Comments on: On the Web Every User’s Opinion Counts (Even the Pirate’s)

By: Guest

Guest — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:06:05 +0000

Just passing by, I liked reading through your blog and expierinces with pirates, I still believe that not all off the DL of cracked versions would have been sales. In all honesty I download a lot of music which I would never buy imho this is the same with cracked games.

I even think the easier cracked stuff is availible for the casual gamer the more hardware will be shiffted ( dreamcast/ iphone etc ).

I even know some people who JL their iphone and went back to orginal firmware ( and buying apps ) because their phone became unstable. Funny thing is most off them even enjoy the games more now they pay for them.

Personally I have nothing againts pirated downloads, but then again I am not a developer.
I also find it funny to see that the most developers who are reporting this are developers with low sales and half baked product!

Its nice to see you are open and honest and not attacking everyone but wants a open discussion!

PS sorry for the english, and I don't have your app some no opinion about that lol

By: pirate games

pirate games — Sat, 30 May 2009 12:57:22 +0000

I think pirate life is not good, it is immoral, illegal etc

By: icombat

icombat — Sat, 30 May 2009 05:59:34 +0000

Thanks for the story…nice to hear a first hand example. That said, it has amazed me how some users who have cracked copies have complained about the game not working correctly when they play. As I do not have a jail broken or cracked version I can't replicate the problems they see and so cannot help…

By: Cracked iPhone Applications II: Die Cracks, der Tod und die Steuern

Cracked iPhone Applications II: Die Cracks, der Tod und die Steuern — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:40:32 +0000

[...] Umdenken bei den “Piraten” beobachten können, wie es iCombat-Entwickler Miguel hier beschreibt – dass man einen “Piraten” höflich anschreibt, ihn auf die Problematik anspricht und [...]

By: Devlin Bentley

Devlin Bentley — Thu, 28 May 2009 05:33:40 +0000

I remember years ago I pirated a rather fun vertical shoot-em-up PC game. I encountered some sort of crash issue in it, hit the support link and let the dev know about it. He asked for a copy of the save game file, I sent it off, and a few hours later he emailed me back a patch.

About ten minutes later I bought the game.

I emailed him back telling him his awesome customer service got him a customer and I apologized for pirating it in the first place. He responded saying he knew I had a pirated version, the save game file detects it.

Good customer service gets sales.

By: icombat

icombat — Mon, 25 May 2009 00:58:39 +0000

Thanks for the comments, I love the point you make about negative users. It is true, if a user, any user, is energetic enough to spread ANYTHING about your product then they are the type of people that will evangelize if you can bring them around.

Also, I have been getting some really random and one off examples of bugs in iCombat from users, it didn't even occur to me that these users might have jailbroken or cracked versions of the app. Although I have and will continue to try to help these users it does make me feel better knowing this could be part of why there are issues. Thanks for highlighting!

By: DaveCazz

DaveCazz — Sun, 24 May 2009 05:42:44 +0000

I completely agree, I posted on touch arcade a while ago about debugging a crash for a guy that had pirated Pocket God (I also got a lot of heat from people that were angry that I was nice to someone who stole the game). After I helped him, he completely turned around and started evangalizing the product. I heard somewhere, not sure who but a famous businesss man on the level of a Ray Kroc, said that every person that is vocal about having a bad experience with your product is huge opportunity. People that have a good experience with your product are not likely to promote it very much, but if you can turn around someone with strong negative views, they are the ones most likely to promote you to all their friends.

Also, we had an issue where only Jailbroken phones experienced a crash with our game. now, a lot of devs might say they just don't support anything that could be jailbroken, but like you said, they are very vocal on the internet, and their comments usually leave out key pieces of info like they stole the game or they have a highly customized phone that is the cause of their bad experience.