Writing on the company's Facebook page, Madfinger blamed "unbelievably high" rates of piracy for the price drop, saying that "at first we intend to make this game available for as many people as possible - that's why it was for as little as buck."
"However, even for one buck, the piracy rate is soooo giant, that we finally decided to provide Dead Trigger for free"
Dead Pirates
Despite the price drop, the company is adament the game isn't a freemium title, saying that "all players are able to play it without IAP!"
"We stand up for this statement, because all members of our team are playing (and enjoying) DEAD TRIGGER without IAP."
This is not the first time a company has publicly criticised the levels of piracy on Android.
Miles Jacobson from Sports Interactive (Football Manager Handheld) also condemned the platform's poor track record for legal purchases earlier in the year, revealing that the company's debut Android title had a whopping 90 per cent piracy rate.
Know one I know makes IAP purchases on mobile. I've made 2 in my life, 1 was for the map pack for Modern Combat 2 and the other for 3 months sub for Order & Chaos. I will never pay IAP for gold or for buying items.
I think it's fair for devs to charge a few months from release with say substantial content, and I would probably buy that if.
I think game companies are seeing IOS/Android as a bit of easy money at the moment. Either they release games that force you too grind or pay IAP, or they're re releasing old games. I mean I loved playing Max Payne and GTA 3 again, but they seemed kinda lazy. Is it too much too ask for Max Payne models too have there textures sharpened a bit or better menu systems for Touch screens for GTA 3?
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RazJUK |14:31 - 24 July 2012
Know one I know makes IAP purchases on mobile. I've made 2 in my life, 1 was for the map pack for Modern Combat 2 and the other for 3 months sub for Order & Chaos. I will never pay IAP for gold or for buying items.
I think it's fair for devs to charge a few months from release with say substantial content, and I would probably buy that if.
I think game companies are seeing IOS/Android as a bit of easy money at the moment. Either they release games that force you too grind or pay IAP, or they're re releasing old games. I mean I loved playing Max Payne and GTA 3 again, but they seemed kinda lazy. Is it too much too ask for Max Payne models too have there textures sharpened a bit or better menu systems for Touch screens for GTA 3?
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Chivas77 |12:46 - 24 July 2012
Remember in the early AppStore years circa 2009, we were talking about amazing premium games providing a console type experience as being the future of mobile gaming? You know games that cost £9.99 + with console quality gameplay... it's never really happened has it? This goes for both iOS and Android. What has happened is this race to the bottom, £0.69 games/freemium games where the whole objective is collecting coins to buy better items, where games go on forever without a proper story, everything from those Smurfs games to Infinity Blade have copied this model....and it's awful, I would have loved Infinity Blade if it had been a proper RPG, but honestly I felt like such a sucker when I paid for both games
I believe piracy is partly to blame, we do get the odd premium console quality game like Galaxy on Fire 2, Chaos Rings 2, even Football Manager 2012 but so many of the "best" iOS titles these days revolve around paying for in game cash with very basic gameplay, Dead Trigger, apart from the graphics is a very very poor man's Left 4 Dead, it would have been awesome if Madfinger had produced a similar game to that and charge £5.99-£9.99...but the problem is no one would pay for it...so instead we get a £0.69 app with maps the size of a postage stamp and constant attempts at selling in game currency.
It's a sad state of affairs right now, I still buy games for my 4S but in general the standard of mobile games is pretty poor, but the only game I've actually enjoyed and gone "wow" in the last 6-12 months is probably Waking Mars, this includes all the so called AAA titles, and I do believe piracy and this whole race to the bottom pricing strategy is to blame.
I can only think of Square Enix who still stick with premium games at premium prices, and the odd port from Rockstar, everyone else seems to produce very watered down console clones (EA, Gameloft, Madfinger), physics puzzlers at £0.69, or games that revolve around collecting coins and riddled with in app purchases for some in game currency. That's iOS gaming in 2012
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PG BBilson |09:50 - 24 July 2012
"No, what you do is to check if the cracked game is the actual game downloaded properly from Google Play."
Aye, I'm not saying it's the only way, but that's just how it's been interpreted by a lot of developers.
Unless I'm mistaken, a few games have used an independent licence check system in the past to prevent piracy (from as far back as 1.6). Unfortunately, as I found with Hyperdevbox's Lovecatch, that system can occasionally mess up and lock out legal purchasers, too, which is /incredibly/ annoying.
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RazJUK |09:26 - 24 July 2012
Firstly, really how low can people get than to pirate a 69p game. Really stupid and selfish.
Secondly, I hope I will get some sort of I game compensation like free IAP gold or something as I bought this from Google play.
Thirdly, Dead Trigger is typical of the low price/free IAP game on mobile at the moment. Looks & sounds fantastic, plays good, but all it is, is a bunch of small map arenas with objectives and loads of grinding to pay for upgrades. Seriously getting tired of this crap on IOS/ mobiles. Seriously, this year I can count on one hand the amount of games on my IPad or android phone with semblance of story and content (nova 3, Mass effect Infiltration, Harry Potter years 4-7, but these type of games seem few and far between these days).
Luckily for me the Steam summer sale has reminded me of games with content and story like Batman Arkham City and the fantastic Witcher 2.
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Excelcius |03:50 - 24 July 2012
The easier it is to pirate the more people will do it and the more money is lost. The idea that people who steal would never pay for it anyway is ludicrous, people will pay for something if they want it badly enough and can't steal it so easily.
Thieves tend to steal stuff that they can sell, guess what they use the money for ? to buy stuff they can't steal so easily ! you've only gota look at the iOS app sales figures vs Android to see the harder it is to pirate i.e. going through the rigmarole and potential risks of jail breaking on iOS vs selecting ‘accept apps from external sources’ on Android, the less people will do it.
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adampsyreal |03:09 - 24 July 2012
Well, until we can decompile .apk's and remove ads; at least 'those' games will be "free".
*Most Pirates Would Not Purchase The Game Anyway. I doubt as much is "lost" as is thought.
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Excelcius |23:37 - 23 July 2012
I wish Pocket gamer had a thumbs up button for some of these comments.
Ive just been on a certain tech site which also covered this subject and the general consensus amongst the comments, is that its the developers fault for pricing their apps too high, and that complaining about piracy was just a cheap marketing ploy. One commenter suggested that final fantasy was priced too high and therefore by his logic was entitled to steal it and various other comments suggested 69p was a fair price but anything higher was a rip off. I remember paying £64.99 for street fighter 2 on the snes back in the day you didn't here us complaining, now they're moaning about the price of a can of coke.
Personally I don't think Google has any intention of sorting out the issue of piracy, they've built a billion dollar company, by in effect giving other peoples stuff away for free. and they've got an army of people doing their PR for them on various tech sites, who's loyalty is based on the fact Google makes it easy for them to steal other peoples hard work, which is probably why the same people hate Apple for locking down their platform.
Ad supported games is the bottom of the barrel as far as I can see, it basically amounts to selling your game for pennies and unless you have 10 million plus users or your game has a low budget / low production values its not gona pay the bills, the industry can't go any lower so where too next ?
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Axe99 |22:51 - 23 July 2012
It's really sad to see this happening on Android - people complain about closed systems like the consoles all the time, but look what happens when it's open up? Just shows how many humans can't think beyond their narrow self-interest.
In my view, pirates aren't gamers but bottom-feeding scum - gamers support the industry that provides their entertainment by paying the devs that work long hours, often for low pay, that provide it. Pirates work to destroy that industry (just look at what happened to PC gaming - it still hasn't recovered from the wave of piracy from the late 90s onwards).
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PG BBilson |18:30 - 23 July 2012
" but it's still free marketing, and instead of complaining figure out how to monetize those pirates."
Unfortunately, right now that last part has been translated into "game-changing IAPs", which is a problem for those that would prefer to pay up front.
