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From: dlm@druwy.ATT.COM (Dan Moore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Making Piracy work in your Favor
Message-ID: <4162@druwy.ATT.COM>
Date: 29 Jun 89 15:35:44 GMT
References: <1108@snjsn1.SJ.ATE.SLB.COM>
Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO
Lines: 52

in article <1108@snjsn1.SJ.ATE.SLB.COM>, greg@bilbo (Greg Wageman) says:
> In article <4332@druhi.ATT.COM> terrell@druhi.ATT.COM (TerrellE) writes:
>>	If you're providing timely updates, the pirate is likely to
>>	be requesting support on an out-of-date version of the program.  
>>	Sell the caller the new version!
> 
> Do people with stolen programs actually have the chutzpah to call in
> for customer support??

	As amazing as it sounds they do.  When I was handling technical
support at Data Pacific I had *lots* of calls from people who obviously
didn't have a real Magic Sac (when they asked "What cartridge?" it is
pretty obvious).

	When I was writing stuff for the 8 bits I even had people call
me at home with questions on PaperClip and SynFile+.  (I had been an
officer in a local Atari club and had given out my home number before I
started writing commercial software.  Huge mistake.)  My normal answer
to calls at home was "Call the publisher (Synapse or BI)" or "It's on
page xx of the manual".  It's amazing how many people's dogs eat their
manuals.  And when the calls started coming at 2 and 3 AM ...

> The reason you are seeing software companies dropping the ST in droves
> is because they can't get the sales volume necessary from our small
> market in the US (less than 300,000 machines) to make a reasonable
> profit and keep the price affordable to ST users.  Why should they try
> when there are over 1,500,000 IBM PCs out there?  Capturing 10% of the
> U.S. ST market (which I understand constitues a "hit") would be a sale
> of just 30,000 copies, while 10% of the IBM market would be 150,000
> copies.  That's half of the installed ST base!  Software theft is just
> another nail in the coffin.

	There are over 15,000,000 PClones in the US.  Around 4,000,000
Macs and over 1,000,000 Amigas.  I'm surprised anyone bothers to write
for the small markets (ST, Amiga, the Mac to some extent), there just
isn't that much money in those markets.

	Oh yes, 10% (30,000+ copies) isn't a hit on the ST.  That's a
BIG hit.  I know programs on the ST that are famous (ie. everyone knows
about it or has it) that haven't sold 20,000 pieces after several
years.  At one point a big game publisher's best selling game on the ST
had sold 5,000 copies in one year, the Amiga version had sold 6,500 in
about 8 months, the PC version had sold 25,000 in 3 months.  The author
(who started on the 8 bit Atari's and moved to the ST) is now writing
games for PClones.



				Dan Moore
				AT&T Bell Labs
				Denver
				dlm@druwy.ATT.COM