NEW DELHI: Google’s mobile operating system has still problem with people pirating apps initially made available on its Play store. But here’s a sign of how bad the Android piracy problem really is.
Ustwo Games, the developer behind the wildly popular mobile game “Monument Valley,” revealed in a series of tweets that only 5% of all Android installs of its game were paid for.
Comparatively, the developer said 40% of Monument Valley installs on iOS were “legitimate.” So piracy isn’t an Android problem per se, but it is particularly bad there.
This doesn’t mean the other 95% of Android installs of Monument Valley were pirated, but Ustwo suggests that besides a small number of legitimate installs which doesn’t include all the free copies it gave away during its one day promotion on the Amazon App store late last year the vast majority of that 95% came from “unpaid installs” of the game.
One reason pirated copies of Android games are so commonplace: Gamasutra says Chinese mobile users don’t have access to the Google Play store, so they find other ways to play those games. And those pirated copies usually find their ways back to the West.
This lingering issue on Android partially explains why most mobile developers prefer iOS to Android, even though Android has a much bigger audience. iOS users, compared to Android, tend to spend more money on their devices for shopping and apps. It pays its developers more money, and it’s generally a more stable operating system.
And yet, developers, including Ustwo, say they are not deterred by all the “unpaid installs” on Android. It’s better to have people playing their game for free than not at all, right?
