Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!mcdchg!ddsw1!karl From: karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: No more Cinemaware stuff for Amiga !!!???? Summary: Oh bullshit -- that con was a SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION! Message-ID: <1989Aug2.144138.24257@ddsw1.MCS.COM> Date: 2 Aug 89 14:41:38 GMT References: <9180.AA9180@heimat> <1989Jul30.210112.10525@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <625@uranus.UUCP> Reply-To: karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc., Mundelein, IL Lines: 105 In article <625@uranus.UUCP> esker@uranus.UUCP (Lawrence Esker) writes: >>$>I was at a SF convention a couple of months ago. They had a "computer room", >>$>as some of them do. Inside were three or four Amigas. >> >>$>Also inside were some THOUSAND 3.5" diskettes, with every program ever >>$>conceived for the Amiga on them. And among them was not ONE original disk. >>$>NOT ONE. >> >>Covert Contraption, in Southfield Michigan. It was held at the Michigan Inn. >I wanted to avoid commenting on this thread, but after seeing the above, I >couldn't resist. > > I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS WHOLE THREAD STARTED BECAUSE HE WENT TO A CONVENTION > THAT SPECIALISES IN PIRATING SOFTWARE. JUST LOOK AT THE NAME! Can you read? "SF" means, in the vernacular, SCIENCE FICTION. "Covert Contraption" is a SF con held in Michigan each year, has been for quite some time. The name derives from the fact that your convention ID badges have either "CIA" or "KGB" imprinted on them -- you can choose which. The con does NOT exist for the piracy of software -- but there certainly was rabid piracy there. I also direct you to the recent post by a distributor of "Dragon's Lair", who stated that the program outsold all expectations -- UNTIL a cracked version showed up. Then the sales trickled down to NEAR ZERO. Sure, those 20,000 copies wouldn't all have been purchased if there was no piracy. But if the kids couldn't crack the program, I bet 2,000 more copies would have been sold from that 20k out there now. And $2,000 * $50 each is $100,000 -- enough to make it worth while to bring out Dragon's Lair II. As it sits, perhaps it is not worth doing the second one. Do you like the potential result of this? The lack of further development for the AMIGA platform? The self-serving statements I have seen here, basically that "well, I pirate, but only when necessary" are a bunch of crock. Look, people, piracy is defined by the law as STEALING. If you don't like this, then CHANGE THE LAW. Once you have done that, however, don't get pissed when there is no more commercial software available -- and you have to write ALL your own stuff, not to mention writing your own compiler to build them with! Look at nations which don't respect Copyright at all -- NONE of the commercial software products are available for sale there, because the publishers know damn well that they would only sell one copy. Software development is an EXPENSIVE business. Packages like F18 interceptor, Dragon's Lair, "C" compilers, and others are not cheap to bring to market. When you copy something without paying for it, you are stealing. If you cannot afford it, then GO WITHOUT. It won't kill you. Pirating software is like the following scenario: You have a programmer write you some software. Then, after it is done, you say "Well, I only have $50 to spend, even though you expected $500 and I told you I would pay you that. Since my food is more important than your livelihood, I am going to buy groceries, keep the program and screw you -- hell, you have more time available to you and can always write the program again. Furthermore, I am going to give away your work to anyone who wants it." That is, in a word, disgusting. With the Amiga you don't have the luxury of an installed base of 500,000 systems as you do with MSDOS. You have perhaps 50,000 systems. Due to this, piracy KILLS software development much faster on the Amiga than it does on DOS machines -- there are simply fewer copies to be sold to begin with; if 9 out of 10 are stolen rather than sold then companies have little or no incentive to continue development. Consider this: 50,000 installed systems 10% purchase a given program (say, a game) Thus there are 5,000 potential sales 5,000 * $50 = $250,000 in potential sales (a nice hunk of change) Now, if you have rabid piracy, what you get is: 5,000 potential sales 90% steal rather than buy 500 actual sales 500 * $50 = $25,000 in actual sales (which, after publishers get their share, doesn't pay the author enough to make it worth while to write the next one). In the MSDOS world it is slightly different. Authors can make a decent living even with 9/10ths piracy. Even there it hurts -- if piracy stopped tomorrow many MORE authors would be out there -- the money would attract them. Given the installed Amiga base, this machine simply cannot afford piracy on the scale I have observed and still keep the software producers out there supporting it. I know this much for certain -- WE are not going to produce a commercial product if we only envision selling 500 copies at $50 each -- it won't cover our production and development costs. Think about that the next time you pirate software -- before you apply your cute rationalizations about what you are doing. -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, !ddsw1!karl) Public Access Data Line: [+1 312 566-8911], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"