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'Gentlemen!', an Android game with 99.7% piracy rate


UndreyVITA

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Three weeks ago my little studio, Lucky Frame, released Gentlemen! for iPad and Android. If you aren’t aware of it, it's a 2-player head-to-head Victorian dueling game for tablets. Two players required, local multiplayer only.

Without a doubt, Gentlemen! was one of the best-reviewed projects we have ever produced. We received a coveted 8/10 on Edge, 4.5 stars on Touch Arcade, and a 9/10 Gold Award on PocketGamer. This was totally brilliant, and we are so proud. It’s interesting to think about why we got such great reviews. Obviously it’s a game that we’re super proud of, and we think it’s amazing, but that’s not always enough to secure great critical acclaim.

Android version:

after three weeks those numbers are now 144 copies sold, 50,030 copies pirated

 

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/YannS...profitable.php

 

 

Copied and pasted from NeoGAF

 

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Wow, poor guys, here's the game on the PlayStore: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.luckyframe.gentlemen

 

The price to me is $4.66, so they got $671 back, but if those pirated copies were legally purchased, they would've gotten $233139.

Edited by UndreyVITA
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The price to me is $4.66, so they got $671 back, but if those pirated copies were legally purchased, they would've gotten $233139.

 

Wow.. This is awful. That being said, people are always going to take things for free if they can - it's up to Google to do everything they can to stop piracy. (disclaimer - I would never pirate games, and didn't pirate any apps when my Android phone actually worked)

 

But still, I guess if any positives can be taken from this it's that maybe indie developers will take note that the mobile market isn't quite as peachy as it appears right now - hopefully they will start to focus their efforts on safer platforms, i.e. consoles.

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It is also why I hate when pro-piracy people are like "the industry is doing fine, it is a multi-billion dollar industry" Well those multi-billions come from games like COD, Skylanders, Mario etc. Same thing like movies sure Avengers took in a lot of money but 4 or 5 profitable films doesn't mean that piracy isn't hurting the industry.

 

In the end if I am not making any money for my hard work I am going to stop doing that hard work. So people can be happy pirating films/games/music etc. but pretty soon (within a decade or so) more and more people are going to just call it quits and then we will lose out on all that wonderful entertainment.

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Can't say much more than what the good Doctor has already said. I've heard tons of "analysts" say that pirating doesn't hurt developers or pirates just pirate games without demos and then buy the game later, but this right here just proves how much bullshit that is. It is pretty disgusting that people would rather screw people who spent the time to develop a game they enjoy instead of parting with a few bucks to help them out and buy it legitimately. I bet they won't be making a sequel. 

 

 

Parker

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Both the main mobile platforms are plagued by piracy, with Android you can simply download and install apps from the internet for free and it will automatically add it to your list of applications on your Google Play account, it doesn't even check to see if the app is stolen, there is no piracy prevention at all. With iOS you can't do it out the box, you have to jailbreak the device and download Cydia, but even that is ridiculously easy to do and can be done in around 30 minutes. Apple can't do anything to stop it either.

Edited by AndroidFox
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That fricken sucks but the reality is people are cheap MOFOs. This in short term they get to play all the "Free" games they want however in the long term that favorite game from that favorite company of your pulls out of the industry it's your damn fault. This kind of crap gives devs and pubs a very good reason to go with DRM even if the DRM in question either messes with your privacy or extreme. I am saying buy the games you like and boycott/avoid the ones you hate. That'll get the devs and pubs to listen to their consumers more.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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