. When I was younger, I would pirate everything going, not because I couldn’t afford (I probably couldn’t have), it was soley the challenge.

Now that I’m getting older – I just dont have enough free time on my hands – so rather than mess around pirating – I just purchase. I think this is a logical progression for most ‘pirates’

Also – as we both know – the proliferation of IP into the hands of pirates can be a very useful (and cheap) distribution mechanism – you just need a robust way of protecting the IP content at a given time and forcing the ‘buy’ scenario – even a small percentage of converts will add a huge chunk to top line profitability, as the distribution costs have been £0.00

I think I still have a LensLok somewhere, courtesy of Simon Goodwin :)

]]> By: Bruce http://www.bruceongames.com/2007/10/04/the-megagames/comment-page-1/#comment-238 Bruce Mon, 08 Oct 2007 20:20:40 +0000 http://www.bruceongames.com/2007/10/04/the-megagames/#comment-238 Thanks for the reminder. Pirates are stupid, they destroy the production of the thing they enjoy. Thanks for the reminder.
Pirates are stupid, they destroy the production of the thing they enjoy.

]]> By: nofi http://www.bruceongames.com/2007/10/04/the-megagames/comment-page-1/#comment-223 nofi Thu, 04 Oct 2007 12:26:04 +0000 http://www.bruceongames.com/2007/10/04/the-megagames/#comment-223 Fascinating, as ever. I remember LensLock too... Fascinating, as ever. I remember LensLock too…

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