Process of Abuse

While looking for some new role playing games for my iphone on the app store, I came across three that were eerily similar. They had the same descriptions, the same screenshot of a menu, and the same insane price tag: $20.99. The sad thing is that, not having looked at the prices, I clicked on two in a row without noticing. What I found, in looking at them further, is that they take advantage of the lack of information available on the app store along with some carefully designed exteriors to draw in potential buyers. Here's my mini investigation into the things they are doing to cover up their scam.

"A Mysterious Castle in Egremont" - Reading the description on any of these three games, you'll find that the setting is the abandoned Egremond Castle. The thumbnail image features a castle and a small "HD" symbol, indicating that this is a game of quality.

"Become a Warrior" - This app features a cleanly drawn image of a cartoony knight. The descriptions all label the character the "young knight Sir Lamorak" and then go on into a long, decently written story about his encounter with the castle. It sounds somewhat interesting, as long as you don't look at the lack of screenshots or the massive price.

"A Clever Warrior" - Again, going off the appealing character of Sir Lamorak. Its icon is also very cleanly drawn and features a knight riding a toy horse.

All three of these games are also 9.2mb, or about the size of 6 or 7 pictures from the iphone camera and definitely not enough for a game. On the app store, the only things that go for over $10 are ported from actual computer applications, like Pages. Games generally run from $1 to $5. One game I bought for $5 has a file size more than half a gigabyte, just for comparison. Still, $20 doesn't seem like a lot because most of us are still transitioning from the prices of console games ($40 - $60). $20 is almost a steal!

Another area that these apps take advantage of is the lack of proper description on most apps. Even successful apps tend to focus on bragging about the size of their fan-base, their awards, etc. rather than giving customers an adequate description of what their app actually is. So long as you make it seem like a good game, people may buy it.

The one thing I didn't understand about these games was that they came from two different developers: Core Game Studios and Open Game Box Ltd. I took some more time to look at their other apps and found out why.

All nine of the other apps by Open Game Box Ltd. go for $6.99 or $7.99. At those prices, you better get some quality games. Most of them feature a single screenshot, usually a menu, and have file sizes under 10mb. Their descriptions are usually just a sentence or two, clearly going for the "oops, I forgot to write more" approach. My favorite app of all of these was "Angry Bombs HD" which hits every base possible. Firstly, its name is a variant of "Angry Birds", the app people buy just to fit in. The title also uses the magic word "HD" for bonus points. The thumbnail, even, takes advantage of popular culture and features Bullet Bill, the giant bullets from the Mario series. Unfortunately the screenshot leaves a lot to be desired. It appears to have been drawn in MS Paint (no joke). The whole app is a massive 5.7mb and goes for the low low price of $6.99.

Other titles include "Addictive Beauty and Jewels HD", "A Bear and a Cute Kid II" and "A Global Navy HD 2011" which features a single picture of a battleship and happens to be identical to their "Blue Sea Navy HD" game. Three images into a google image search I found the submarine used in that game. I got as far as finding out which aircraft carrier was featured in the other image (the Nimitz).

Core Games Studio is also guilty of the same sort of schemes. All their games go for high prices and consist of a single sentence, a screenshot of a menu, and tiny file size. I found at least one that had an identical description to a game by the other developer. Another had the same name (you'd think the app store would pick up on these), description, and screenshot. Of their games, my favorite was "A Funny Egg Chess", a combination of words that, collectively, means absolutely nothing. It isn't chess, though, it's some variant of tic-tac-toe (an easy mistake). It's file size is 585kb.

I'll finish up with another app I found awhile back which went the extra mile to lie to its customers. For starters, it is reasonably priced so people will actually buy it by accident. The app itself claims to increase any photo, be it 3 megapixel or 5, to an 8MP photo. Anyone who knows what this is suggesting knows that it is impossible (or impractical, not being able to add any new information). Knowing this, the developer took extra steps to make its customers seem happy. It commented on and rated its own app once or twice a day, until there were a few hundred comments. Every twenty or so you find an extremely angry customer but otherwise everything seemed to be all cheery. At the time I spent a few hours reading them and noting similarities that would tie them to the developer or, at least, to the same person. Here are my favorite snippets of comments:

"Me Out!!!"

"Without this app your camera is pathetic figuratively speaking!"

"Charitable app!", "Surprising app!", "Cheerful possibilities!"

"Prrretty addddicting apppplication you got there mister"

"I admire this cutie!"

"Hey people! Did ya see how supercalafragilistic this application works?"

"This application is a merciless nuclear explosion for all its predecessors!"

"Love is the only emotion I'm feeling while thinking of my phone right now"

Tips on taking advantage of the app store:

*Don't provide any useful information.

*Make your descriptions as needlessly colorful as possible. Understanding the proper use of adjectives isn't required, just use in excess.

*Snag some clean, appealing images of the internet for use as a thumbnail.

*Spend ten minutes photoshopping another image to look like part of a game.

*Ask a price that is bordering on unreasonable.

*Use descriptors like HD, Full Version, Bonus, put the letter "i" before everything, Pro, etc.

*Offer lots of apps.

*Place images of attractive women next to half of your screenshots (Evony style).

*Make knock-offs of popular games, especially Angry Birds and zombie games.

*Make impossible claims.

*Lie about the size of your fan-base (downloaded over 9 billion times last month).

*Lie about compliments received (praised by National Geographic for being the best mall shopping game of the year).