The iPhone is hailed by many as the free market solution to the "walled gardens" of the DSi and PSP. While the platform is much more open than its console counterparts, it also has the problem of more easily accessible piracy, as evidenced by iPhone developer Smells Like Donkey.
Tap-Fu recently released on the App Store, and according to the game's developer, it was cracked and put on pirate websites within 40 minutes. Over the first week, Smells Like Donkey says that roughly 85% of the high scores submitted were from pirate copies and that none of these pirates ended up purchasing the full version of the game.
The developer noted that they are considering options to combat this trend, including a window popping up to a link to buy the full game, making the game free and charging for DLC, and limiting access to online capabilities for pirates. At the end of the day, Smells Like Donkey is sullen but realistic about the problem.
"Now that all that is said and done, are we really concerned about it? Maybe a bit. We like to think that it’s not us specifically that is losing sales to these people, it’s every developer that is losing sales to these people. The pirates have essentially removed themselves from the iTunes economy and that hurts everyone," reads the post. "How much does it hurt? Probably not a whole lot. There’s probably a few of these people that would have bought our game in the first place so it’s not really a big deal. But as a developer, looking at that high scores chart, it is kind of depressing. Yet we are glad that there are plenty of paying customers out there, and we will do our best to reach them."
