Game critics aren't the only group to use Game Center leaderboards as a measure of a game's popularity.
According to Australian developer GAMEized, studios waiting on sales reports often do the exact same thing, though the results aren't always pleasing.
Indeed, it was GAMEized's decision to monitor the performance of its football themed FingerKicks on Game Center that led the realisation that 91 percent of the game's userbase had downloaded pirated copies.
The hidden truth
"Because Apple only provides app sales data once per day, GAMEized used the Game Center leaderboards as a barometer for how many players had purchased FingerKicks," the developer revealed in a blog post.
"It was reasonable to assume that 5,000 players meant at least 5,000 sales, and since many customers dont use Game Center, the actual sales numbers might have been much higher."
When the real figures came through, GAMEized discovered only 160 copies had been purchased legally. The rest has been made through unofficial app stores such as Installous.
"As of this writing, FingerKicks has sold only 1163 legitimate copies but there are at least 15,950 pirated copies being played on a regular basis on Apples Game Center, the studio added.
"That equates to an astonishing 91 percent of downloads that are pirated."
Attention Apple
But while piracy is an inevitable part of the digital games business, what angers GAMEized is Game Center's continued support for users playing illegal copies of titles.
"Most bewildering of all is that even with all their rhetoric chastising piracy and intellectual property theft, Apple apparently has no functional counter-piracy safeguards in place on their Game Center - essentially permitting users to play pirated software on their Game Center without any fear of reprisals or consequence," the developer concluded.
"It's reasonable to assume that many if not most of the 16,000 users playing FingerKicks on Apple's Game Center probably wouldnt be playing a pirated version if it werent so readily available and so openly accepted by Apple.
"Maybe Apple has tried and failed to take down Installous, or maybe they're completely powerless to stop them.
"In either case, until Apple fully embraces the issue and supports their vendors and suppliers, we will be forced to re-evaluate our plans for other iOS games until Apple fixes this humiliating piracy problem."
[source: GAMEized]
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With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.
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