People get angry when I tell them that Android gaming pales in comparison to iOS gaming. Many of those people never even owned iPhone, so I don’t know where they find the courage to confront me. Anyway, one reason why I think Android gaming hasn’t taken off is piracy. Back when I used to have an iPhone, my friends would tell me about new and interesting games they’d find, so I’d type the name of the game into Google, read a few reviews, and then buy it. With Android, that same Google search brings up links to pirated APK files, which disgusts me.
Now this brings me to today’s news, courtesy of SlashGear. They spotted a forum post by the game developers “Butterscotch Shenanigans”. They revealed their sales figures for the game “Towelfight 2”, and the numbers are rather shocking. For every copy sold on iOS, roughly one person pirated the game. That’s higher than I was expecting, but here’s where it gets worse. For every copy sold on Android, roughly 22 people pirated the game. That means 95% of Android users playing “Towelfight 2” are playing the game illegally. I’m not going to sit here and say I’ve never pirated anything in my life, because there was a time when I was young, dumb, and didn’t have a job. But there’s no reason, none, that an adult should have to download a $0.99 game from a pirate website. It’s just disgraceful. And you wonder why Android gaming sucks, what’s the incentive if no one pays?
