Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!sequent!cseaman
From: cseaman@sequent.UUCP (Chris "I'm Outta Here, Man!" Seaman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: games & multitasking
Summary: A little light at the end of the tunnel...
Message-ID: <36520@sequent.UUCP>
Date: 11 Jun 90 16:03:54 GMT
References: <1696@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> <4437@munnari.oz.au> <1990Jun8.172126.17775@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Beaverton, OR
Lines: 40

xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
< >lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes:
< >>Bottom line..  I won't buy products that are protected,   (etc....)
< 
< While I haven't reached Larry's point of disgust yet, I _do_ own roughly 60
< pieces of commercial Amiga software, and I find myself more and more often
< putting attractive games back on the shelf when I see that they are made by
< a company whose copy protection schemes cause me intense irritation.
< 
< Psygnosis comes immediately to mind -- flashy graphics, but floppy drive
< killers; I've bought my last game from them that doesn't say "not copy
< protected" on the box.

Ditto...

< Electronic Arts is right on the border now, with their nearly unreadable by
< 46 year old eyes keyword copy protection code sheets, printed black on dark
< purple in small type, and their count colors off a map copy protection
< scheme, unusable by the 10% of the male population that is partially color
< blind.  Does anyone there actually ever bother to _think_?

Perhaps EA is starting to see the light.  I just picked up (I almost put
it back when I saw the EA sticker on the box) 'Tunnels of Armageddon',
from California Dreams (distributed by EA).  Not only is it hard disk
installable, but it is NOT 'physically' copy protected (it uses an
easy-to-read code wheel), it runs flawlessly on a 68020, and exits cleanly.
The ONLY missing piece here is multitasking.  While having mutitasking
enabled during this game would be nice, I can appreciate why they
disabled it.  The game just doesn't let up :-).

I'm not sure how much of this belongs in .tech any more, but I wanted
to remind developers (and prospective developers) that you CAN 'do
the right thing', and still make a quality product, and increase your
sales.  Kudos to California Dreams and EA for a fine game.

-- 
Chris (Insert phrase here) Seaman |    ___-/^\-___          qatul batlh.
cseaman@sequent <or>              |  //__--\O/--__\\        qatul Huch.
...!uunet!sequent!cseaman         | //             \\       qatul roj.
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