Why trust Greenbot
Every once in a while, I’ll send out a tweet saying I’m disappointed with the gaming scene on Android, and a lot of you will scream at me and tell me I’m an idiot. The thing is, I bet most of you never owned an iPhone. I have, and the games on that platform not only outnumber those available on Android, but they’re of much higher quality. Why don’t developers take Android gaming as seriously as they do iOS gaming? One of the big reasons is piracy.
According to Gamasutra (via The Verge), there’s a game out there “Gentlemen!” that’s available for both iOS and Android. People who love games apparently love this one, with publications like Pocket Gamer giving the title a gold award. But there’s one small problem. The team who developed Gentlemen! have revealed that while over 50,000 Android users have downloaded the game, only 144 copies were actually sold.
That’s a ratio of 350 to 1.
If you’re an indie, why then would you want to target Android? I’m not saying piracy doesn’t exist on iOS, because that would be a lie, but it’s not at these sort of levels. So do me a favor: If you’re a mobile pirate, please stop. And if you’re a gamer, buy yourself an iPad mini or an iPod touch to see what’s really out there.
