Madfinger Games recently dropped the price tag for its Dead Trigger game from $0.99 to absolutely free. According to a Facebook post by Madfinger, the main reason for the price drop is due to “unbelievably high” piracy rate on Android devices.
What You Need To Know:
- Dead Trigger is now available to Google Play store for free, while the game is also available to the Apple App store for $0.99.
- Madfinger stressed that Dead Trigger will not turn into a freemium app. The app will always be free-to-play without forcing the players to make in-app purchases.
- Madfinger Games isn’t the first developer who has expressed its concerns on Android piracy. Sports Interactive, Appy Entertainment and Korean developer com2uS have also seen rampant piracy on Android.
- In a survey of 75 Android developers in 2011 by Yankee Group, 27 percent saw piracy as a “huge problem” and 26 percent saw piracy as “somewhat of a problem”. It means that 47 percent of the respondents aren’t as concerned.
- It appears that Google has addressed piracy issues with its new OS update. The Android 4.1 has a security feature called address space layout randomization (ASLR) which avoids information leakage, buffer overflows, and memory vulnerabilities.
Sources:
Developer says piracy forced Dead Trigger Android game to go free
The Guardian
Android’s Piracy Problem Drives Dead Trigger Price to Zero
PCWorld
‘Dead Trigger’ Now Free in Google Play Thanks to Piracy
PCMag
Android comes under fire from game developers on piracy
CNET