Panzer Corp on Android ?

[smee106]

Seen that Panzer Corp is going to the ipad, any plans on porting it to Android as well ? (there are a lot Android users out there ) I do hope so as I'd love to get it for my tablet.

[hs1611]

Me too!!

[SWHodges22]

I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Even tried using Splashtop to control the PC from the tablet but to awkward.

[Adlerson]

Add me to the list of people who would buy this in a heartbeat on Android. You're losing out on over 50% of the market by not developing for this OS...

[lordzimoa]

You're losing out on over 50% of the market by not developing for this OS...

No sadly that is not the case, because of the very splintered digital distribution and the enormous high rate of piracy on this open sourced platform, so in theory, it is 50% of the market, Android for us is interesting but in grossing net revenue, Android is not coming close to iOS.

We are already robbed on PC because 70%-80% or more is pirated, we don`t like to get robbed twice. So Android is a good option as another platform but will not likely become a first choice for any developer, so is more seen as cherry on the cake.

[lordzimoa]

We might do it one day, but that is the main reason why Android is lower on our list as you would expect looking at it`s market share...

[Tarrak]

We are already robbed on PC because 70%-80% or more is pirated, we don`t like to get robbed twice.

Sorry for being a bit off topic but this values seems way to high. Is there any serious and reliable study proving this number? I won't deny it. Software piracy is a problem but the numbers seems way exaggerated to me. Especially in the niche of war gaming where the general audience seems to be more mature and knows that the rather small developers rely on the sales to keep deliver quality products we all love.

Another point in this discussion is that everyone, and this include the whole music, film and software industry, every pirated copy of software equals a lost sale which is often not the case. Sadly a lot of software nowadays does not offer any trial or demo version anymore. I can imagine people downloading pirated versions to check the game out and if they like it buying it. Even i admit i have done it a few times tho more often then not i rather decide to ignore products i am not sure i like before and i can't try out.

[Longasc]

Don't forget that a lot of the "Market Share" for Android is also Smartphones and Tablets that are often not even updated beyond Android 2.x anymore. The piracy on Android is indeed rampant and profit is to be made from the iOS users who simply pay better and more - this is not my opinion, but a fact.

I am an Android users, have not a single iOS device and of course regret this, but well, I hope it sells so well on iOS that a proper Android version will come, too.

Another problem, as I just read a rant about the price of Panzer Corps: "App Games" are expected to cost very very little money. Unfortunately not every app is a Angry Birds level seller and you can doubt this will happen, even to a quality title like Panzer Corps. I hope the iOS version has enough success to warrant an attempt to sell the game on Android as well.

[Adlerson]

You're losing out on over 50% of the market by not developing for this OS...

No sadly that is not the case, because of the very splintered digital distribution and the enormous high rate of piracy on this open sourced platform, so in theory, it is 50% of the market, Android for us is interesting but in grossing net revenue, Android is not coming close to iOS.

We are already robbed on PC because 70%-80% or more is pirated, we don`t like to get robbed twice. So Android is a good option as another platform but will not likely become a first choice for any developer, so is more seen as cherry on the cake.

We can discuss piracy till we're blue in the face. I buy games I like, because I'm old enough to make a decent living and thus can afford to buy games. A lot of research points to the fact that piracy != lost sales, as people who pirate games most likely wouldn't buy the game anyway. If 80% of your customers play a pirated version it doesn't mean you lost 80% of your revenue, it means 80% more people play your games than otherwise would be the case, if piracy was impossible. Does piracy lose you money? Absolutely. But I will not agree on it losing you so much money that it should decide your game availability. The developer of the Witcher series, for instance, does not seem to lose sleep over the 'piracy menace'.
Furthermore, your games (Panzer Corp specifically here) does not have a target audience of 15 year old boys. I would be willing to bet a lot that most of your customers are mature people who pay for this excellent game. In other words, the people of your target audience will buy the game on Android too, even if it is easier to find a pirated version there than on iOs.
I have been supporting you since day one, and just a few days ago I bought the Grand Campaign too. I am disappointed that my loyalty is not reciprocated, though if you do not want my money by only developing for the walled garden that is iOs then that is of course your prerogative.

Cheers,
Adlerson

[pipfromslitherine]

While piracy is an issue on Android, please don't think that it is the only thing we consider. The technical issues of device and OS fragmentation are at least as important.

Cheers

Pip

[crizzhutch]

You know I get a little bit bored hearing the same old winging excuses from programmers and publishers about piracy and theft being a reason for not realising on Android.

How many £100’s have I wasted over the years on terrible crap games??? Just look at Colonial Marines, did I have a way of getting my money back?? NO!!!! Look at BF4 brought out too soon full of bugs, what redress do we have?? None!!

Now why is it companies don’t offer a trial version of the game, wouldn’t be so hard? I tell you why, because if they did, they would get away with some of the crap the put out.

Now the music industry has been crying about piracy for years, to the point hey used to moan about taping off the radio. Nobody paid attention and did the music industry die? No!!!!

TV & Movie companies complain about piracy, has it killed off the industry No!!! In fact Vince Gilligan has credited torrents for making Breaking Bad the success it is.

So why don’t you stop blaming it on this and that and tell the real reason. You want to make as much money as possible and that’s it, you don’t care about gamers and getting to a wide audience, you just want to fill your pockets.

So as for the Panzer game, I shall torrent it to my laptop and play on that. I shall never buy a product of yours again.

[lordzimoa]

Until it is your own business of course that would suffer from it, let others take 50% of your salary and tell me how you would like that, we run a business not charity, since when is this close to a crime that justifies piracy?... but on a possible Android port:

We don`t rule it out. But we see 1 to 10 sales compared to iOS, longer and more difficult porting as there are so many different hardware settings for Android, so more expenses. Open source, so quite a lot of piracy and a cascade of shops, so a splintered market.This combined with the fact on the tablet market iOS is doing strong. So all in all, even if Android has a bigger market share and is growing... for developers focusing on tablet games...iOS at this point wins on all fronts. So it is a combination of business, market and technical issues that makes Android a less interesting tablet platform, more time consuming, more expenses, less revenue..., at this point in time.

But again it might be something to consider in the future, market, technology and platforms come and go, adapting to changes in this market is a key to survival. We will, of course, follow any possible opportunity, as that is business. Listening to our customers, their wishes, expectations and feedback is also a big part of doing good business, so I could not disagree more with you on all fronts.

[Molve]

Completely off topic I know...

If 80% of your customers play a pirated version it doesn't mean you lost 80% of your revenue, it means 80% more people play your games than otherwise would be the case, if piracy was impossible.

No, 80% less and 80% more is a fallacy - they're not comparable numbers, not even close.

"80% less" than 1 is "20% remaining" or 0.2. The corresponding "percent more" number then is 1/0.2 or 5.

5 is 400% more than 1. (This might sound unintuitive but consider that 100% more than 1 is 2 and 200% more than 1 is 3 and so on - to reach 5 you then need 400% more. 5 is 4 more than 1, and 4 is 400% of 1...)

Your sentence should read "If 80% of your customers play a pirated version it doesn't mean you lost 80% of your revenue, it means 400% more people play your games"
Let's say 1000 people plays the game, 800 of them would be pirates and 200 of them would be paying customers. 80% more people than 200 would mean 360 people, which is clearly not what you want. 400% more people than 200, on the other hand, makes up the thousand!

(I hope it is obvious I am only commenting on the math here. Please do not read anything on the piracy or android issues into this)

[crizzhutch]

I do run my own business and have done for over 10 years. So i do know a thing or 2!! And one thing I know about is called a lost leader, you could try this age old sales technique. I wonder why you don't?

As has been pointed out above, the facts and figures used are incorrectly used. This is either done on purpose to confuse or through misunderstanding which is a poor show.

The fact is the music and movie industry have being crying the same story for decades, saying it will kill business. This hasn't happened, why????? Because illegal downloads don't damage sales.

Maybe if we felt we would get a quality product, we'd be more likely to buy up front, but we don't. It's buy it or else. And then how do we re-sale on, oh we can't unlike a PC or Console where you can sell back on your disk. With game downloads, you pay for it and that's it. You have a confined audience and force them to do what you want. It is one reason I don't like Apple because of this philosophy.

Look at all the free to play no available on PC.

One day you guys will stop only thinking of making as much money as possible, and produce good games for all to play.

Obviously, it's easy to release on Apple and just take the money and run.

So I'll just keep illegally downloading on PC, I've got touch screen laptop, so it's no real problem for me.

[IainMcNeil]

Crizzhutch you have been banned permanently for stating you pirate games and encouraging others to do so. This is illegal and discussion of it prohibited on the forums. We've explained in a number of threads why we don't do all our game to Android. The games we have o both Android and iOS show us sales are an order of magnitude apart. The market simply tells us that we sell far less and it is more work so why would we waste time on this when we can do something which generates more money. This may change and when it does we'll make more Android games. Anyway all of this is irrelevant as your attitude and behaviour have earned you a permanent ban.

[Flaygor]

So you are reluctant to produce PC on Android due to piracy. Is this your only reason? Because if it is, it makes no business sense whatsoever.

And exactly where does this leave me as a paying customer who CHOOSES to use Android over Apple (those who use Android all know why you should avoid Apple) and who has bought every last item for this game in full and on release day?

You might be avoiding alleged "copyright infringers" (pirates are well armed guys who wear eye patches and rob ships) but you will most certainly alienate many loyal customers.

I mean, quite honestly, do all the people on this forum, and those who would play a game like this regularly, fit the profile for copyright abusers? Certainly not 60-70%. You just can't say that.

BTW, I have a degree in Business Management, and as such I can only advise you cater to the market and leave aside unfounded and impossible to quantify risk factors, focus on what you CAN sell and not what you MAY lose.

Hope everyone here has a safe and happy holiday season.

[rodney727]

Those of us who use apple products know why we don't use android products . I get a big laugh when I read stuff from android users who claim that all apple users are 15 year old boys!! Jealous much? Have a great holiday!

[Tarrak]

So you are reluctant to produce PC on Android due to piracy. Is this your only reason? Because if it is, it makes no business sense whatsoever.

I am not affiliated in any way with Slitherine so don't treat this as an official statement but Ian and other Slitherine representatives said already multiple times before this is not the only reason. On big problem on Android market is a big fragmentation. First you have to deal with multiple android versions as sadly a lot of manufactures stops supplying their products with support and updates very very fast. To enlarge the problem some manufacturers modify their Android versions with own software. There are a lot different devices available with different hardware configurations making the problem even worse. This leads to a lot more difficult porting and implementation. The situation is kind of similar to the situation of PC vs Console. Developing a game for a console is a lot easier as the system is homogeneous and you don't have to deal with at least three different OS and millions of different hardware combinations.

[Molve]

I think it's a mistake to focus on the piracy issue itself.

Clearly Slitherine - like many other companies (especially in the "boardish game" subgenre) - have found that the Android market base is not big enough to justify the development time, given also the high overhead in support.

That the too-small market base in part is caused by piracy, and that the high support overhead is caused by fragmentation (hundreds of hardware combinations, half a dozen software combinations) is not the main issue (I think).

You might think Slitherine is having a knee-jerk reaction to high piracy, but what if they are making a sound and calm business decision not primarily based on piracy, but on the hard cold fact that Android as a market simply is years behind iOS as a mature profitable game platform?

I mean, even if the entire universe pirated on Android, I'm sure Slitherine (like lots of other companies) would still develop their games for Android if only the absolute number of paying customers were twenty times higher (even if that was only 0.0000001% of the total number of users...) Sure, some moralist might say "I won't release my games unless less than X percent of users are pirating them". But I wager Slitherine has made a business decision here, not a moral decision.

The way Slitherine is far from alone in hesitating to release on Android makes me think Google is the real party to blame here, not lordzimoa. Whatever you may wish for your shiny new Nexus or Galaxy Note, the fact remains: Google have not been nearly as successful as Apple (or Microsoft, for that matter) in creating a fruitful environment for sales.

And that simply isn't Slitherine's fault.

Merry Christmas.

[MarcosMalo]

I think it's a mistake to focus on the piracy issue itself.

Clearly Slitherine - like many other companies (especially in the "boardish game" subgenre) - have found that the Android market base is not big enough to justify the development time, given also the high overhead in support.

That the too-small market base in part is caused by piracy, and that the high support overhead is caused by fragmentation (hundreds of hardware combinations, half a dozen software combinations) is not the main issue (I think).

You might think Slitherine is having a knee-jerk reaction to high piracy, but what if they are making a sound and calm business decision not primarily based on piracy, but on the hard cold fact that Android as a market simply is years behind iOS as a mature profitable game platform?

[ . . . ]the fact remains: Google have not been nearly as successful as Apple (or Microsoft, for that matter) in creating a fruitful environment for sales.

And that simply isn't Slitherine's fault.

Merry Christmas.

These are excellent points. Statistically, Android users don't spend as much money as iOS users, on apps, content, even online shopping. This is both for the average user and aggregate.

The idea that marketshare is the only important measure is wrong. For developers and advertisers, people that spend money are important (the target audience or target demographic).

If the Android game playing public spent as much money as the smaller iOS game playing audience spends, I am sure that Slitherine and other developers would not have qualms about devoting the extra resources required by device fragmentation and QA issues.

I'm not sure what the answer is for Android users that are willing to pay. (If I suggest you switch to iOS, I'd be starting a flame war.) Maybe if enough android users started searching for quality paid apps rather than using free ad-supported apps, things would change.