Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!dptg!att!mcdchg!ddsw1!corpane!sparks
From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: No more Cinemaware stuff for Amiga !!!????
Message-ID: <925@corpane.UUCP>
Date: 3 Aug 89 12:42:05 GMT
References: <9180.AA9180@heimat> <1989Jul30.210112.10525@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
Organization: Corpane Industries, Inc., Louisville Ky
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<625@uranus.UUCP> <1989Aug2.144138.24257@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
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In article <1989Aug2.144138.24257@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl
Denninger) writes:
> [long disertation on pirating ommited. very good though]

>
>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).


One thing though Karl..... There are over 1 million Amiga's out there, not
50,000. CBM passed the 1 million mark earlier this year.

so 1,000,000 Amigas
maybe 100,000 potential sales
maybe 30% rather steal than buy <--- more realistic than 90%, but still high.

70,000 actual sales

70,000 * $50 = $3,500,000 

if there was no pirating, then 100,000 * 50 = 5,000,000 but who is to say that
those pirates would have bought it anyway? Still 3.5 million is a hefty sum.
--
But the rest of your article is pretty good, although I still personally think
that you just had a bad experience with piracy (the convention) and that the
problem is NOT as widespread as you think. Most of the people I know don't
pirate (about 60 amiga owners I know). Those that do, aren't the MASS pirateers
that you saw. I know maybe 3 or 4 people out of that 60 who do pirate, and I
just don't associate with them. And I am not going to turn them in for swiping
4 or 5 games. But If I came across such a blatent display such as you did, I
would have turned them in. 

-- 
John Sparks   |  {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps
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