Piracy Cripples iOS Game in Less than a Week

[MarcelEdward]

Originally Posted by Shookster

I'd imagine it's more along the lines of "we sold 3,000 copies and 10,000 people are connected to our server."

Is is not possible that an app is bought and then installed on different ios devices with the same account ?
So i doubt that if there a 3000 copies sold the there would be 7000 pirated copies.
You can assume that if you make a succesfull game that one legitimate copy will be installed legal on multiple devices.

[ActionableMango]

Theft of Services:

"Theft of services is the legal term for a crime which is committed when a person obtains valuable services — as opposed to goods — by deception, force, threat or other unlawful means, i.e., without lawfully compensating the provider for these services."

It is the theft of services that put this game out of action, not the act of copyright violation.

[haruhiko]

Originally Posted by dasmb

Flat rate apps with heavy on-line features are doomed from jump. You can't run "forever" off ANY amount of money, let alone $5 a download. It's entirely likely they picked up a few hundred thousand more users than they had planned for due to piracy, but these users may have shown up through legitimate channels as well -- what then? Well, you'd have a bit more money in the pipeline to apportion new servers, but to me it seems this is an infrastructure problem they would have run into regardless.

Devs, if you want to have on-line features, you have to support them through in-app purchases. That's how this model works. Subscriptions, currency, "activate on-line play," however you like, but you do need something. It is much more difficult -- and traceable -- to pirate in-app authentication than it is to pirate a binary. What's more, it's perfectly acceptable to copy app binaries between i-devices within the same house -- if these devices are actually used by different primary account holders, in app purchases can get a buy from both of them off the same app download. At this point, piracy is just an alternate distribution vector for the same paid app.

I won't go so far as to say "don't blame the thieves," but this is an obvious case of a developer not really thinking through their strategy. But they should be able to regroup and re-release this app without too much trouble.

Thanks for your sensible reply.

[mabhatter]

Originally Posted by komodrone

if I'm not mistaken, you could go the freemium route. offline mode for non-paying users, but if you want to play online, buy inapp purchase. that way people can't pirate the game?

Didn't Apple take away in-app receipts "signed" with your device ID a while back? Because the App Store reciept is nothing more that a "paid" tag, there's nothing stopping clever people from shipping the hacked version with a hacked reciept too.

I still wonder how a non-multiplayer game is contacting third party servers? I thought Apple handled all the downloading?

Perhaps that's the fix here. Maybe Devs need to push Apple to host all the media for the game... When it's conning out of APPLE's 30% they will try a lot harder to lock shlitz down!

[Hidesuru]

I'll be fairly short (compared to what I want to say). To all the folks legitimizing piracy in ANY FORM:
You make me sick, you socially immature piece of human refuse.

Someone worked to create what you are enjoying for free. Don't like something they did? DON'T BUY IT! Think its overpriced? DON'T BUY IT! Think they should have offered a demo version? Maybe, but that was their choice, DON'T BUY IT!

The author of original work has the right to do WHATEVER they want with it, and to sell it to you under ANY TERMS THEY CHOOSE! You, as the consumer, have the right to spend your money on things you think are worth it and withhold that money if it is not for any reason. NOTHING MORE.

I am a software developer (thankfully in a specific industry where piracy is not an issue) and have a close friend who made a great game that sold very well... up until the day a pirate copy appeared on the internet. He sold next to nothing after that.

~Disgusted with most of humanity

[flameproof]

Originally Posted by JoEw

Can't something be done to keep non paying users from contacting the server? Many console games can do this, why not IOS?

The system is designed so Apple can make money, not the developers. Apple got their profit in after the buyers pay the $4.99 - there is nothing in for them after that.

And since iOS is highly restrictive (someone called the North Korea of the internet ) I doubt* that developers can design protection around it.

* I am not a developer, I wonder if the device ID can be automatically transmitted to a 3rd party server. That's what I doubt.

-------------
To add to the initial quote, what I found peculiar: If they know that pirates call their server means that they are able to identify the pirates. If they are able to identify them it would be very easy to block them. Could it be that the server is simply not up to the task? I smell a rat....

[Pigumon]

100% proof positive of the effects of piracy.

Just wish karma was real, pirates deserve it.

Sharing is Caring... But taking other people's creative works, making duplicates, giving away for free to the point that the creators are no longer able to justify all the work they put into the work, is not sharing, and therefore, not caring.

[thekev]

Originally Posted by dasmb

Flat rate apps with heavy on-line features are doomed from jump. You can't run "forever" off ANY amount of money, let alone $5 a download. It's entirely likely they picked up a few hundred thousand more users than they had planned for due to piracy, but these users may have shown up through legitimate channels as well -- what then? Well, you'd have a bit more money in the pipeline to apportion new servers, but to me it seems this is an infrastructure problem they would have run into regardless.

We don't know their startup budget, but that kind of growth would have potentially provided funds required to upgrade hardware. I doubt they would have seen these numbers for a while at $5/download compared to 0.

[ScottishCaptain]

Reading this thread makes my head spin.

1) Piracy is not theft
2) Piracy can, however, enable theft of services
3) The developer took down the server due to theft of services (see #2)

If you pirate an app that has no online features, you're not depriving anyone of anything. Period. That doesn't mean that piracy is right, because ethically, it isn't. You should support people who write applications that you enjoy, because they deserve a few bucks if you find their stuff useful or entertaining.

If you pirate an app and proceed to utilize the online features in an unauthorized manner (given that you haven't paid for the right to access those features), then you are STEALING THE SERVICE.

Bandwidth is not free. Hosting is not free. CPU cycles are not free. If you're using those up on someone else's box without their permission (their permission being your legitimate purchase of their app), then you're a ****ing thief. End of story.

Software piracy and stealing a service are two completely different things, even though the word "piracy" can be bent around either (since it's common to call illegal satellite TV receivers "pirated" and/or piracy, but that's still a theft of service).

What happened to these guys truly sucks, but it kinda sounds like they simply assumed this wouldn't happen when they should have seen it coming. Most of the projects I've worked on that had a multiplayer component were for free games where the game cost was recuperated by an IAP for whatever the price was to be originally. You have to purchase the IAP before you can connect to the multiplayer server, because the IAP gives you a few tidbits that one can use to securely identify a legitimate player when connecting to the remote server.

It sucks that developers have to go through that kind of hoop jumping, but if you want to keep the pirates off your MP servers then IAP is basically the only way to positively identify and record legitimate players. I'm kind of surprised these guys released the game like that given that they seem to have plenty of experience building online games. I've gotta raise an eyebrow at the fact that they blatantly assumed all iOS users are nice people with sane ethics.

-SC

[XboxMySocks]

Originally Posted by mrsir2009

Then why don't you go down to the store, shoplift a pair of headphones, then if you like them go back and pay for them, or if you don't chuck them out?

Because stealing headphones and throwing them out is an entirely different concept than having a replicated string of 0's and 1's on your device and trashing them. How the hell are you supposed to know if you like something without trying it? How are you supposed to know that something is worth your hard earned money without trying it out? By your (flawed) logic, buying a pair of headphones, then realising you don't like them and returning it simply because of that reason is just as bad. Hell it's worse, because end result is that if you follow his logic, the company gets their money. If you return it, the company doesn't.

[samdev]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

Hunted Cow, the team behind the title Battle Dungeon, was forced to shut down its game this afternoon because the servers could not handle the load created by significant numbers of pirated copies of the game.

If they're allowing pirates to use their servers, then their online system is flawed. They should be using a login system, like what many MMOs do. Players should be required to create login accounts.

They shouldn't allow people to use their servers simply because the app is installed on their device.
That's just plain wreckless.

[WatchTheThrone]

Originally Posted by mrsir2009

Then why don't you go down to the store, shoplift a pair of headphones, then if you like them go back and pay for them, or if you don't chuck them out?

I can go to a store,buy something, and if I don't like it I have my receipt and return it. The same goes with apps....wait a second YOU CAN'T!!!!
So if I buy a 5 dollar app and it sucks I'm screwed out of 5 bucks with no way to get my money back. That's why (some) people resort to
downloading a cracked ipa to test it out.
I think Apple should create a trial period on all apps because sometimes the "lite" versions don't come with the original apps full features!!

[Snowy_River]

Originally Posted by flameproof

To add to the initial quote, what I found peculiar: If they know that pirates call their server means that they are able to identify the pirates. If they are able to identify them it would be very easy to block them. Could it be that the server is simply not up to the task? I smell a rat....

As many others have pointed out, this is a false conclusion. That they can that there are pirates is different than being able to tell who the pirates are.

Simply put, if you sell 500 copies of your app, but your server registers 1500 unique users logging in, you pretty well know that 2/3rds of your users have pirated your app, but which 2/3rds? So, their inability to block the pirates is not grounds for "smelling a rat".

Now, all of that said, it does seem that this is more than an issue of "pirates have forced us to quit". It seems that the pirates demonstrated that there was a flaw in their server software, which came up under the much heavier load that the pirates brought, that they didn't know how to solve.

Now, perhaps they might have been able to find and fix this problem if they were able to have the more gradual ramp up that they would have faced with paying customer purchases, but that's not the situation that confronted them. They would have needed to both deal with fixing their server software and work on a way to make it harder for pirates to steal their app, all while facing falling sales due to server outages from the problem.

Essentially, it sounds like they were faced with needing to rewrite their entire system, both app and server software, all at once, in order to make things work. In the face of that, they chose to pull the plug, and did the remarkably honorable thing and have offered a full refund to anyone who asks for it.

I hardly think there's much "ratty-ness" to their behavior.

[haruhiko]

Originally Posted by WatchTheThrone

I can go to a store,buy something, and if I don't like it I have my receipt and return it. The same goes with apps....wait a second YOU CAN'T!!!!
So if I buy a 5 dollar app and it sucks I'm screwed out of 5 bucks with no way to get my money back. That's why (some) people resort to
downloading a cracked ipa to test it out.
I think Apple should create a trial period on all apps because sometimes the "lite" versions don't come with the original apps full features!!

You can get your money back. Just contact iTunes support. Google iTunes Support and fill out the form and they will refund within 24 hours.

[mrsir2009]

Originally Posted by XboxMySocks

How the hell are you supposed to know if you like something without trying it? How are you supposed to know that something is worth your hard earned money without trying it out?

You're not really risking much - Most apps cost ninety-nine cents, while the more expensive ones cost a shocking four-ninety-nine. If you search up reviews and demos of the game on the Internet, you'd be able to get an idea about wether you'd 'probably' like the game or not. Don't you think one or two dollars is worth a game you'll probably like (after you've purchased a 1k cellphone)?

And at the end of the day it isn't your god given right to steal something in order to 'try it out'. The app is the developer's property, and if you don't agree to their terms (of giving them a dollar for their product) then you don't have the right to use the product, wether it's trying it out or not.

[nia820]

Originally Posted by Plutonius

But people have been saying that they have only been jailbreaking to customize. You don't think they have really been jailbreaking to pirate software ?

well maybe if ios would allow you to change simple things like the icons and default browsers people wouldn't feel the need to jail break. don't put piracy on those who jail break their ios devices.

[Switchback666]

Originally Posted by haruhiko

You can get your money back. Just contact iTunes support. Google iTunes Support and fill out the form and they will refund within 24 hours.

Thanks mate ! Totally forgot about it wasted a couple of bucks last week; i only use the giftcards atm, do they refund credits also ?

[thewitt]

Originally Posted by labars

People, just because you write in a forum that piracy is theft does not make it so. Piracy is piracy, there is no connection to thievery.

I created the product and I sell it. It's my intellectual property.

Did you purchase your copy?

No? Then you came by it illegally, because the only legal way for you to receive a copy is to purchase it from me.

You stole it.

It's actually a very simply concept to grasp.

[carlos33018]

While this is unfortunate, the developer should have implemented a method for checking the authenticity of the client software. It's not rocket science. There is nothing more compelling than trying to access something and having a big red box tell you , " please purchase the app for 4.99".

[Analog Kid]

Originally Posted by theluggage

The key word there is "taking" (i.e. depriving the original owner of it) rather than "copying".

The idea that "copying" could be wrong and intangible things could be owned is a very recent one compared with the concept of stealing - and the modern concept of quick, effortless, cheap copying as something that the average person in the street (rather than a writer or publisher) might do would still have been science fiction to the original authors of copyright law.

As I've already said - its not about whether piracy is wrong, it is about how serious it is and what measures can be justified to prevent it. The word "theft" is being used as an emotive term to justify a disproportionate reaction.

You're living in a semantic world of one, methinks.

Also, that semantic world has a different history than this one. Intellectual property theft is not a new idea-- it's a concept that dates back hundreds of years. Protection of intellectual property is mentioned in the US constitution, and it certainly didn't originate there. You can redefine words how ever you choose, but you're going to have a hard time keeping a conversation.

Regarind the seriousness of the crime: they did, in fact, deprive the owner of the value of what they stole. In aggregate, the value of the stolen property is probably somewhat less than the combined purchase price because there may be some number of people unwilling to pay $5 for a game, but it had value none-the-less.

The kicker though is that they've deprived the owners of far more than the value of their stolen property. They've deprived them of the value of all the property sold to date as the refunds go out. Further, they've deprived the legitimate buyers of the surplus value they would have received beyond the purchase price, the time they've invested in the product in anticipation of future value and the opportunity to have invested their purchase price elsewhere.

The mistake you're making is assuming you can only steal atoms. Even when a car is stolen, we register the loss in dollars, not pounds. If I steal an iPad from the Apple Store, the value of the theft I will be charged with includes the labor, design, and energy that went into it as well as the raw physical materials. If I found your bank login and transferred your life savings to my account, you'd certainly call the police. Those bits in the bank computer are equally, and I'm not even copying anything-- just moving a few electrons a few nanometers one way or another, flipping magnetic polarity on a platter somewhere.

So yes, stealing different things have different magnitudes of ill effect, just like it matters which pound of flesh you choose to excise. To argue that stealing enough copies of a game to shutdown a company isn't theft, though, is just wrong.

[Daveoc64]

Originally Posted by Pigumon

100% proof positive of the effects of piracy.

It's pretty weak proof. The vast majority of games don't work on this principle of having servers to support.

Typically games like this have a subscription that's harder to "pirate".

I'm not condoning piracy or anything, but I do think that content producers vastly overvalue the amount they are losing from piracy.

[quaternio]

Originally Posted by haruhiko

As much as I hate people pirating things, I think this developer simply don't know how to control their online system. They may well require customers to create a log-in and set up their own payment system, or require in-app purchase for online functionalities. There are always thieves, especially for softwares. Don't blame the thieves. Blame your security system. I'm sure in Android there must be 10 times more pirates than in iOS given the difficulty in jailbreaking newer iOS devices. Then why are there some Android developers still afloat? People are cheap and they will steal your thing if it's very easy to do so. It's life.

Uh, no. Blaming the victim because they're "asking for it" is pure crap. One would be wise to protect their self, but it is still 100% the thief's fault.

[Brian Y]

Originally Posted by Analog Kid

Regarind the seriousness of the crime: they did, in fact, deprive the owner of the value of what they stole. In aggregate, the value of the stolen property is probably somewhat less than the combined purchase price because there may be some number of people unwilling to pay $5 for a game, but it had value none-the-less.

The kicker though is that they've deprived the owners of far more than the value of their stolen property. They've deprived them of the value of all the property sold to date as the refunds go out. Further, they've deprived the legitimate buyers of the surplus value they would have received beyond the purchase price, the time they've invested in the product in anticipation of future value and the opportunity to have invested their purchase price elsewhere.

That's not how it works, legally. You can't be deprived of something you never had.

The developer never had the value of the app. It might be classed as a "potential sale", but "potential sales" have no value legally. In this case, the only thing the developer has been deprived of, in a legal sense, is server bandwidth and resources.

[XboxMySocks]

Originally Posted by mrsir2009

You're not really risking much - Most apps cost ninety-nine cents, while the more expensive ones cost a shocking four-ninety-nine. If you search up reviews and demos of the game on the Internet, you'd be able to get an idea about wether you'd 'probably' like the game or not. Don't you think one or two dollars is worth a game you'll probably like (after you've purchased a 1k cellphone)?

And at the end of the day it isn't your god given right to steal something in order to 'try it out'. The app is the developer's property, and if you don't agree to their terms (of giving them a dollar for their product) then you don't have the right to use the product, wether it's trying it out or not.

The funny part is you're arguing with a person who doesn't even do this. Just someone who sees why it is done.

Let me put it in perspective.
My father (a law enforcement officer) has downloaded over 3,000 apps for his iPad. Out of those, he has decided he liked, kept, and if applicable (generally), paid for around a hundred of them. (Already he's dropped $100 for apps).

ROUGLY out of those, 2500 are paid apps. So right there, at bare minimum, we have $2,500. If we include say, 125 of those cost $4.99 (or more) we get a figure of $3,000. Significantly more than "One or two dollars".

See where I am coming from here?

You also confused the definition of "Steal". See, piracy isn't theft. It's replication. It can become theft of services (as in this case, which, yes I do not agree with), but the actual act of piracy in and of itself is not theft simply by definition. You cannot steal something that is never removed from it's original location.

I disagree with your argument that it is unethical (and even in most places, unlawful). Just because it is against the law doesn't mean it's unethical.

[phr0ze]

Originally Posted by chrono1081

Nice try but these were available on Valves website for download. All kinds of icons, wallpapers, even ringtones.

Ok so you have a license to redistribute Valve's work, Highly unlikely.

They also fall under "fair use" since I am not making money off of it.

Stealing games however does not fall under fair use as they are something that is charged for.

LOL are we justifying another type of theft. Free to Use since you are not making money off it? Sounds like what the pirates say.

Section 107 of the Copyright Act states:

the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

Your use on a forum as an avatar for self/brand recognition doesn't fall under that definition. While I'll trust that the image was on Valves site and if you say they included words that specifically say you may redistribute the work, then fine. There doesn't appear to be anything like that now. There are videos, screen shots, and music. But I don't see anything that says you can redistribute the copyrighted work. Infact I see a 'All rights reserved' statement at the bottom of the page.