Developer’s Strategy for Dealing with App Pirates Suggests Appeasement Could Work

iPhone game developers must contend with an arguably small but extremely dedicated and fast-moving population of app pirates on the voyage to the Land of iPhone App riches, according to iCombat developer Miguel Sanchez-Grice, who suggests giving away free “lite” versions of an app could be the most effective strategy for the smaller developer.

Sanchez-Grice ‘s shooting tank game was immediately popular on the App Store thanks to coverage in gaming and gadgetry venues, which came about because of its resemblance to Combat for Atari and Wii Tanks games. The developer said he considered the nature of the pirate challenge prior to launching his 99¢ app. and while he chose a path very civilly inviting pirates to support his work by buying a legit copy of the app after reaching level 5 of the 20 level game, he understood he could only hope to “maybe convert a tiny fraction of those users into sales.”

His experience with the pirate community showed hacked versions of his game in use at an astounding ratio of more than 5:1 over paid apps in the first week of release, with cracked apps being posted to Twitter within 30 minutes of the official game going live on the App Store.

“The goal behind launching an app isn’t thwarting pirates, it is getting users and generating sales,” Sanchez-Grice  wrote, suggesting game developers “leave the ‘making a point’ anti-piracy measures to the big guys.” With competition so fierce for getting noticed in the App store, he concluded “any attention is good attention.”

In the end, the first-time developer concluded the best strategy for dealing with pirates may be creating a free “Lite” version to give away alongside a more fully functional and fulfilling paid version.

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“I think the best solution is to create a version akin to a lite version of the app for pirates. It is no good to shut off access to your app completely, but it also doesn’t get you very far to give away the core value you are offering to the paying user.”

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