[CLOSED] Question to Ashley about piracy

I fully agree that pirating C2 software is wrong, and also completely unnecessary (due to C2's extremely affordable price)!

On the flip side, it does show just how popular C2 is becoming, if people want it so badly that they are willing to pirate it!

I think it indicates a very bright future for the company! Watch out all you competitors, Scirra is on it's way up, up, up to the top! And it's a good thing too!!

<img src="smileys/smiley2.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Just for sure.

> The problem there is you will need a license for those platforms as well, and there's really no way to cheat that.

Honestly I'm out of concept. Do you mean that I can not use hacked version of Construct 2 from thepiratebay.sx for build APK/IPA? Even if it is hacked and is downloaded and is successfully installed? <img src="smileys/smiley24.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Or you say the same that I said just in other way? :)

Well I'm not sure how cocoon is doing things currently, but Im pretty sure they are planning on some licensing.

Beyond that you absolutely have to purchase a license to publish to Apple.

Then I haven't even checked to see what is involved with publishing to Android market.

Well I'm not sure how cocoon is doing things currently, but Im pretty sure they are planning on some licensing.

Beyond that you absolutely have to purchase a license to publish to Apple.

Then I haven't even checked to see what is involved with publishing to Android market.Yes but it does not mean you can not use hacked Construct 2 for making Android and iOS games.

On the flip side it does show just how popular C2 is becoming, if people want it so badly that they are willing to pirate it!I wonder because I don't know what to do with privacy in relation to my game engine + level editor + tens of plugins + builder for Android and iOS. I believe it can be profitable, but when I see Construct 2 torrents in the internet I lose my faith.

Can anyone help me with question professionally?

I don't really see the relation between C2 torrents and your possible game release.

It has already been mentioned several times along this topic, "pirates" are people who nevertheless never would have considered buying the product in the first place.

It's also has shown that most people there are willing to buy it mostly to support "honest creators" who visibly bust their asses. And the price of the licenses has been calculated so that, despite any "loss" that might occur from pirates, making C2 is still being profitable and fair to the users.

When you see the creators of hotline miami having their game pirated, and releasing a patch for the cracked version, it really goes on to show that the best way of dealing with piracy is not really bothering about it. What matters is that they want their game to be played, and it goes up making them good advertisement and probably even selling more games in the end.

Also I'm not sure android and iOS are the most pirated markets.

For iOS for example, it requires some jailbroken OS which is not as easily accessible as downloading a torrent and execute a file on computer.

Kyatric,

Pirate is man who have maked game with C2 and have published it on Android and iOS markets without paying 119$ for C2 Personal license.

<font size="3">All other licenses are purchased but C2 Personal license is not.</font>

Relation between C2 torrents and my game engine release is that if C2 can not avoid piracy how will do I?

I can not understand why somebody should pay 119$ if it is possible not to do it?

EDIT: Removed my own post, wasn't appropriate

dimakoles

do you care more about money, or user experience and getting your product out there?

Focus too much on one and you lose sight of the other.

I think construct is handling piracy very well. Not to mention, it has been proven pirating can lead to profit (look at various court cases related to movie pirating). I personally know people who pirated construct to test out the not-free features...they bought it a week later.

Think about this:

Company A is greedy and has a program used by 500 people that is almost impossible to pirate but gives users a bad experience

Company B cares more about usability and has a program that is sometimes pirated and has over 500,000 downloads.

Which one is more known? Which most likely makes more money? Which would you use? Which would you actually buy?

Personally for my apps, I do not do much to prevent piracy. I think of it like this, there are some people who will pirate, and some who will not, and then there is everyone else. Lets say someone pirates my app, they love it but never buy it...They show it to all of their friends and some of them buy it while others pirate it too. Do to me allowing pirating, more people saw my app (which is mostly all I care about).

I can not understand why somebody should pay 119$ if it is possible not to do it?

Well you can do it indeed.

But the moment you try to make money out of the application you make without a legit license, you can be sent to court. And this trial will cost you far more than 119$ (and it won't cost you only money but also public image/perception as being a stealer, so who would buy your product ?).

Anyone who do so would be an idiot law trespasser who's really bad at making a simple calculation.

In my opinion, Piracy is just like the beautiful (wo/)man who is married:

-(s)he is someone you want to care about

but no, you can't, and if you try something, it will be not very effective, and some innocents might get hurt, so, live you life, and don't bother about him/her, there are more interesting things in life

(Aka: worrying of piracy can be a bigger problem than piracy itself, you know, DRM, legit users hurt, steam users qr?king games they bought legally, etc...)

PS:I am not a case of constructophilia or piracyphilia, that was a metaphor

Also, I hope there is not a crazy one who will say something like:

-"everyone pirated once in their life you_should_feel_bad.jpg"

-"If a product is too expensive, it is ok to download it, cause, you know, we can't live without it I-am-a-horse.png"

-"I am a pirate and I am proud, and then I say hurray :lazytownface:"

Piracy is a fact of software development and basically cannot be avoided. Even top companies like Microsoft can't avoid it, so you should be prepared to see piracy of your own games and apps that you release. However usually there are still enough sales to make enough money to keep working from. So while piracy happens and can be frustrating, it doesn't always mean you're ruined.

The main thing with our approach is we want to avoid the paradox of the pirates getting a better product. Typical DRM restrictions might involve legitimate customers having to always be online, or only allowing the software to be used on a certain number of computers. This always causes inconveniences for the paying customers. Then the pirates who use the cracked version don't have to deal with those inconveniences, therefore they have a better product. I've heard real cases of this where paying customers eventually turned to cracked copies of the software, simply because the DRM was so restrictive they couldn't actually use it for the job it was intended for.

So we don't implement any kind of restrictive DRM. We also have a good time-unlimited free edition. So there is no reason to pirate to get around restrictions, nor to "try it out", and hopefully it's cheap enough to avoid piracy because it's "too expensive" (although the economic situation in some countries can still make this awkward).

I hope you understand I don't want to go in to too much detail, but usually the cracked copies cannot be upgraded to the latest version of Construct 2. This means genuine customers are still getting a better product: you get the latest features and bug fixes and performance improvements, and the pirates miss out. On top of that many "cracks" we see are actually just a shared license file (usually with a few hundred megabytes of crapware/adware/spyware/viruses). Legitimate customers get to skip the crapware (the digitally signed installer guarantees this). Also note license files contain your personal information which we can link to your payment details, so we can immediately locate the individuals and payment details involved in these "cracks"!

So: don't impede real customers, try to make sure the pirates get a worse product or service, and that's about the best I think anyone can do.

Thanks Ashley. That's a very mature opinion on the subject matter. Try to provide a better product than the what a cracked version provides. To bad more companies don't feel that way :(

Aphrodite

My married life is fantastic. Caring about my wife works well with no innocents getting hurt :D

I agree with Ashley, the software must continue, and be better, the non legal can't have a better product than us in this case

jayderyu : you are married with her, she is not married with another one ^^

I agree with Ashley, the software must continue, and be better, the non legal can't have a better product than us in this case

jayderyu : you are married with her, she is not married with another one ^^

My mistake I misinterpreted :) makes a lot more sense now :)

To make a final point in this question following is the most substantial.

Also note license files contain your personal information which we can link to your payment details, so we can immediately locate the individuals and payment details involved in these "cracks"!

But I can not expand it in real use-case. For example:

1. I make a game with pirated version of C2

2. I export it for PhoneGap

3. I compile APK in Eclipse

4. I publish it on Google Play

5. Ashley download my APK

6. What is next? How Ashley can check am I pirate or not?