Anecdotally, I’ve heard similar – piracy on Android is rife.
Miles Jacobson, the guy behind the Football Manager Handheld series, has spoken out on Twitter about his latest game and how it’s been hit with unbelievable levels of piracy.
First up though, the good news. About two hours ago Jacobson announced that the game had entered into the “between 10k and 50k” sales band. “Thank you very much to those who bought it,” he said. “However, seeing as people pleaded with us to get FMH onto Android, I’m amazed at how pirated it is,” he continued. “Around 9:1. Dicks.”
“And you wonder why developers are so reticent to make games for Android? The pirates could kill it for everyone. Sigh,” he added.
The ratio for piracy on the PC version was 5:1, apparently, with FM2009.
“The problem is much worse on Android,” he said, when asked about the iPhone. “You need to jailbreak iOS,” he said. “Most don’t.” It doesn’t look like it’s been a particularly good day for the developer. “Piracy on Android is the worst I’ve seen in my career in games,” he said.
These figures aren’t unique to this game, either. A quick Google suggests that around about 90% is the going rate in some cases.
The game costs £6.99.
Mike
If people don’t want to pay £6.99 for a game such as this then please GTFO
Peter Rushton
You sir are an idiot!
Mike
And how did you figure that out?
Vaile23
think you need to clarify what you meant by your earlier statement
Mike
What I said – if people can’t afford it then they shouldn’t pirate it. A 9:1 ratio is disgusting. If I released an app and it was being pirated 9 times more than what people were paying for it I’d probably just pull the app. The GTFO part was a joke I may add.
Clearly this makes me an idiot to Mr Rushton….
freezebug2
Peter, you have totally misinterpreted what Mike said in his comments. He has just stated anyone that’s not willing to pay the low asking price for a quality game such as FM and would rather pirate it instead can Fuck Off….or as Mike put it “Get The Fuck Out”
Mike
Thanks freeze, always got my back ;) Looks like even an old veteran like me is still prone to being called am idiot from time to time :P
freezebug2
No worries mate, but I can see how easily it could have been misinterpreted by someone who doesn’t know you from the olden days when it was all fields :P
InternationalGamer
Honestly, I also misunderstood what Mike said at first, took me a couple of seconds to figure out what he had really meant.
Mike
At least you got there in the end ;)
Mike
Back in my day there was a church, a few houses and fields – now all of you whippersnappers are here ruining the place ;)
The Lone Steven
For the love of Sheogorath! STOP TELLING US ABOUT THOSE DAYS! Every time i walk through the mods club, you are always going on about them. :P
Nickboss1
Wow 9:1 thats more then the psp.
teflon
Piracy on iOS is pretty high too, though. Id love to see some stats on that.
bmg_123
Yeah, especially considering the ease of which iOS devices are jailbroken and the fact that the net is also pretty affluent with them…
teflon
It’s still a hurdle to surpass, no matter how simple it is to do. There’s always an element of risk to it.
tantalus_blank
@Tef
Plus the iPhone’s target market is the kind of people who have no idea about that kind of thing
Awayze
Saurik (Cydia’s owner) said that only like 2% of the iPhone’s worldwide are jailbroken and have accessed Cydia since 2008.
As newer iPhone’s come out, people JB less as Apple adds stuff to iOS so need to JB and hackers have trouble finding exploits in the baseband and bootloader ever since GeoHot left the iPhone JB community, it’s been pretty much dead.
cc_star
Remember long ago someone released some stats which were 10:1 in favour of piracy, but as the userbase grew, most likely with less technically adept people the percentages have probably fallen.
Dazbobaby
A friend of mine is an iOS dev and he’s giving his next game away for free, but creating in-app purchases. No getting around that pirates!
Mike
It’s happening more and more with apps and if it helps generate the devs revenue then so be it!
beeje13
You can pirate in app purchases, don’t have any apple device but I know it can be done, but not easy and only on some games I think.
bunimomike
You also have a culture of people willing to part with money more easily for the periphery and software. It’s why iOS is such a lucrative platform per capita but Android will surely catch up one day.
colmshan1990
That is an utter disgrace.
Paranoimia
I’d imagine the price is part of the problem.
I’m not saying it’s not plenty cheap enough, I’m not saying the game isn’t worth it, and I’m definitely not saying that I agree with the pirating of the game, because I don’t.
But with so many other games being £1 or less, you once again get people thinking “wow, that’s too expensive – I’ll pirate it.”
Sadly, it doesn’t matter how low you price something, if people can get it for free, they will.
HoboCastro
I’ve never seen the point in pirating Android software personally. Then again, I don’t play games on mine. Or buy Apps for that matter, enough free ones. That and it’s ludicrous that you can only buy using a Credit Card on Google.
skibadee
hoping goggle star a card system.
Manorhowze
Football Manager Handheld is the only game I have paid for on my Android phone. Up till now I only downloaded the free games/demos off the store but I always wanted a FM game on my phone and once it was finally released I was more than happy to pay for it.
DixNeuf
Wow, that’s pretty bad – makes sense tho as the barrier to entry for pirate Android apps is nearly non-existant.
TheDemocrodile
Ridiculous, the price is perfect for a game like this with such brilliant replay value and depth.
They could learn something from Blackbeards Ghost.
Jakster123x
Wow that’s terrible