Following up with the iPhone Pirate
Here is an update for everyone on Whack ‘em All and the rest of the conversation I had with the pirate.
To date, we have had ~750 sales and have ~1500 users of Whack ‘em All. That means that 50% of our users are playing pirated versions of the game. We have averaged about 20 downloads per day since the pirating story broke. Prior to that, we were averaging about 10 downloads per day.
We released the free version of Whack ‘em All yesterday in response to all the great feedback we got from everyone. We feel that 90% of the concerns raised on both sides of the piracy issue will be addressed with this new, free version. We’re using advertisements in the free version by AdMob to fund future development and are hopeful this will offset the loss of revenue created by offering the game for free instead of 99 cents.
We also received the following response from Apple on January 15th:
“Please know we have escalated your query to our internal teams for review.”
Here is the rest of the conversation I had with most_uniQue (the developer/cracker/pirate who originally pirated Whack ‘em All).
James:
I just thought you might like to know that after all the feedback we’ve gotten from you and all the others, we’re going to be releasing a free version of our game (fully functional) with ads hopefully next week. Hopefully the ads will work in Cydia. It’s been a crazy week for us! Is there anything you’d like to say if I do a
follow up blog post?
most_uniQue:
People love to hate me ^^ But that just means they don’t understand.
I’m glad you try to work things out properly and i hope you get good revenue from your ads.
But the thing we all would like to know did this adventure boost the sale of Whack’em All?
James:
It did! 
But not by much 
We had about 180 sales before this adventure and have about 500 now. We also got about $75 in donations.
There are a bunch of people that are curious if you were contacted by Apple, lawyers or the Man in general because of this. I didn’t set anyone after you, but am curious as well if there has been any response because of this other than from pissed off developers. I’m finding it hard to believe that Apple hasn’t addressed this at all, even with all of the press its getting..
CNET front page today: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10142318-83.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0
most_uniQue:
I hope Apple handles this the right way and fixes THEIR problem. Forcing people to buy blindly/without testing is the crime here. And well i wouldn’t be suprised if Apple would send me an email but i really don’t think it should say anything else than “Thank you for bringing this problem better to our attention and now we have realized to fix it” ;D
But if you look at this more closely you’ll see that i’m actually not a threath to Apple anyway. I’ve cracked 35 apps and there are tens of people who still crack and have cracked a lot more than i have. Also what i’ve heard App Store is a goldmine for Apple. So piracy doesn’t seem to hurt them financelly. Cracking $.99 game doesn’t hurt them at all compared to bigger software piratism. One thing is also that the person who created Crackulous was exposed and not even a developer has contacted him.
So Apple coming after me would be just to bury the press i am getting. To silence me. To bury the thruth and their promlems.
I hope you mention at first on your post that this adventure did in fact boost your sales. Also try to mention how many news sites this issue hit. And i do hope Apple will release a press release regarding this matter. Hopefully it’s not ‘most_uniQue wanted dead or alive’
January 21st, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Wow. This story is crazy. By the way James, your link to the CNET article didn’t go anywhere. I applaud how level-headed you have been about this. I think it would be understandable if you flipped out considering you spent your money and time (250 hours) working on this thing just to see it get stolen.
And what this pirate is talking about is absolutely ridiculous. He acts like charging 99 cents for an app is a crime against humanity. It works like this: if a customer chooses to spend a buck it’s on them, no one is forcing them to buy. And this just in: this is how the world works. Try going to the grocery store and picking up a roll of toilet paper out of a package, trying it out for free in the aisle, and then returning it to the shelves because you didn’t like it. Nope, doesn’t work that way. Try before you buy isn’t a God-given consumer right, it’s a sales tactic that is completely optional on the part of the company providing a service.
January 21st, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Thanks Charlie!
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:43 pm
There he goes again…
” I am the hero! Apple has to thank me for the hacking I have done… I am not guilty… kiss my feet and worship me! ” (what a bunch of BS)
What people don’t understand is that yes the App is 99 cents, Apple takes it’s cut and developer are left with pennies on the dollar. Let’s say the lowest paid developer gets paid $20 @ 250 hours = $5k (After $5K in sales is reached then some profit comes in). Sales at under 1K won’t make any profit for anybody. The one losing here is the developer, not the hacker…
I hope the ads system works for you guys and are able to make some real profit…