Developer ustwo has revealed only five per cent of all Monument Valley downloads on Android were paid for.
Monument Valley was one of the break out mobile hits of 2014, earning itself a spot in Apple’s 2014 Awards list.
But even the most successful games aren’t impervious to piracy, and the same can be said of Monument Valley.
Ustwo tweeted that Monument Valley had a very high percentage of unpaid installs on Android.
The developer revealed that a whopping 95 per cent of Google Play Monument Valley gamers hadn’t paid for the game. Although ustwo did clarify that a small percentage of that 95 per cent were legitimate downloads, due to special offers and other extenuating circumstances.
“Interesting fact: Only 5% of Monument Valley installs on Android are paid for. 40 per cent on iOS. There’s a sneak peak of data,” tweeted ustwo.
“Android statistics don’t include Amazon Store data by the way. So 95% piracy rate isn’t affected by the free day we did,” the dev added.
Related: Best Android games 2014
Although the paid rate on iOS was a lot higher, its still alarming that 60 per cent of the people playing on iPhone or iPad didn’t pay for it.
Again, that no doubt takes special offers and other circumstances into account, but that’s still the majority of people not paying for the premium game.
All those people are bound to have made a huge dent in ustwo’s earnings for Monument Valley and its subsequent DLC pack Forgotten Shores, as it is a premium priced game that lacks in-app purchases.
Despite the figures, ustwo isn’t letting piracy get them down though.
“We’re not complaining by the way, it’s to be expected,” added ustwo on Twitter later. “It’s just interesting data.”
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
