Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!well!farren
From: farren@well.UUCP (Mike Farren)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: No more Cinemaware stuff for Amiga !!!????
Message-ID: <13002@well.UUCP>
Date: 4 Aug 89 08:51:48 GMT
References: <9180.AA9180@heimat> <1989Jul30.210112.10525@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <625@uranus.UUCP> <1989Aug2.144138.24257@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
Reply-To: farren@well.UUCP (Mike Farren)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 28

karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) writes:
>
>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.

I don't have the original posting available to reply to, but he mentioned
that the game had been out five months.  Five months is a pretty good
lifetime for a game, in my experience (and I've been involved in the 
games industry for more than 10 years now).  The statement he made about
the correlation between the cracked version and the drop in sales does not
correspond to my own experience in the field, as evidenced by my royalty
checks...

>Given the installed Amiga base, this machine simply cannot afford piracy 
>on the scale I have observed

Sorry.  The machine obviously CAN afford it.  It's been doing so since
the beginning, just like every other machine out there.  Neither side in
the piracy debate can prove that their arguments are correct.  Without
such proof (and I mean hard numbers, not speculation such as "ten percent
would buy it if it weren't for piracy" or "no sales are lost due to
piracy"), the only thing you can do is to look at the situation as it
stands, with piracy as part of the picture.  And that situation is, as
it has always been, one where some companies do well, and others do not.

-- 
Mike Farren 				     farren@well.sf.ca.usa