As a first time developer I wanted to protect my effort but did not want to pay an upfront fee to Ripdev without having made a dime so I opted to go for the more benign yet not totally passive option.  I chose to detect when they cracked the application and then have a pop-up screen say something inoffensive along with a button routing them away from game play after 5 levels.  The button redirected the pirate to a hidden page I created on my site called “You Jacked My App” where the text read:

“Hi if you have been directed to this page it’s because we see that you have a pirated copy.  While we are glad you are interested please understand that we want to continue making it better, but to do that we need people to each pay for their copy.  If you want to continue using please purchase today.”

The idea was to get the user to empathize with my cause and maybe convert a tiny fraction of those users into sales.  While it was a cheesy move and probably a bad idea I figured it couldn’t hurt to try (maybe I should have just rickroll’d them all!).  For a great example of a better executed version of this strategy see developer Ben Chatelain’s pop-up here which mentions needing the sales to help feed his 1 year old!  I just found this but had I seen it pre-iCombat 1.0 I would probably have implemented something similarly guilt evoking.

See below some stats to give you an idea of the scope of the problem for iCombat as well as some conclusions I have drawn from the experience:

A few thoughts on the data:

1) Pirates are extremely early adopters:

• iCombat was cracked and posted to Twitter before even propagating through all of Apple’s servers (I’d say within 30 minutes from going live).  Their adoption on the front end was much quicker than the paying user.  Nothing beats free…

2) There is no feedback culture among app pirates

• I am not sure whether they rely on legit app reviews or just word of mouth, but surprising that no one anywhere posted a warning that iCombat was blocked after just 5 levels (of 20).  As far as I know the cracking apps only utilize the plist hack so it is not an issue of hackers having found a workaround to my pop-up (I could be wrong here)

3) The overall pirate community is smaller than I had expected, but much more active

• 5 to 1 ratio off the bat in terms of pirated copies to purchased
• leveled off at about 1 to 1 ratio over the last few weeks before I removed the block (since then it has gone back up but on much smaller volume)
• iCombat has had dozens of Tweets about cracked versions of the game
• Cracking is a source of pride for pirates, and this pushes them to disseminate more aggressively

4) There was a high clickthrough rate to my site (only way user could avoid would have been to press home button) but once there ZERO users clicked through to purchase a copy.  Maybe if I had mentioned a 1 year old baby this would have been higher.

Some considerations specific to iCombat:

• iCombat was priced at $0.99 throughout this period
• Initial coverage in Gizmodo at launch plus the fact that iCombat is a familiar theme (tank game reminiscent of Combat for Atari or Wii Tanks game) might have also pushed an abnormal amount of geeks/ pirates to download it

Conclusions:

1) Piracy is still not that big of a problem when talking about the apps with larger download volumes

• Dave Castelnuovo from Pocket God was generous enough to share with me that they are only seeing a 5%-10% piracy rate for example.  While this could be in part because of Pocket God’s rapid update cycle which renders each pirated version outdated after just a week or two, it might also be a sign that the cracking community still isn’t that large on a relative scale.  This argument is supported by my declining per cent of pirates relative to overall downloads.

2) Blocking pirates is not worth it unless you can push conversion by giving them a lite style version

• Strategically structure the cracked game so pirates get the upsell, in iCombat’s case I would do (planning on a lite version soon) limited weapons, limited levels, no global high scores (coming in 1.2), etc.  Again for a good example of this see the link to Ben Chatelain’s 10 day demo strategy (above).
• A full block risks damaging the brand for non-pirates (could be perceived as a bug) or of creating a backlash by disgruntled pirates.  Not worth the risk.

3) Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face

• The goal behind launching an app isn’t thwarting pirates, it is getting users and generating sales so leave the “making a point” anti-piracy measures to the big guys. The competition is so fierce to get noticed in the App store that any attention is good attention.  Ethan Nicholas from iShoot fame probably isn’t too worried about the small pirate minority seeing as how he sold a couple hundred thousand copies of iShoot at $2.99.
• In most cases there is not a direct cannibalization of your sales by people using cracked copies – unless you have a high priced niche app the cost is negligible and the market is not zero sum (see my upcoming posts on my conversations with pirates that backs this up)
• There is a ton of anger and energy spent thinking about pirates (see the iPhoneDevSDK forum here for examples), this energy should be put into creating better apps and focusing on the top line potential.  In my case there are design issues that I should have focused on rather than trying to spoil the pirate’s experience.

So What Do We Do?

Assuming you have a relatively cheap app with a wide potential audience and what you perceive to be a long term value proposition, 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 the app completely, but it also doesn’t get you very far to give away the core value you are offering to the paying user.  I have decided I am going to do this for the next update of my app and hope that happy users, be they paying or pirates, will help spread the word and get iCombat above the App store noise.

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While I have been vague about what iCombat would be until now, I wanted to give you some background as to why we chose to do a classic arcade style tank game.  I grew up in the mid 80’s playing a beat up Atari 2600 – it was behind the times even then (let alone now!) but the good side of having the outdated console was that I could buy old Atari games at used book stores for under a dollar. I didn’t have the money, or need, back then to buy a newer console and it didn’t matter because the Atari had some of the best game play design of any console I have ever played.  Simple rules, easy to use controls, a fast learning curve, all of these things helped make it much easier than picking up today’s games (except maybe the Wii).

The game that captured my attention most was Combat, a 27 game in one combo pack that included the Tank game.  There were many variations of play, one of which was Tank pong – here you fired missiles (squares) at the other tank (a rectangle) and they could bounce off of walls and hit the enemy.  For me the bouncing missiles and fierce 2 player versus mode hooked me, and so when the iPhone launched we saw the opportunity to bring a similar type of game play to the younger generation of gamers.  The idea was to stick to simple game logic but utilize the powerful features of the iPhone to create something great.  Truthfully, we just created it also because we wanted to play it – and we tried to stay true to the game play fundamentals that made the original games so addictive.  And while there are half a dozen tank style games in the App store, we hadn’t found one that scratched our itch for this classic arcade style play.

We hope, after playing, you will start to share our enthusiasm for tank games and that you will become a fan of iCombat.  We also want to make iCombat better in future updates, so please send us your feedback at icombatgame@gmail.com or post something here.  We are planning to offer prizes of some sort (maybe t-shirts or something) to anyone whose idea is implemented in future updates so send us your best suggestions for future changes such as new weapons, levels, enemies, etc.  If your idea is good and others support it in the comments we will do our best to make it happen.  I will be posting some ideas of my own in the coming days so don’t be shy to shoot them down if you think they are weak!

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Although conventional wisdom is to iterate frequently, the friction for submitting new updates to the App store is so low that developers seem to be taking this strategy to the extreme as an excuse to launch prematurely. These apps freeze, quit, or just don’t work as advertised and many times users write negative reviews as a result.  While some developers would argue that they get a ranking bump from new updates, and I have seen some applications that submit updates every 4 days or so for the 1st month post launch as a strategy, I think this is damaging to the brand they are trying to create and only serves to piss off the early users.

If your app is free the bar is set low, but if you are charging even $0.99 it might make sense to wait until you get the major bugs out.  Sometimes though it seems to come down to a game of chicken, where the financial urge and market opportunity considerations create a push to launch that runs directly in contrast to the need for more time to refine and debug.  The guys at ngmoco’s have a great post about why they choose to do their first update to Rolando now, 3 months after they launched the game on December 18th.  Clearly this is the ideal approach but ngmoco has a privileged position, having proven themselves early while also having the financial and structural flexibility to be able to run rigorous quality assurance protocols pre-launch (said to have fixed 1000 bugs before launch!).  It is a testament to their process that they have not had to submit any updates since release until this update.

For the rest of us amateur developers though the question is not so simple.  While I do not think we should emulate ngmoco’s strategy, as it is financially risky for an amateur developer to spend so much time and money on testing a totally unproven idea, I think it is to be patient and make sure the major bugs are dealt with before launching to paying customers.  If you are creating a crapware app that has little functionality and is simple then sure, launch it early, but if you have any pretensions of developing a community or following behind your game it might be wise to have all of your users, even the early ones, have a positive experience with your app from day one.

Another approach is to launch your app as a fully functional but with an extremely limited feature set.  The perfect example lies in the current No. 1 in the paid App store, Pocket God. Bolt Creative, the makers of the game, decided to launch after only 1 week of development and subsequently released 1 update per week for 10 weeks, adding a new feature each week.  While this strategy worked well by building a community and fostering an interactive ongoing relationship with the user, it looks like it strained the early users on the front end.  In a recent interview, one of the co-founders of Bolt Creative Dave Castelnuovo said that, at the beginning, they “felt really guilty releasing [the Pocket God] app for $.99 because people said there really wasn’t enough there.”  While I am sure all of the subsequent 10 updates made users happy, it is a risky approach that only works if your ongoing updates are good and if your idea does not get poached in the process.

From my point of view we thought about releasing iCombat with only 1 player mode and less options but in the end we decided to forgo the short term benefits at the risk of exposing our concept.  The tradeoff we saw was that, with such a quick turnover rate to developing new apps, we could be releasing our idea to the world to only have someone with a bigger more experienced team, steal our idea and do it better than us.  We chose to risk the 1st mover advantage as well as short term gain to come to market the first time with a better brand and a more defensible product. Clearly the market is evolving and many models will work, so only time will tell if tour approach was a wise idea when we launch in the coming couple of weeks.

Update:  We just submitted iCombat to Apple on Monday (2 days ago), while there were one or two design considerations we were still debating and figuring out how to perfect, we finally decided to let the users decide which features they liked most.  From our perspective, and maybe from also writing this post and thinking more about the Pocket God example, it just didn’t make much sense to keep working on certain design issues that we weren’t even sure the user cared about.

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Atari Pong Screenshot

I am fairly confident I have limited just how much I can screw this up by keeping the game simple and without too much of a plot as this seems to add another layer of design complexity. This is why I chose to do a game based off of some of the original gaming platforms: these focused on the quality of in game play rather than depth and variety of sound or visual effects (of course there was no choice back then).

After just building what we have, and you guys will get to be the judges of how well we have done soon, I can say I really respect professional game designers.  To have the vision to not only create a fully developed plot but then to fold in the complexity of quality sound and graphics really is a huge effort.  Especially when you are inventing a new theme or world from scratch.  No wonder game budgets are becoming so enormous like Spore’s estimated $35 million and there are tons of Bachelor’s degree programs for game development and design like this one.

What I was wondering today is how much experience do you need other than the intuition behind knowing what you like when you see it?  I am not a gaming fanatic at all, I don’t own a single console or handheld gaming device and haven’t since the Sega Genesis!  I guess maybe the iPhone counts but I definitely didn’t buy it for the App store (purchased it a 4am after a night out in NYC on the day it launched – way before there was any talk at all of the App store).  I have played the Nintendo DS and it only interests me, as with all games at this point, if I can play with someone else.  The reason we are creating a 2 player version in our game is this: I only care about playing / creating a game for 2 players.  While I know that the XBOX live forum has mimicked this social interaction, for me I need to be in the same room with the person.  Trash talking just can’t be as much fun over a headset.

Crayon Physics Deluxe

So what do you think?  Do you think more formal game development training and experience is important for creating iPhone games or can designing a simple iPhone game work the first time by amateurs?  We have seen Trism and iShoot work very well but you could argue that these were copying general proven themes and thus were sticking to relying on what was already proven to work.  One example of a very unique game idea that popped up last year by an independent developer was Petri Purho’s Crayon Physics (just came out on the iPhone).  If you have other good examples of other first time developers with truly original game design I would love to see them.

Update: I found an interesting post here talking about Gogogic’s initial design process for their games where they use flash to run through and explain the most common usage scenarios before coding.  A great approach for any kind of application design.   Also, if you have not seen the Photokast slides on product design they have 15 great tips from their experience here.

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Even with this basic buggy simplified version I find myself wanting to pick it up and play it.  Either I am obsessed with the idea or it does have some interesting game play already.  I have started to fiddle with the tank, turret and missile speeds amongst other variables and am hoping that upon testing I will just know the ideal setting for optimal game play once I see it.

I am also getting some of the first graphic renderings back and they look great, the team is really good at taking guidance.  The temptation is to try to squeeze in more features and components but I do not want to: A) go outside of what was agreed and B) delay the project by even one day.  Although my game has not been created in the short history of iPhone app development I am still worried that it will be done in the next 4 weeks.

iShoot continues to be number 1 and it is really making me want to get our application out, for some reason I feel that if we could launch the game with them as no. 1 then it could help us.  I know it is not that easy to even get near the top 100, but how do you explain that a pretty simple game (no discredit to Ethan Nicholas) stay no. 1 for 3+ weeks selling at a $2.99 price point?

Update: After having played iShoot I can definitely see the addictive elements like big explosions, nice sound, being able to purchase items and unpredictability of the game terrain.  Thinking about how to incorporate some of these elements into iCombat.  I also think the price point was a very smart move by Ethan Nicholas as it was not too low nor too high which kept everyone who had bought the game ecstatic that they had finally purchased a game they felt was worth it.  I still haven’t felt good about a single $10+ app I have purchased nor have I really been overwhelmed by what $0.99 gets you.  What do you think was the element that kept iShoot number 1 for so long?

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If you want some tips on the contract details and other legal stuff see the Taking Care of the Legal Stuff entry.

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I still don’t think it is a bad deal to offer a developer: 1) an application idea, 2) a salary, 3) a flexible schedule, and 4) a portion of the returns.  I wasn’t able to find anyone experienced, however, with enough interest and skill to really dive in to the project.  While I am sure this is a symptom of the high demand for iPhone developers and my lack of being able to find / convince anyone locally (I only posted on Craigslist so wasn’t exactly scouring the city), it was still surprising how few serious inquiries I received.  Let me just add, as someone who is learning the iPhone SDK, I was amazed at how little most developers who reached out to me knew about developing with the iPhone SDK.

One thing I knew was that I didn’t want to create an SDK University where I would pay someone to figure out how to develop my game.  So if you are an outsider like I am to programming, just a warning to be careful about who you consider working with.  By no means is someone good because they can throw some jargon your way, and more importantly all programming languages are NOT the same.  True, a talented developer can pick up a language very quickly, but the reality is there are a ton of less talented developers out there so look for proven experience.  For some tips on how to find talented programmers as a non programmer see this post.

When I looked at local companies all of them had quotes that were either too high or too slow.  Again, it felt like most were traditional web developers trying to branch out into iPhone development on my dime.  This was probably because the professional local iPhone outfits were busy charging 25-30k to advertising and other companies to develop their apps so weren’t interested in my less than straightforward app.  I had heard plenty about the quality of outsourcing development to Eastern Europe so I chose to look internationally and post an add on oDesk.  I had found out about oDesk through a friend who was developing an application and when I visited the site I was extremely impressed with the quality of their services.  Clearly quantifying hours worked, developer ratings, even test skills passed as well as displaying links to portfolios made it easy to filter through applicants.

I posted an add and received about 10 responses within the first several days.  Some were developers just spamming me, others had relevant experience but were divided into a range of ratings from 3.5 to 5 out of 5.  I initially contacted the higher rated ones who had positive feedback on past assignments but with one from the Balkans I found that his English proficiency was far below what would be necessary to communicate effectively.  He clearly was very talented but I got the feeling he was using Google translate to answer my e-mails.  Another team from Pakistan spoke great English and they spent quite a bit of time on chat with me getting to understand the project.  I liked them but their estimate came in at 4 man months – roughly 2-3x longer than anybody else!  The process was tedious between getting NDA’s signed and sending out the specs to receive a quote (see Taking Care of the Legal Stuff entry) but I ended up with a few good options that I felt would work.

I decided on a team of developers from the Ukraine whom I had found worked on an application roughly similar to what I wanted to make.  I contacted them and immediately knew they would be easy to work with.  From their English level to experience with similar projects to their extensive list of published apps I knew Injoit could execute on what they promised.  For more about the process of finalizing the specs and signing up with them see the related entry Contract Signed!.  So far working with them has been great, they are timely and easy to communicate with so we will see what happens.

If you are looking for a developer make sure to:

1. Even if you are not a programmer, spend some time reading about what is possible with the SDK – you’d be surprised what developers try to convince you of (for example, Apple makes it very easy to utilize tools like the Accelerometer – matter of hours or a day to set up but I had one guy tell me that it would take a week!)
2. Find someone who has worked on something similar.  If you are developing a game, someone who has no graphics or game engine experience will slow the entire process down
3. Don’t be afraid to ask for a time and cost quote, and once you get the time estimate have them breakdown how long they see each component taking.  When you have a couple of quotes it makes it easier to figure out their skill / bs level.
4. Don’t hesitate to contact previous application users.  In most cases it will be a dude in a basement like you so no harm in dropping him / her an e-mail asking about their experience.  I actually almost signed with one team before I spoke with someone who had worked with them who told me to steer clear!
5. Think carefully about hourly versus by project.  Both have their benefits and it will largely come down to how specific your plans are.
6. Know exactly what you are looking for.  This was hard for me, but sit down and map the whole damn idea out as well as what will be required before contacting people.  Don’t expect anyone you speak to to have really creative solutions to your important application design questions (i.e. application purpose, business model, pricing, etc).  If they did, they wouldn’t need your ass and if they did have your answers they would cost way way more than you can afford.  If you need someone to figure out the other half of the puzzle then look for a partner, not contracted development.
7. Be realistic about the costs, although outsourcing development is cheaper than doing it in the U.S., it is not going to be free to develop something of quality.  If you are developing the next iFart then maybe, but honestly why bother?  Besides, in my opinion the real opportunity in the App store seems to be the tween category of 2$ to 3$ apps, not the $10 Spore’s of the world and not the $0.99 crap gimmicks that are drowning the App store.

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