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Android上的非法下载对免费游戏的影响

发布时间:2016-07-22 15:59:12 Tags:,,,,

作者:Davide Coppola

所有人都知道Android上的非法下载行为是一个严重的问题,特别是对于游戏开发者来说。在本文中我将讨论非法下载行为问题对于我最新的手机游戏在Google Play上发行的第一个月的影响。

Android上的非法下载行为

我将谈论的这款游戏名为《Sim Betting Football》。这是一款在2016年6月15日面向Google Play发行的免费游戏。

我们总是很容易认为,因为游戏是免费的所以它不会受到非法下载的影响。不幸的是事实并非如此。Android上的非法下载不仅是针对于付费应用,同时还转向了那些免费内容。

对《Sim Betting Football》产生影响的非法下载类型甚至包括了虚假的应用内部购买。从根本上来看有些应用能够骗过谷歌服务而使用“虚拟的”信用卡让用户可以在游戏和其它应用中的任何IAP中花无数“虚拟”钱。同样还有一些其它系统在非法下载IAP内容,但不管怎样最终结果都是一样的。

用户

在提及非法下载数据前,我们最好先说说这个以游戏用户基础而开始的故事的背景。

就像你在下面表格中所看到的,我们的大多数用户是来自意大利(33.2%),英国(12.7%),埃及(5.2%)和罗马尼亚(4.6%)。

SimBettingFootball-users_by_country(from gamasutra)

SimBettingFootball-users_by_country(from gamasutra)

鉴于《Sim Betting Football》是一款有关足球与博彩的游戏,所以会出现这样的数值并不会让人特别惊讶,特别是在着眼于数值最高的国家时,毕竟这款游戏面向意大利进行了本土化。

IAP

《Sim Betting Football》提供了5种不同级别的IAP,价格是在最便宜的0.72英镑/0.92欧元/0.99美元以及最昂贵的40英镑/51欧元/47美元范围之间。

这些IAP将提供给玩家他们可以在游戏中开启内容并在模拟足球比赛中打赌而使用的虚拟货币。

玩家也可以通过玩游戏或观看视频广告去获取免费虚拟货币,这意味着玩家可以随自己所愿想玩游戏多久就玩多久。

非法下载数据

就像之前所提到的,影响了《Sim Betting Football》的非法下载类型包含了虚假的IAP。

在游戏于Google Play发行的第一个月,游戏中99.8%的IAP遭遇了非法下载。从用户基础来看,2.2%的用户拥有非法下载IAP。

就像上面提到的,游戏提供了5种不同的IAP。而正如我们所预料的那样,大多数非法下载IAP都是最昂贵的虚拟货币包(74%)。

而我未曾预料到的是,第二大非法下载IAP竟然是最廉价的内容(17.9%)。或许人们会觉得非法下载一些廉价的东西比较没有愧疚感吧。

SimBettingFootball-pirated_IAPS(from gamasutra)

SimBettingFootball-pirated_IAPS(from gamasutra)

多亏了Google Analytics,我发现大多数非法下载是来自3个国家,即意大利(72/7%),尼日利亚(10.4%)以及美国(6.9%)。它们加在一起便占据了影响《Sim Betting Football》的非法下载总量的90%。

而出现最多非法下载的城市分别是那不勒斯(45%),罗马(18.6%),拉各斯(10.4%)以及圣何塞(6.9%)。它们加载一起便占据了影响《Sim Betting Football》的非法下载总量的81%。

SimBettingFootball-piracy_by_country(from gamasutra)

SimBettingFootball-piracy_by_country(from gamasutra)

看到这样的数值真的很让人失望,因为尽管我在伦敦待的时间占据了我这辈子的1/4时间,但是那不勒斯却是我的故乡。那是我出生并长大的地方。所以看到这样的结果我更加难以接受。

SimBettingFootball-piracy_by_city(from gamasutra)

SimBettingFootball-piracy_by_city(from gamasutra)

打击非法下载

那么我们是否能够阻止这种非法下载行为呢?

很难真的做到这点,至少不可能将其完全遏制住,但是我们却有可能让非法下载者更难窃取我们的内容并尽可能地减少非法下载的出现。

我之所以未投入资源去打击非法下载是因为我是独立致力于游戏开发。我所拥有的时间和资源都是有限的。所以比起翻看那些从未真正在我的游戏中花钱的人,现在的我更希望专注于游戏的新功能和完善中。

给非法下载者的留言

我并不是要为非法下载者辩护,但我能理解有时候这便是你们获取想要的内容的唯一方法。

有时候我也会希望你们能够理解Vindicta Games并不像King或Supercell等大公司,非法下载可能意味着我将终止游戏而你可能将不能再得到更多《Sim Betting Football》的内容。

我会因为难以支付每张我想要的专辑而选择在YouTube上听歌,但是却不会使用任何屏蔽器,反而我会经常去各种演奏会并购买相关产品、我同样也会在自己的社交网站上分享自己喜欢的乐队为他们吸收更多粉丝。

长话短说就是,当你在免费获得某些内容的同时我也可以你们能够想办法去帮助创造者。

当然了我并不是打算让你前来听我唱歌或来我这购买东西。

如果你在玩《Sim Betting Football》并喜欢它,你便可以继续免费支持这款游戏。例如你可以在玩游戏的同时观看视频广告,并与你的朋友或在社交网站上帮我宣传这款游戏。

本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转发,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

How Android piracy is affecting a free game

by Davide Coppola

Everybody knows Android piracy is a real issue, especially for game developers. In this post I’m going to discuss the piracy which affected my latest mobile project during its first month on Google Play, the official Android store.

Android piracy

The game I’m going to talk you about in this post is called Sim Betting Football. It is a free Android game available for download on Google Play since the 15th of June 2016.

It’s easy to think that because the game is free it can’t be affected by piracy. Unfortunately that’s not the case. Android piracy doesn’t stop to illegally downloading paid apps, but it goes way beyond that especially with users running custom Android versions.

The type of piracy which affects Sim Betting Football involves fake In App Purchases. Basically some apps can trick Google services to use a “virtual” credit card allowing users to spend infinite “virtual” money on any IAP in games and other apps. There are also other systems to pirate IAPs, but despite the way they work the end result is the same.

The users

Before talking about piracy numbers, it’s probably better adding some context to this story starting with the game’s userbase.

As you can see in the chart below, most of our users are from Italy (33.2%), the UK (12.7%) , Egypt (5.2%) and Romania (4.6%).

Considering Sim Betting Football is a game about football and gambling, those numbers are not particularly surprising, especially when looking at the top country. After all the game is also localised in Italian.

The IAPs

At the time of writing Sim Betting Football offers 5 different IAPs ranging from £0.72/0.92€/$0.99 for the cheapest to £40/51€/$47 for the most expensive one.

These IAPs give gamers virtual coins they can spend within the game to unlock content or gamble on the simulated football matches (core gameplay).

Gamers can also get free virtual coins by simply playing the game or watching video ads, which means gamers can play the full game for free as long as they want.

Piracy stats

As anticipated earlier, the type of piracy affecting Sim Betting Football involves fake IAPs.

During the first month on Google Play 99.8% of all IAPs have been pirated or obtained without paying any money. In terms of userbase, 2.2% of the users have pirated IAPs.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the game offers 5 different IAPs. As expected, the most pirated IAP is the most expensive virtual coins pack (74%).

Something I was not expecting is that the second most pirated IAP is the cheapest one (17.9%). Maybe people feel less guilty for pirating something cheap.

Thanks to Google Analytics I found out that most of the piracy comes from 3 countries: Italy (72.7%), Nigeria (10.4%) and the USA (6.9%). Together they cover 90% of the total piracy affecting the game.

It is also possible to know that the cities which generate most piracy are Naples (45%), Rome (18.6%), Lagos (10.4%) and San Jose (6.9%). Together they cover almost 81% of the total piracy affecting Sim Betting Football.

This is particularly disappointing, because despite the fact I’ve now been living in London a quarter of my life, Naples is my hometown. The place were I was born and raised. This is making things much worse to accept.

Fighting piracy

Would it be possible to fight piracy and to stop this?

Not really, at least not completely, but it would be possible to make things harder for pirates and to reduce those numbers quite a lot.

The reason why I am not dedicating resources to fight piracy is that I am the only developer working on this game. My time and resources are limited. For now I prefer to focus on new features and fixes rather than to fight a battle against people who would probably never spend money anyway.

A message to pirates

I don’t justify piracy, but I do understand how sometimes it can be the only way to get what you want.

At the same time I hope you’ll understand that Vindicta Games is not King or Supercell and that piracy means game over for me and no more Sim Betting Football for you.

I listen to a lot of music from Youtube because I can’t afford to pay for every single album I wanted, but at the same time I do not use ad-blockers and I regularly go to gigs and buy merchandising. Quite often I also share videos of my favourite bands on social networks to try to give them some extra visibility.

Long story short, you can get stuff for free and help creators at the same time.

Obviously I am not asking you to come to see me singing (you would not like that) or to buy anything.

If you are playing and enjoying Sim Betting Football you can still support the game for free. For example you can watch video ads while playing the game and spread the word with your friends and on social networks. Simply follow and share any of the social pages of the game like Facebook, Google+, Instagram or Twitter and the link to Google Play to download the game.(source:Gamasutra

 


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