I've seen a bunch of articles like this but they never explain what is really going on...where are these copies coming from? Where are they being hosted, how are they being spread? Are games is some cases being reverse engineered? If the industry is to help we have to understand what is going on, not just that it is a big problem.

I didnt believe you could play Pirated games on Iphone. Doesnt it require you to hack the firmware? If so cant apple make it so taht Iphones with hacked Firmware are unable to make or receive calls. That would be one way of stopping the Piracy

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the feedback, it's certainly something we're planning to dig into. iPhone games are freely available on torrent trackers (just like pirated music/films/software), as well as hosted on sites like Rapidshare with the private download URLs swapped on piracy forums and sites. A Google search turns up plenty of links on the torrent side of things.

What typically happens is within 30-45 minutes of a big game going live on the App Store, someone has downloaded it, hacked it, and made it available online. And yes to Darren (comment two), you need a jailbroken iPhone to run these hacked games - but there are millions of those in circulation.

Can't apple ban these so called Jailbroken Iphones from making calls etc surely ones plugged into ITunes they can be checked to see if they are hacked and the serial number then blocked.

One of the biggest problems is developers and hardware makers are on opposite sides of the table when it comes to piracy. A thriving piracy market helps sell hardware - as long as it's not so large as to completely sink ALL the developers. (Even hardware piracy in many cases helps them sell hardware too.) With both Apple and Nokia having app stores, things may change a little. Nokia's intent to use OVI as a tool to sell hardware seems pretty clear. I'd say it's the same for Apple based on the PR they release about their app store. So anti-piracy is way down the list of concerns. Each of these devices has a software-accessible unique serial number and a single owner. What could be more perfect for piracy countermeasures?

That's what I don't get about developers, they often mention they have ways of 'tracking' or at least 'checking' their numbers but they don't seem to be able to use the same system as a 'lock out'; granted there are different mechanisms at play doing either/or, but the fact they *can* check numbers also means there *is* the ability to require some sort of authentication *before* being able to play... even if that means a phone call instead of using wireless Internet comms (phone dependant).

i would be willing to bet a good deal that me as a jailbreaker have spent more in the appstore than those who do not jailbreak. its not like apple is "allowing" folks to jailbreak. at the same time, there are solutions far better than "preventing jailbreakers from making calls". the simple minds in the comments are laughable. as the article suggests, better encryption for the ipa's so that the drm isnt cracked is the most viable and cheapest option.

having a great deal of knowledge of this, i would also like to say that the software companies are right. in-app purchases is not the solution to fight piracy. recently i bought an app, home run battle 3d. i enjoyed the app so much, felt it was worth the $6 i paid for it, that i tried to purchase in-app addon for $15. because i had a jailbroken phone it would not allow me to purchase the add-on. i had to "hack" my phone to allow me to make the in-app purchase.

why do i jailbreak? because theres alot apple doesnt allow me to do that the iphone is capable of. running apps in the background, using categories, unrestricting apps for 3g. not to mention video and mms capability long before it was an option, though it should have been from day one.

another thing. where is the research that says piracy is actually hurting these companies? how do they know the people who downloaded it and played the games for free would have actually paid for it? the truth is, maybe the sales they made were all they would have made if ipa piracy wasnt possible. piracy may not be a good thing, but its far fetched to assume pirates would actually buy things if they had to.

if you actually read fishlabs response in those forums, they actually say the java version of this game that was released for other mobile platforms was more pirated than the iphone version.

What Steve #9 has just said, is typical of the app store and it is something that Apple should have stamped out from day one. It's that old and familiar problem, just because everyone has access to the dev tools, doesn't mean that everyone has the ability to use them.

The app store has a huge percentage of absolute garbage, stuff that should never have been put in a marketplace with quality software. And certainly not allowed to have a price tag on it. People now assume that there is a fairly good chance that what they download will be rubbish, so why should they pay for it? A developer has no more right to charge for sub-standard software than a person has to pirate it, yet Apple have given them licence to do so. I have paid a fair bit on my apps, but I am now wary of anything that is being charged for. 360 indie games are exactly the same, churned out rubbish that they expect people to buy.

Don't get me wrong, as a long term developer, I'm not an advocate of free software, but I absolutely loathe developers who expect peoples money, simply because Apple has allowed them to charge for their apps. Either make something worth the money people pay, or delete the SDK and go do something else.

Or maybe those people pirating your software are simply telling you something, i.e. it's not worth the price you are charging.

If devs really are concerned, get on Apple's back, tell them you want the ability to disable pirated apps, but demand that Apple put in place some QA to stop the cr*p apps going on the store. If enough quality devs get together and threaten to pull out, there might be a chance Apple will listen.

How can you tell what is crap or not? Games like Rez and Katamari did not sell. Reviewers and developers loved them but no publisher could ever make a living with those sales numbers. Other games have good sales but reviewers and critics hate them. i.e. Wii casual sports games. What is the definition of crap and once you decide, are games like Rez & Katamari not going to see the light of day?

I think the point about every pirate download NOT equalling a lost sale is spot on - there's a fierce debate in the music industry about this very point. It doesn't mean piracy is harmless, but it is something to consider when trying to quantify the losses.

Another music industry parallel: the IFPI estimates that 95% of music downloads are illegal. That percentage rings a bell...

There are differences though. You can argue that a big factor in the rise of music piracy was fans being unhappy with the way music was sold to them: £10 CD albums with only two good songs, then DRM'd downloads that you could only play on selected devices. It's only recently that the music industry has really thrown it's weight behind removing restrictions and supporting new models (Spotify, etc)

By contrast, on iPhone you can buy DS-quality games with 20-hours-plus of gameplay, for £3.99 or less. The moral arguments for piracy are a lot shakier... Sorry, that was practically another article!

Simply counting UIDs against purchases sounds simple doesn't it? I have 6 devices that can all access the apps I buy on my iTunes account, and I only need buy an app once.

Yes, there are many jailbreaked phones out there, but the vast majority are not. I do believe that the game developers should be able to sell their games to the regular iphone users. You won't get the "jailbreakers" to pay for content anyway, i e, you won't turn those 95% into paying customers no matter how hard you try.

The numbers are as pointless as ever and perfectly in line with the standard expectation. See 2Dboy's article on World of Goo piracy here: http://2dboy.com/2008/11/13/90/

Pirated copies do not have a 1:1 ratio of lost sales, and the App Store is becoming way overbloated, which is why good games will often not sell well. Apple are too happy quoting their 85,000+ numbers to care.

For now and the future, I don't see any devs having a guaranteed formula for the App Store. It's basically a huge amount of risk, and whether the next title will be a success or not is anyone's guess. It's another "dot.com"-type bubble waiting to burst.

Seriously man, do you even know what the word "torrent" means?

You must be 12. That or your "special"

Yep 100,000 apps and counting , way too many , most will be buried so deep they won't see the light of day.
Its a bubble alright but I don't think it will burst. It will fart as most developers discover they simply cannot make any money without huge investment in promotion and PR outside the app store just to alert people that their app exists.This is the biggest challenge , not piracy. Unless you are extremely lucky or you have big pockets its tough in there and will get a whole lot tougher as 100,000 apps becomes 200,000 apps in 12 months time and so on.

According to Pinch media , there are approximately 4.0 million jailbroken iPhones. About 38%, or around a million and a half of those, have used a pirated application. So a million and a half people are responsible for a 95% piracy rate. Im sorry but these numbers just dont add up.

http://www.topcydiaapps.com/percentage-of-jailbroken-iphone-users-worldwide/

ive a jail broken touch ive never used a pirated piece of software on it. If you wont pay 59p - 5.99 for good entertainment then your a disrespectfull skinflint.

a certain percentage of people with jail broken phones have an extremely HIGH tendency to download a LOT of content. thats probably why in the first place they have these hacked phones.

When our game came out we put it some mild code to prevent trivial piracy which meant our game didn't show up on the hacker sites for 2 days. Once it did, we went from getting 100-200 downloads a day to 1000+ (we track UDIDs as well). However, those numbers fell off after about a week and we were once again getting the majority of our downloads from the App Store.

All of these stats talk about the first few days, or the first week, as being huge piracy percentages. But if you look at the total lifetime of the product it rapidly begins to fade into the minority.

This is because all the torrent tracking sites have RSS feeds and such, so the pirates end up downloading just about everything that looks even remotely interesting. When it's no longer in the "What's New" for the torrent trackers, the downloads rapidly drop off to nothing.

Piracy frustrates me, but at least in our case it's hardly the catastrophe that others seem to be making it out to be.

Ok, firstly most Iphone's are not jackbroken. Those NERD's who jailbreak there phones and hack them up don't pay for games anyways, most are teenagers who pirate everything just for the sake of it.

And yes of course as soon as you launch a new app the first week the kids who hack there phones the 100,000+ that do it grab your game cause its free off the torrent boards or torrent rss feeds and they check it out. Of course a free game vs a $10 game is going to get downloaded more, they'll get it just to check it out.

That same first week you put your phone up at FULL price $9.99 and wait while nobody see's it. And maybe in a few days some people start buying it after seeing it on a game news or review site. So first week sales are going to be VERY low.

Its only after you get some real press behind it, and get listed in the top50 that you get decent sales anyways.

You developers can't complain about Iphone piracy, your apps are on a phone thats locked down about as tight as ANY device you'll ever program for. All other devices (online capable) coming out won't be locked down anywhere nearly as tight, when people get Android's yes alot more will pirate (no bricking risk or jailbreaking needed).

People who do all that risky, jailbreaking, torrents etc, do you really think they pay for apps anyways??? uhhh NOPE!

I spend $5-15 a week on apps, so keep the good apps & games coming.