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开发者称若无力对抗就要巧用盗版现象

发布时间:2013-07-25 14:56:21 Tags:,,,

作者:Carter Dotson

盗版仍然是手机应用领域的一大难题。

这个问题再次尖锐起来。紧接着,Lucky Frame揭露,《Gentlemen》发布Android版的几天后,该游戏已经在Google Play出售了8份。

然而,事实上在他们的Android设备上使用这个名称的游戏远不止这8份。根据该工作室,该游戏已经在谷歌的官网上被盗版了2462次,相当惊人的数字。

也就是说,盗版率达到99.68%。

通过免费模式抑制盗版

尽管可以通过两种办法解决盗版问题,但都是治标不治本——正像历史老师告诉我们的那样,盗版的源头永远不会消失。人们自软磁盘时代起就开始盗版软件了。虽然不能消灭盗版,但至少有很多机会可以抑制盗版。

第一个解决办法?采用免费模式,这样盗版就不成问题了。大多数开发者转而采有这种模式,也许是他们相信它对于抑制盗版大有帮助。

5月份,位于圣路易斯的工作室Butterscotch Shenanigans出售了1538份Android游戏《Towelfight 2》,但盗版数却高达34091。

这个盗版比例是22:1。相比之下,iOS游戏1:1的盗版比例实在算不了什么。

towelfight2(from pocketgamer)

towelfight2(from pocketgamer)

(《Towelfight 2: The Monocle of Destiny》)

尽管如此,这个工作室的下一款游戏《Quadropus Rampage》要怎么办?为了避免被盗版而采用免费模式。

到目前为止,对于这个工作室,免费模式还有有效的。工作室的联合创始人Sam Coster表示:“《Quadropus Rampage》的收益高多了,我们能够建立联系的玩家也多多了。”

“游戏发布后,我们的Twitter访问量增加了7倍,Facebook增加了30倍,我们的新闻报道多了8倍。”

盗版《Towelfight 2》是否帮助了《Quadropus Rampage》?Coster表示怀疑。

“在Android上,我们从分析中可以看出,把盗版算进去后,既玩《Towelfight 2》也玩《Quadropus Rampage》的玩家比例是5%。然而,只有6%的《Towelfight 2》玩家付费了。我们猜,两款游戏都玩的玩家中,大多数是付费的玩家。”

通过顺应市场而不是逆流而行,他的工作室发现了生存之道。免费模式总是有风险,但对于那些厌烦了不花钱就玩他们的游戏的开发者,为什么不采用免费模式呢?

根深蒂固的盗版文化

另外还是那句话,为什么不顺应潮流呢?对于付费应用,被盗版是必然的。自从App Store和Android Market出现,盗版就成了一个显然无法彻底解决的问题。

确实,也许是因为有许多盗版者都逃过了法律的治裁,即使法律对他们仍有威慑作用。

Crescent Moon Games公司的Josh Presseisen认为,根据他自己的经验,中国玩家和俄罗斯玩家要对盗版问题“负90%的责任。”

这个说话是有根据的。中国和俄罗斯都有严重的盗版问题,都长期入围联合国贸易代表办公室列出的盗版问题严重国家名单。

根据路透社,俄罗斯连续上榜17年,而中国是9年。

为什么这两个国家有这么严重的盗版问题?部分是它们的文化造成的。据报道,俄罗斯的盗版问题可以追溯到90年代,并且直到今天,仍然在加大打击盗版力度。

中国也一样,是一个文化盗版猖獗的国家。Google Play仍然不支持在中国发布付费应用,亚马逊直到5月才在中国上架付费应用。

盗版的好处之一——测试

盗版问题的形势已经严峻到,甚至连Google Now偶尔也把用户引向发布盗版游戏的网站。如果谷歌都不能取缔自己平台上的盗版,开发者个体就更加无能为力了吧?

Presseisen的建议是,“别费时间想盗版问题了,你做的任何事不过是把用户赶走——就像最近的一件事,把小插件放进适用于越狱版手机的《骇客任务》中。”

确实:这种反盗版的方法只会惹恼用户,特别是会损害合法用户的权益。”

甚至Butterscotch Shenanigans也对《Towelfight 2》稍微尝试了数字版权管理,即在该游戏中嵌入Google Play的许可审核——当玩家在无wifi的飞机上用自己的Nexus 7平板上玩游戏时,这种审核只会发生在个人的游戏中。

然而,该工作室自己的数据表明,这种措施对打击盗版效果甚微。

所以,Presseisen主张以利用盗版来打击盗版。

他的结论是:“盗版至少有一个好处——测试。”

“你仍然可以通过盗版收集到帮助改进游戏的数据。无论是在iOS还是Android平台,你只要专心做你自己想做的游戏就好了。苹果和谷歌自然会对盗版采取官方的镇压办法。盗版是不可能消失的。”

Coster认为,必须改变盗版这种深刻的文化观念:“盗版就是市场的一部分。除非玩家和评论者等人能推出一种更强势的文化,使盗版成为禁忌,否则盗版就会一直存在。

“就这一点,评论者必须严肃地考虑放话——对于一款提供了数小时娱乐价值的高品质游戏,3美元是‘昂贵的’。

“作为玩发者,为了切实打击盗版,你能做的就是尽量与玩家建立人性化联系。”

“我们相信,我们与玩家建立的联系越深厚,他们就越可能看到他们对于我们的生存的重要性。”

“不要把怒火洒向所有玩你的游戏的人,这只会让盗版离间了你和你的玩家。”(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Stateside: Don’t try and fight your pirates – make the most of them

by Carter Dotson

Stop the press. Piracy is still a problem on mobile.

It’s an issue that’s been reignited following an admission by Lucky Frame, which revealed that, a couple of days after the launch of Gentlemen on Android, the game had sold 8 copies on Google Play.

However, in reality there were far more than those 8 taking on the title on their Android devices. According to the studio, the game had been pirated on Google’s OS a whopping 2,462 times.

For those of you without a calculator to hand, that’s a piracy rate of 99.68 percent. Ouch.

Choices

Here’s the thing, though: piracy is a problem that can be solved in one of two ways.

Neither actually solves the root cause of the problem – one which, if history teaches us anything, will probably never fully go away. People have been pirating software since the days of Don’t Copy That Floppy, after all, but there’s every chance that taking certain steps can help.

The first solution? Make piracy a non-factor by going free. It’s the model the majority of industry is shifting to anyway and, if one developer is to be believed, can make a big difference.

As of May, St. Louis-based studio Butterscotch Shenanigans had sold 1,538 copies of its game Towelfight 2 on Android. In comparison, there were also 34,091 pirated copies out there.

That’s a piracy ratio of around 22:1. Compare that to the more tolerable 1:1 ratio the game enjoyed on iOS.

Towelfight 2: The Monocle of Destiny

Nevertheless, what did the studio do for its next game, Quadropus Rampage? Make pirates a non-factor by going free-to-play.

And, so far, its worked for the studio. “[Quadropus Rampage is] bringing in way more revenue and way more players with whom we are able to forge connections,” detailed co-founder Sam Coster

“Our Twitter following has multiplied seven times since launch, our Facebook group thirty times, and our newsletter eight times.”

Did the Towelfight 2 pirates help Quadropus Rampage? Coster has his doubts.

“On Android, we can see from our analytics that the cross-over between Quadropus Rampage and Towelfight 2 players is about 5 percent when you include the pirates. However, only 6 percent of Towelfight 2 users actually paid to play it. Our guess is that those who paid are more likely to make up the bulk of that cross-over group.”

By adapting to the market instead of swimming against the current, his studio is finding a way to survive. Free-to-play is always a risk, but for those tired of people not paying to play their game, why not make it a non-factor?

Free to act

But then again, why not just go with the current? Piracy is an inevitability for premium apps. It’s been a problem since both the App Store and Android Market launched and it’s clearly not going away.

Indeed, it may be the case that many pirates are simply out of reach of the law, even if the forces existed to take them down.

Josh Presseisen of Crescent Moon Games believes that, based on his own experience, gamers in China and Russia “account for 90 percent of all [pirated] downloads.”

There’s basis to this. China and Russia both have deep-seated piracy problems, and both are long-standing members of the Office of the United States Trade Representative’s list of countries that are havens for piracy.

According to Reuters, Russia’s been mentioned for 17 years straight, China for 9 years.

Why do these countries have such a piracy problem? Part of it is cultural. There are reports that Russia’s piracy problems stretches right back to the 1990s and, even to this day, enforcement is on the rise in order to tackle the issue.

China, too, has a cultural piracy problem, but also practical ones too. Google Play still doesn’t support paid apps in China and Amazon only set up shop in May.

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3

The piracy problem is so ridiculously deep that even Google Now points users towards sites pushing pirated copies of games on occasion. If Google can’t clamp down on piracy on its own platform, why would individual developers be able to crack it?

Presseisen’s advice? “Don’t spend time thinking about pirates and pirating,” he told us. “Anything you do is going to piss them off – like the recent firing locks that were put in Deus Ex for jailbroken phones.”

It’s true: anti-piracy methods such as that will just anger users, especially as they wind up harming legitimate users.

Even Butterscotch Shenanigans tried a light form of DRM, building in Google Play license checks on Towelfight 2 – checks that impacted me personally when I tried to play the game on my Nexus 7 on an airplane without wifi.

Yet, the studio’s own stats suggest such a measure had little impact on the pirates.

Instead of fighting the pirates, Presseisen advocates making lemonade out of stolen lemons.

“At least [pirates] are still good for one thing – testing,” he concluded.

“You can still gather data to help improve the game, even in pirated copies. This goes for iOS and Android – focus on making on making the game that you want to make. Until there is more of an official crackdown by Apple and Google, things are unlikely to change.”

Coster agrees that a deep cultural change needs to happen: “It is a fact of life in our market. Until there’s a larger cultural push by players and reviewers alike to make it more taboo it will persist.

“On that note, reviewers need to seriously consider the printing of lines that suggest that $3 is ‘pricey’ for a quality game that delivers hours of entertainment.

“As a developer, the only thing you can really do to safeguard against it is to connect with your players as humanly as possible.

“It’s our belief that the more connected we are to our fanbase, the more likely they are to see that we are dependent on them for our livelihood and to respond in kind.

“Don’t let the pirates disconnect you from your fans by kindling in you a deep resentment toward anyone who plays your games.”(source:pocketgamer)


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