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ngmoco games suffer 50-90 per cent piracy rates in the first week

And iPhone games are getting cheaper

ngmoco games suffer 50-90 per cent piracy rates in the first week
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The Game Developers Conference China is currently taking place, and ngmoco’s VP Alan Yu has been publicly expounding on the subject of iPhone games.

His talk, as reported by Gamasutra, covers a lot of ground - including the importance of social gaming and micro-transactions, the advantages and disadvantages of price-dropping as a commercial ploy, and the emergence of ‘frictionless distribution’ - but most interesting to our ears was his revelation on the scarcely reported subject of iPhone piracy.

In Gamasutra’s words, “iPhone game piracy is a big issue, with 50%-90% piracy estimated in the first week of release on Ngmoco games.”

This is a huge figure, and one more or less consistent with previous daunting reports.

Elsewhere, Gamasutra reports that research from ngmoco-acquired aggregation site Apptism has found that the average price of iPhone games is going down, from $2.47 during April to June to $2.27 during July to September.

Premium priced games, Yu says, “would be a nice business to have,” but that doesn’t seem to be the way the App Store’s going.

Rob Hearn
Rob Hearn
Having obtained a distinguished education, Rob became Steel Media's managing editor, now he's no longer here though.