Less than a week after the game was released, Hunted Cow has taken the decision to remove Battle Dungeon from the Apple App Store, thanks to massive piracy making the game’s server costs unsustainable.
Initial demand highlighted a few issues with the server to the company, who looked into the game’s usage to discover that demand was far outstripping sales. Further investigation showed a 10-1 ratio of pirates to paying customers.
While many games can cope with fairly extensive piracy, Battle Dungeon was a purely multiplayer experience and as such had high back end demands, for every game. All of which the company had to pay for.
Hunted Cow did not want to create a game in which players with deep pockets could achieve more than players putting in time to train and equip their party, so the game was created as a paid app. The company is currently reviewing whether the game can be redesigned to accommodate a purely In-App-Purchase driven business model.
In the meantime, Hunted Cow is offering players who paid for the app a full refund.
