Sorry I didn't have time to read all the comments against my post, gotta catch up with the girl for v-day; anyways, I want to point out that we are in a fairly innocent market. For instance: A crooked app dealer, and a crooked heroin dealer are two completely different things. I hardly feel like Mario & Friends developer is a "criminal that needs to be brought to justice" though, like I said: competition is abundant in our field, so if this guy is somehow hammering your sales down, you should take action.
Its not about the specific sales being affected as much as buyer confidence. People will just not buy as many apps or take chances on an indie dev app if they get burned to many times. It is an obvious scheme! How can it be 50% off when the price increased from .99 to 2.99? He many not be a criminal in the drug dealer sense but is certainly unethical.
I heard this discussed on a iphone podcast I listened to recently. A guy working on a big movie tie-in game couldn't get Apple to believe he had officially been licensed by the studio. He sent them email after email and fax after fax showing the contract and agreement, even emails from the studio, but he got 3 rejections before finally getting accepted. But it IS kinda ridiculous they let THIS one through?
Other than the fact that this is nintendos copyright stuff, there's nothing wrong with it. The people who buy this app and leave reviews saying "this isn't a game, only sounds! SCAM! Don't buy!" either have some ability that makes them not able to read, but able to write perfectly; or they are just stupid. I bought this app for the sounds, and the Description of the app states, more than once, that this only has sounds from those games. If people wanted games, they should have bought Nescaline while it was out. Buying this kind of app (or any kind of app for that matter) from the app store without reading the description is like buying a Mac without doing a little research. Then you try it, and it turns out that it's a different OS that your PC programs/games don't work with! Seriously guys? This is like people complaining that bikini apps aren't good because they don't show everything, yet they buy the next one that looks like it does because they are being stupid and not reading the description. I would be mad if this app said: "you can relive the old days and play through all the levels of these full Mario games!" that would be false advertising.
Oh, I'm pretty sure of that too. My point is just that Apple have set themselves into a position where they don't want to investigate if he does or doesn't. The entire app store system is reactive rather than proactive. If someone reports a violation, the app will be investigated/removed.
As opposed to a legitimate heroin dealer? Ah, but by definition, if he has broken the law, then he is a criminal, and should be brought to justice, whether you are personally offended by it or not. Of course there are crimes that are more serious and less serious. It's easy to turn your back on it when it's not happening to you I guess.
I am astounded that this is number 2 in the charts with an average rating of 1 and a half stars. It goes to show that people perceive a recognizable IP as an instant buy. AND even if it is a scam they will still buy it. A lot of those reviews say they bought it believing they were getting a game and wished they read the reviews before purchase.
I've also noticed that they have put the price up to $2.99usd. Bunch of scam artists! How on earth has Apple allowed this to happen?
Maybe the fact that the new itunes layout displaying 2 lines of text only was a very good move for those kind of developer, i am wondering if the "sound only" aspect of this "game" is displayed on the first 2 lines or in small print on the last lines
Yeah, Nintendo are pretty harsh as far as companies go, but in my experience they generally leave people alone unless they they're trying to make a profit or directly compete with them. I spent quite some time in the ROM hacking community, and they never gave us much trouble (ironically, after you've followed things for a while you start to realize that nearly all stories about ROM hacks being "shut down" are cover-stories from devs who don't have to motivation to finish their hack), most of the major sites I knew then (romhacking.net, smwcentral, etc) are still doing fine today - there's even a Zelda fangame (see shardstorm.com) that's been going for almost 12 years without problems. Of course, I can guarantee that if any of those developers decided one day that they were going to try selling their game, they wouldn't last the week. Nor will this app, I'm sure, once they know about it. TBH I can't blame them, seeing as every case they've tried that in the past has turned into an unmitigated disaster. (on the other hand it's also what eventually gave us the Playstation so we should be thankful for their screw-up).
That is a great point, that is probably why a lot of people are getting suckered into thinking it is a game
Can't anyone report a problem with an app without having purchased it? For those who think they arnt doing anything wrong these are the facts: mis-categorized this is obviously not a game. Use of copywrited materals. The only reason it became popular. Claiming 50% off sale yet price had tripled since it's release. How can you argue in thier favor?
Most people aren't arguing in the dev's favor, they are just stating that he isn't as bad as many people in this thread make him out to be. I personally find this event pretty hilarious, but I'm not a dev, and can see why they would be pissed. They took the time to make a quality game that people love, and are being beat out by a quickly slapped together, over priced illegal rip-off that is selling better than them? They have a right to report the dev for his misconduct. I don't have a beef with the dev, but that doesn't mean I'm in favor with him. He is either a complete idiot who thinks what he is doing is legal, or an utter genius that exploited young children's stupidity towards his advantage. I'm guessing the former.
If you read some of the 1 star reviews, most of them say I bought the app thinking it was a game, I bought the app without reading the reviews thinking I was getting a Mario game, I want my money back. It is quite funny that these young children have been duped into buying this. Maybe they have been taught a lesson in life - research what you buy But as devs it's ironic that we can spend up to six months making a game that may or may not sell when something vaguely resembles well know IP can climb high in the charts. This is a good warning sign that as soon as the big publishers decide to convert their well known products to the iphone, that these games will be the ones that hit the charts, and the indie devs will find it tougher.
Sort the reviews by 'Most Helpful', and it looks like it suddenly got a bunch of five star reviews on the weekend. Strangely enough the reviewers have left very similar comments, and don't seem to have reviewed any other games. I thought Apple didn't like gaming the customer reviews.
I have a theory. Nintendo realizes they own every aspect of that app. In a lawsuit, their team of lawyers will sue the developers of Mario & Friends for every penny they made off the soundboard. With the ability to do this, wouldn't it be a wiser move of Nintendo to let them stay on the app store and make all that money, then squeeze it out of them after they've dropped in rank?
That's bad for Nintendo's reputation... That's like saying Nintendo want the screw the gamers as well, just to make some money.
Clones are coming ! Check out the new games ! I suggest to Apple to make a new game sub category : "mario soundsboard"
If you click on the sellers name to list the Apps they sell... This App comes up three times in their list. 1. The lite version (free) 2. A version in entertainment that sells for 99c 3. A version in games that sells for $2.99 As far as I can see 2 and 3 are the same product and 1 is actually the lite version. People that are buying can get it cheaper by going to the Entertainment section. This developer is basically scamming people and Apple should close them down and give the money back to the people that got conned into buying this. This really tarnishes the App store in my eyes.
