Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!att!mtuxo!mtgzz!drutx!druwy!dlm
From: dlm@druwy.ATT.COM (Dan Moore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Empire v.3 / Empire II Information
Message-ID: <4284@druwy.ATT.COM>
Date: 31 Aug 89 15:29:28 GMT
References: <8908291701.AA18947@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO
Lines: 47

in article <8908291701.AA18947@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>,
PSYLONE@UOGUELPH.BITNET (Brian Taylor) says:
> [ deleted message to Mark Baldwin]
> ==========================
> interstel/the.pub #80, from mbaldwin, 433 chars, Tue Aug 29 10:10:31 1989
> --------------------------
> There is a Version 3.0 in development.  The original target machine is
> the IBM, however, there MAY be conversions to the other machines.  The big
> problem is how to financially justify the work.
> [...] 
> Mark
> -------------------
> Seems pretty "vague" regarding the ST situation to me ... what exactly is
> "financial justification"? I, for one, would like to have this excellent
> program in its updated version(s)! I'll save any replies I get personally
> or via the list and upload them to Mark, for whatever they're worth :-).
> - Brian

	"Financial justification" means it may not be worth trying to
sell either version 3.0 or Empire II on the ST.  The last time I talked
to Mark about sales the ST was the lowest of the three machines it is
currently out on (ST, Amiga and PClones).  That's pretty bad when the
ST version came out about a year before the Amiga and PC versions.

	Given the limited programmer resources of a small company
(Interstel isn't very big) they may not be able to afford to port a
program to a machine where sales will be relatively low (less than
10,000 copies).  Instead they will spend time porting the program to a
machine where they expect high sales or developing new programs for a
machine where software sales are high.  Mark and the other programmers
that work with or for Interstel have to make a living.  Spending 3 to 6
months porting a program to a machine where less than 10,000 copies
will sell isn't how you do it.  (10,000 copies means about $15,000 to
$20,000 to the author, which sounds good till you realize that it may
take 2 years for that many copies to sell.)  Mark and I both used to
write software for the ST and 8 bit Atari's, and neither one of us
could afford to continue.  Mark started writing games for more
profitable computers (PClones), I got a real job where I'm paid every 2
weeks instead of every 3 to 9 months.




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