Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!caen!umich!vela!hastoerm
From: hastoerm@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Moriland)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: Run (don't walk) to your store.  Lemmings has been released.
Message-ID: <5212@vela.acs.oakland.edu>
Date: 20 Feb 91 07:53:03 GMT
References: <1991Feb18.051008.11300@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <52197@cornell.UUCP> <2323@odin.cs.hw.ac.uk> <12591@darkstar.ucsc.edu>
Reply-To: hastoerm@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Moriland)
Organization: Evil Young Mutants For A Better Tomorrow.
Lines: 45


	I have to agree with all the statements against disk based
copy protection. The only copy protection that I have heard of that
even SLOWED the pirates down was the one on Populous and that
protection as never been used on any other game I have heard of. I
have some friends who are in the Pirate community and although I
neither condone, nor practise piracy myself, I have accepted cracked
versions of software I already bought. (leave the morality flames in
the can on this one. I bought it to begin with so any morality lessons
will fall on deaf ears) Why? Because, as is often stated on here, the
cracked versions are often quite better than the original. HD
Installable in many cases, no annoying and damaging disk groinking,
faster load times, etc, etc etc. I have, in the past, been offered
software by my friends that I had not purchased yet that I turned
down. Many of those titles are UK titles that haven't even APPEARED in
the states yet. They have cracked them and even NTSC FIXED them before
they even hit the shoreline! Your copy-protection schemes must REALLY
be worth the effort when the pirates can get the copies in NTSC format
to the states before you can. Just last week I was offered a release
version of Lemmings in NTSC which I turned down as I haven't bought it
yet. I don't even think Lemmings is out in the states yet, is it? 

Software makers should think about these facts before devoting all
that effort to protection. Nothing you guys have done has slowed down
release into the pirate community at all yet. The only people you are
hurting are the legitimate consumers such as myself who can't install
the software on the HD, etc. I would like to have 95% of my software
HD Installable. Thats why I Frickin' BOUGHT the hard drive! Even a KEY
disk method would be preferable to not being able to HD install at
all! Manual Password Protection would be the prefered method as long
as it only asked ONCE at boot up.

I won't get into the arguments on whether it should take over the
machine and rape the OS and whatever else, those issues don't bother
me as much as lack of HD installability and heavy protection screwing
up my floppies. Please, do us all a favor and show this post, and
others like it, to the powers that be in your company.

				-Moriland


-- 
| hastoerm@vela.acs.oakland.edu |    __                                | 
|                               | __/// Viva Amiga!                    |
| Founder Of: Evil Young        | \XX/                                 |
| Mutants For A Better Tomorrow |       "Single Tasking: JUST SAY NO!" |