It's almost as if they implemented deliberate policies that would ensure they were financially compensated for their work involved in creating the game.
What the f*ck is the world coming to.
I hope when they come out with the patch, it also includes metrics to determine how many copies are running on jailbroken devices, then compare it to the number of actual paid copies.
The jailbreak community that actually pirated the games I'm sure are just laughing their smug a$$es off at this. The developer should have been up-front and honest right on the app-store about not supporting jailbroken phones. A hugely stupid move on their part.
They're just kicking themselves for not being upfront about it with a disclaimer in the description. But I think their first move had the right intent; a developer has no obligation to support jailbroken devices. They just needed to be transparent about it in the first place.
I think the majority of people jailbreaking do it to be able to unlock their phone to use with other carriers, and to run software purchased or downloaded from the Cydia store that Apple won't offer (for example, tethering).
It's dangerous to assume that everyone who jailbreaks is a software pirate.
The problem with facts is that they require actual evidence, and there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the claim of "most jailbreakers pirate games" is true. Of course, that doesn't at all seem to limit people claiming otherwise.
Who said anything about facts?
That's why I wrote that I think that most jailbreakers pirate apps.
The fact is that neither of you knows how many people jailbreak to steal apps so you're both just guessing.
The part in bold is misleading, though. Take some of the 'free" apps which require you to use gems or stars or whatever to buy special items. These gems/stars are often difficult to come by but you can buy them - and they appear to account for substantial revenues for the vendor. There are almost always broken versions of the apps which give you an unlimited supply of gems/stars/etc - and they appear to be widely used. So even if you're not pirating the app itself, there are reasons for jailbreaking - that deprive the developer of revenues.
I'm not guessing on how many people jailbreak to steal apps. I've given no statistic on the matter. I'm just pointing out that:
1) You don't need to jailbreak to pirate apps on iOS, and never have.
2) Many once popular piracy apps/services that ran on jailbroken devices have shut down and cited "lack of interest".
3) The most popular jailbreak communities (http://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/) have very few comments about piracy at all, and when someone mentions it, they're usually pounced upon by other members.
4) There are tons of videos for the the top reasons to jailbreak available on YouTube, and tons of articles, plus comments in the forums, that don't mention piracy at all, but give hundreds of other reasons why people jailbreak.
5) Nobody here has given any evidence, survey or anything besides talking out of their back end, that any number of people jailbreak to pirate.
"The part in bold is misleading, though."
No, it's not. What you then wrote misses the whole point... You don't have to jailbreak to install pirated apps. You don't have to jailbreak to install cracked apps that allow for cheats or theft by fake achievement or removes other restrictions. You don't need to jailbreak to take an app you purchased and edit the plists resulting in cheating or theft by achievement. Everything you wrote can be done without jailbreaking. Everything you wrote is easier to do without jailbreaking.
It's almost as if they implemented deliberate policies that would ensure they were financially compensated for their work involved in creating the game.
What the f*ck is the world coming to.
No, the problem is that while that's what they intended, what they did would have the opposite effect.
Look at it this way. There is a matrix of 4 people:
1) Bought the game, not jailbroken.
2) Bought the game, jailbroken.
3) Pirated the game, not jailbroken.
4) Pirated the game, jailbroken.
What they did was restrict the game for users that fell into group #2, and only group #2. If you were in any of the 3 other groups, your game played just fine.
If you're in group #2, you bought the game and were jailbroken, you had these options:
1) Install or update xCon (free, takes seconds, released same day as app).
2) Download a cracked version of the game (and support the pirates).
3) Remove your jailbreak and all of the reasons why you chose to jailbreak.
4) Forget about the game, possibly ask for refund.
Which of the 3 do you think someone would choose? How does any one of those 4 benefit the developer?
Now, suppose you haven't bought the game yet, but you're already jailbroken. You have these options:
1) Install or update xCon (free, takes seconds, released same day as app).
2) Pirate a copy of the game.
3) Remove your jailbreak and all of the reasons why you chose to jailbreak.
4) Don't buy the game.
How does any one of those 4 benefit the developer? Keep in mind, this was a user who went to the store to buy the game, and then realized they were faced with these options.
In addition to all of this, the developer has to deal with the complaints, as well as the negative comments and lowered store ratings.
None of what I've said should be interpreted as thinking the developer shouldn't implement a strategy to prevent piracy, that people should pirate, that people should ask for refunds in a situation like this, that developers should be required to support jailbroken devices, or anything like that.
I'm just pointing out, as I did in comments before they changed, that this was a very foolish idea and would create greater incentive to pirate their game while doing nothing to prevent piracy of it.
PCs/Macs allow users to install programs from various sources, including sources that exist predominately for pirating, therefore most PC/Mac owners pirate games. /s
Nobody here has given any evidence, survey or anything besides talking out of their back end, that any number of people jailbreak to pirate.
Google for appcake
click the first link
search for angry birds
observe evidence of over 700,000 downloads = piracy due to jailbreaking in one store, many other popular downloads are over 300k
There's also vStore, ipastore, torrents, previously installous, apptrackr.
iOS developers are saying they've tracked jailbroken rates:
"Another one often repeated is that, while they might have a jailbroken device, they still buy games anyway. Then I do not understand how the number of pirates on iOS is comparable with the amount of jailbroken devices. Of course, I know that some jailbreak users are paying for games as well, but could it be around 1% at the most?"
Do you have figures to show that the number of jailbreakers pirating is insignificant?
The fact that jailbroken 2nd gen Apple TVs go for double their original price on eBay probably demonstrates that it's not just pirates who like to jailbreak.
observe evidence of over 700,000 downloads = piracy due to jailbreaking in one store, many other popular downloads are over 300k
There's also vStore, ipastore, torrents, previously installous, apptrackr.
I said, "Nobody here has given any evidence, survey or anything besides talking out of their back end, that any number of people jailbreak to pirate."
And then you point to the number of self-stated downloads from a disreputable site to begin with, wherein you don't need to jailbreak to download those apps, and use that to somehow show that the reason people jailbreak is to pirate. Logic doesn't work that way.
Quote:
iOS developers are saying they've tracked jailbroken rates:
"Another one often repeated is that, while they might have a jailbroken device, they still buy games anyway. Then I do not understand how the number of pirates on iOS is comparable with the amount of jailbroken devices. Of course, I know that some jailbreak users are paying for games as well, but could it be around 1% at the most?"
The article says nothing about developers tracking jailbroken rates.
And the article makes some of the same flaws that you are making, that is that you somehow need to jailbreak in order to pirate games on iOS. You have never needed to. They have no idea how many people pirated their game who jailbroke first, and are so clueless that they believe you have to jailbreak first.
Also, that 1% number is so straight out of his @ss that I'm surprised they didn't color it brown. Is he suggesting that "around 1% at the most" of Android users bought the app instead of pirating? If not, why the discrepancy?
Quote:
Do you have figures to show that the number of jailbreakers pirating is insignificant?
No, but I'm not the one making claims that it is. I'm pointing out that you don't need to jailbreak to pirate, and gee, the most popular jailbreak communities don't have piracy discussions taking place in them, but instead have discussions of all kinds of reasons why people jailbreak that have nothing to do with piracy.
And that makes it okay to steal? Is that how you rationalize things?
My comment was in response to another poster who made it seem like every time a pirate downloads software it is akin to a lost sale. This simply is not the case most the time. Moreover, copyright laws are so unfair, I have a hard time feeling bad for large company content providers.
No, but it does mean that you have a very, very high probability of being a person who pirates games. It's literally the number one reason people jailbreak.
I reject this. Maybe it is just me, but I jailbroke my iPhone 4. I have over $40 of Square Enix games (Maybe over $50 in value....hard to tell with "discounts") as well as a lot of other things. Of the 5 people I know well who have jailbroken Apple hardware, only two, have stolen anything (That I know of) that would otherwise cost money on the app store.
I (At least) jailbroke my phone so that:
1. I could load my own ebooks that I bought elsewhere onto it (I don't know if that is doable without jailbreak however)
2. Wanted over 8 tabs in safari
3. wanted to be able to fully kill mail and other apps (to allow maximum amount of free RAM)
4. wanted to be able to lock my phone horizontally.
If apple offers horizontal locking in iOS I will stop my jailbreak and update to newest iOS.
The fact that jailbroken 2nd gen Apple TVs go for double their original price on eBay probably demonstrates that it's not just pirates who like to jailbreak.
Yes, because you can add cool stuff Apple left off like an Internet browser.
At no point did TBell say that piracy was acceptable and not theft.... what he said was that equating 1 pirated copy with 1 lost sale is not sound reasoning as somebody who is going to the trouble to pirate something that only costs a couple of dollars was very unlikely to ever buy it in the first place.
Meanwhile the original decision by SquareEnix to cripple the game for jailbroken devices without any notification was misguided at best, as would seem to have been proved by the number of complaints they have obviously received from jailbroken users who legitimately paid for the game that has made them perform this u-turn and announce it's removal in a future update..
That was pretty much what I was saying. There is just no way of knowing how many pirated copies of software equate to a lost sale. Some people were not going to buy it anyway, some people once they downloaded the software never use it (they are just collecting software), some people try software once (hate the software, and discard it), and some studies have suggested pirating actually increases sales of software (people pirate the software to see if they like it, and if they do buy it).
My main point was people like to start from the unvalidated premise that pirating software is causing significant harm to content providers.
Hm, i seem unable to view the post I made, but I forgot to mention that this shows that jailbroken phones have either quite a bit of pull over game developers, or that this is seen as the public by bad PR.
That's why I wrote that I think that most jailbreakers pirate apps.
That's a wonderfully honest statement, although I'm not too sure one should be proud that one thinks something without any factual evidence to back up that view.
PCs/Macs allow users to install programs from various sources, including sources that exist predominately for pirating, therefore most PC/Mac owners pirate games. /s
It's more meaningful to consider PC/Mac gamers, who comprise a small subset of all PC/Mac owners.
Gazoobee, Seriously, how did you come up with that? I've never had someone come up to me and ask me why I jailbreak. I don't pirate my apps. I find it funny that square wants to alienate a paying customer. Great business move...
Developers test apps against certain operating systems / firmwares. If the system you use is modified, they are not obliged to support it. An operating system hack could affect the running of the game, which their support staff has to deal with.
Companies don't have to support problems on non supported platforms, you are right there. But disabling the product, that's more complicated, even if its 1%, 1% of 1,000,000 is 10,000, but I guess 1% of 1,000 isn't that much, those 10 people can go **** themselves, right? People who don't see the value of something, no matter the excuse won't pay for it anyway. Companies fight piracy, some fight it very well, like Blizzard and Valve with Steam, I think those are great ways, provide people who are legitimate customers more value, I haven't been a Blizz customer for a long time, apparently plenty of people still love it all.
I forgot about Dead Trigger, your link reminded me, that game was already free when I tried it, but it really wasn't playable beyond the tutorial if you didn't buy something in app, the starter weapons were ridiculously underpowered and you didn't have enough bullets. The game was more like a demo, but it was sold as a free to play game, it is that, but at the same time it was a huge download of the tutorial, you really do have to pay to start playing, it wasn't too honest of them I thought. And imo it wasn't a good game, as in the game play and the fun factor.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by GTR
It's almost as if they implemented deliberate policies that would ensure they were financially compensated for their work involved in creating the game.
What the f*ck is the world coming to.
I hope when they come out with the patch, it also includes metrics to determine how many copies are running on jailbroken devices, then compare it to the number of actual paid copies.
The jailbreak community that actually pirated the games I'm sure are just laughing their smug a$$es off at this. The developer should have been up-front and honest right on the app-store about not supporting jailbroken phones. A hugely stupid move on their part.
It's dangerous to assume that everyone who jailbreaks is a software pirate.
Who said anything about facts?
That's why I wrote that I think that most jailbreakers pirate apps.
It's not dangerous, it's common sense, and a couple of people posting on a forum is not going to convince me otherwise.
The people who do jailbreak and pirate are either not going to post for obvious reasons, or they are going to lie.
And who said anything about everyone? Strawman much?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
The fact is that neither of you knows how many people jailbreak to steal apps so you're both just guessing.
The part in bold is misleading, though. Take some of the 'free" apps which require you to use gems or stars or whatever to buy special items. These gems/stars are often difficult to come by but you can buy them - and they appear to account for substantial revenues for the vendor. There are almost always broken versions of the apps which give you an unlimited supply of gems/stars/etc - and they appear to be widely used. So even if you're not pirating the app itself, there are reasons for jailbreaking - that deprive the developer of revenues.
I'm not guessing on how many people jailbreak to steal apps. I've given no statistic on the matter. I'm just pointing out that:
1) You don't need to jailbreak to pirate apps on iOS, and never have.
2) Many once popular piracy apps/services that ran on jailbroken devices have shut down and cited "lack of interest".
3) The most popular jailbreak communities (http://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/) have very few comments about piracy at all, and when someone mentions it, they're usually pounced upon by other members.
4) There are tons of videos for the the top reasons to jailbreak available on YouTube, and tons of articles, plus comments in the forums, that don't mention piracy at all, but give hundreds of other reasons why people jailbreak.
5) Nobody here has given any evidence, survey or anything besides talking out of their back end, that any number of people jailbreak to pirate.
"The part in bold is misleading, though."
No, it's not. What you then wrote misses the whole point... You don't have to jailbreak to install pirated apps. You don't have to jailbreak to install cracked apps that allow for cheats or theft by fake achievement or removes other restrictions. You don't need to jailbreak to take an app you purchased and edit the plists resulting in cheating or theft by achievement. Everything you wrote can be done without jailbreaking. Everything you wrote is easier to do without jailbreaking.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GTR
It's almost as if they implemented deliberate policies that would ensure they were financially compensated for their work involved in creating the game.
What the f*ck is the world coming to.
No, the problem is that while that's what they intended, what they did would have the opposite effect.
Look at it this way. There is a matrix of 4 people:
1) Bought the game, not jailbroken.
2) Bought the game, jailbroken.
3) Pirated the game, not jailbroken.
4) Pirated the game, jailbroken.
What they did was restrict the game for users that fell into group #2, and only group #2. If you were in any of the 3 other groups, your game played just fine.
If you're in group #2, you bought the game and were jailbroken, you had these options:
1) Install or update xCon (free, takes seconds, released same day as app).
2) Download a cracked version of the game (and support the pirates).
3) Remove your jailbreak and all of the reasons why you chose to jailbreak.
4) Forget about the game, possibly ask for refund.
Which of the 3 do you think someone would choose? How does any one of those 4 benefit the developer?
Now, suppose you haven't bought the game yet, but you're already jailbroken. You have these options:
1) Install or update xCon (free, takes seconds, released same day as app).
2) Pirate a copy of the game.
3) Remove your jailbreak and all of the reasons why you chose to jailbreak.
4) Don't buy the game.
How does any one of those 4 benefit the developer? Keep in mind, this was a user who went to the store to buy the game, and then realized they were faced with these options.
In addition to all of this, the developer has to deal with the complaints, as well as the negative comments and lowered store ratings.
None of what I've said should be interpreted as thinking the developer shouldn't implement a strategy to prevent piracy, that people should pirate, that people should ask for refunds in a situation like this, that developers should be required to support jailbroken devices, or anything like that.
I'm just pointing out, as I did in comments before they changed, that this was a very foolish idea and would create greater incentive to pirate their game while doing nothing to prevent piracy of it.
Ubisoft says so anyway:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-22-ubisoft-has-endured-a-93-95-percent-piracy-rate-on-pc
Machinarium dev says so:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29768/Machinarium_Dev_Saw_Up_To_95
Another dev here says so:
http://www.destructoid.com/game-dev-tycoon-turns-piracy-back-on-the-pirates-252687.phtml
Android devs say so:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-05/02/android-market-game-piracy
http://androidcommunity.com/game-developer-butterscotch-shenanigans-sees-95-piracy-rate-on-android-20130515/
Battlefield 3 torrented for PC 3.5m, for XBox 760k:
http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2011-111230/
Sales 2.4m PC, 6.9m XBox:
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/40231/battlefield-3/
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/35315/battlefield-3/
Google for appcake
click the first link
search for angry birds
observe evidence of over 700,000 downloads = piracy due to jailbreaking in one store, many other popular downloads are over 300k
There's also vStore, ipastore, torrents, previously installous, apptrackr.
iOS developers are saying they've tracked jailbroken rates:
http://www.zdnet.com/madfinger-game-goes-free-on-ios-piracy-to-blame-like-on-android-7000002050/
"Another one often repeated is that, while they might have a jailbroken device, they still buy games anyway. Then I do not understand how the number of pirates on iOS is comparable with the amount of jailbroken devices. Of course, I know that some jailbreak users are paying for games as well, but could it be around 1% at the most?"
Do you have figures to show that the number of jailbreakers pirating is insignificant?
The fact that jailbroken 2nd gen Apple TVs go for double their original price on eBay probably demonstrates that it's not just pirates who like to jailbreak.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
Google for appcake
click the first link
search for angry birds
observe evidence of over 700,000 downloads = piracy due to jailbreaking in one store, many other popular downloads are over 300k
There's also vStore, ipastore, torrents, previously installous, apptrackr.
I said, "Nobody here has given any evidence, survey or anything besides talking out of their back end, that any number of people jailbreak to pirate."
And then you point to the number of self-stated downloads from a disreputable site to begin with, wherein you don't need to jailbreak to download those apps, and use that to somehow show that the reason people jailbreak is to pirate. Logic doesn't work that way.
Quote:
iOS developers are saying they've tracked jailbroken rates:
http://www.zdnet.com/madfinger-game-goes-free-on-ios-piracy-to-blame-like-on-android-7000002050/
"Another one often repeated is that, while they might have a jailbroken device, they still buy games anyway. Then I do not understand how the number of pirates on iOS is comparable with the amount of jailbroken devices. Of course, I know that some jailbreak users are paying for games as well, but could it be around 1% at the most?"
The article says nothing about developers tracking jailbroken rates.
And the article makes some of the same flaws that you are making, that is that you somehow need to jailbreak in order to pirate games on iOS. You have never needed to. They have no idea how many people pirated their game who jailbroke first, and are so clueless that they believe you have to jailbreak first.
Also, that 1% number is so straight out of his @ss that I'm surprised they didn't color it brown. Is he suggesting that "around 1% at the most" of Android users bought the app instead of pirating? If not, why the discrepancy?
Quote:
Do you have figures to show that the number of jailbreakers pirating is insignificant?
No, but I'm not the one making claims that it is. I'm pointing out that you don't need to jailbreak to pirate, and gee, the most popular jailbreak communities don't have piracy discussions taking place in them, but instead have discussions of all kinds of reasons why people jailbreak that have nothing to do with piracy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkrupp
And that makes it okay to steal? Is that how you rationalize things?
My comment was in response to another poster who made it seem like every time a pirate downloads software it is akin to a lost sale. This simply is not the case most the time. Moreover, copyright laws are so unfair, I have a hard time feeling bad for large company content providers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
No, but it does mean that you have a very, very high probability of being a person who pirates games. It's literally the number one reason people jailbreak.
I reject this. Maybe it is just me, but I jailbroke my iPhone 4. I have over $40 of Square Enix games (Maybe over $50 in value....hard to tell with "discounts") as well as a lot of other things. Of the 5 people I know well who have jailbroken Apple hardware, only two, have stolen anything (That I know of) that would otherwise cost money on the app store.
I (At least) jailbroke my phone so that:
1. I could load my own ebooks that I bought elsewhere onto it (I don't know if that is doable without jailbreak however)
2. Wanted over 8 tabs in safari
3. wanted to be able to fully kill mail and other apps (to allow maximum amount of free RAM)
4. wanted to be able to lock my phone horizontally.
If apple offers horizontal locking in iOS I will stop my jailbreak and update to newest iOS.
-QAMF
Quote:
Originally Posted by RichL
The fact that jailbroken 2nd gen Apple TVs go for double their original price on eBay probably demonstrates that it's not just pirates who like to jailbreak.
Yes, because you can add cool stuff Apple left off like an Internet browser.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveMcM76
At no point did TBell say that piracy was acceptable and not theft.... what he said was that equating 1 pirated copy with 1 lost sale is not sound reasoning as somebody who is going to the trouble to pirate something that only costs a couple of dollars was very unlikely to ever buy it in the first place.
Meanwhile the original decision by SquareEnix to cripple the game for jailbroken devices without any notification was misguided at best, as would seem to have been proved by the number of complaints they have obviously received from jailbroken users who legitimately paid for the game that has made them perform this u-turn and announce it's removal in a future update..
That was pretty much what I was saying. There is just no way of knowing how many pirated copies of software equate to a lost sale. Some people were not going to buy it anyway, some people once they downloaded the software never use it (they are just collecting software), some people try software once (hate the software, and discard it), and some studies have suggested pirating actually increases sales of software (people pirate the software to see if they like it, and if they do buy it).
My main point was people like to start from the unvalidated premise that pirating software is causing significant harm to content providers.
Hm, i seem unable to view the post I made, but I forgot to mention that this shows that jailbroken phones have either quite a bit of pull over game developers, or that this is seen as the public by bad PR.
-QAMF
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple ][
Who said anything about facts?
That's why I wrote that I think that most jailbreakers pirate apps.
That's a wonderfully honest statement, although I'm not too sure one should be proud that one thinks something without any factual evidence to back up that view.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DroidFTW
PCs/Macs allow users to install programs from various sources, including sources that exist predominately for pirating, therefore most PC/Mac owners pirate games. /s
It's more meaningful to consider PC/Mac gamers, who comprise a small subset of all PC/Mac owners.
Seriously, how did you come up with that? I've never had someone come up to me and ask me why I jailbreak. I don't pirate my apps. I find it funny that square wants to alienate a paying customer. Great business move...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
Developers test apps against certain operating systems / firmwares. If the system you use is modified, they are not obliged to support it. An operating system hack could affect the running of the game, which their support staff has to deal with.
Companies don't have to support problems on non supported platforms, you are right there. But disabling the product, that's more complicated, even if its 1%, 1% of 1,000,000 is 10,000, but I guess 1% of 1,000 isn't that much, those 10 people can go **** themselves, right? People who don't see the value of something, no matter the excuse won't pay for it anyway. Companies fight piracy, some fight it very well, like Blizzard and Valve with Steam, I think those are great ways, provide people who are legitimate customers more value, I haven't been a Blizz customer for a long time, apparently plenty of people still love it all.
I forgot about Dead Trigger, your link reminded me, that game was already free when I tried it, but it really wasn't playable beyond the tutorial if you didn't buy something in app, the starter weapons were ridiculously underpowered and you didn't have enough bullets. The game was more like a demo, but it was sold as a free to play game, it is that, but at the same time it was a huge download of the tutorial, you really do have to pay to start playing, it wasn't too honest of them I thought. And imo it wasn't a good game, as in the game play and the fun factor.