Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!caen!t22918 From: t22918@ursa.calvin.edu (Matt Ranney) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games Subject: Re: Autodial to your local bbs. Lemmings has been released long ago. Message-ID: Date: 21 Feb 91 01:24:31 GMT References: <19040@cbmvax.commodore.com> <1991Feb16.193252.20795@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <19052@cbmvax.commodore.com> <1991Feb18.051008.11300@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <52197@cornell.UUCP> <2323@odin.cs.hw.ac.uk> <62819@bbn.BBN.COM> Sender: news@engin.umich.edu (CAEN Netnews) Organization: The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Lines: 71 cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes: >I don't understand. What is it about the Amiga market that makes >non-installable the option of choice, but key-disk the one for the IBM >market? Why not at least make an HDable/keydisk version for the Amiga, >too? Are we _such_ clever theives??? [on the other hand, the >HD-decision is actually fine by me, since this game seems destined for >my wife's 386 instead of my 2000.] Well, I HAD to throw my two cents worth in this mess, so here goes.... What is it about the Amiga makret ...? Well, it's the fact that most of the game players that I know that own Amigas upgraded from a 64/128 system. This also places them GERERALLY in the high school to early college age. Most of these people bought their Amigas knowing full well that they could pirate hundreds of games from their friends -- that's why they bought them. Most of these people don't have hard drives, they have the basic A500, 1meg, 1 external 3.5 drive. Now, don't get me totally wrong, these people probably DO buy a game now and then: one that's either too hard to figure out without the instructions, or one they might not be able to find locally. Someone said before that most of the Amiga gamers haven't spoken out against non-HD installable games. I think this is correct. I also think that most of the legit. users (purchacers) of games don't have a hard drive, so why should they care? So, what to do about protection? Well, you've got two choices: 1: devise an uncrackable protection scheme that nobody can even touch. 2: send a honest, sincere, message to all the pirates in the world from all the programmes and software houses in the world, and hope to change the pirate's heart. Well, since this *IS* the real world here, none of the above are going to happen. Here's what I have learned from experience: There are two extremes to the pirate world, on one side, you've got the collectors. These people don't care what the game is, they just collect it. If it's a game for the Amiga, it's in their collection. They have probably never played the majority of their games, and they don't care, as long as they can get more games tomorow. These type of people feed the second type, who are the actual players. This type of pirate has around 50 disks, and fills them with fun games to play. When he or she is sick of one of thse games, or if a super ]<00L new game comes out, they'll delete one of their old games to get this new one. THIS is the type of person who would possible buy a game. The former would never consider it. Granted, there are many different divisions of these two types, but these are the two extremes. Now, how do you make a player-pirate want to buy a game? Simple, create games that seem to work until you really get into them, and then test for the copy protection. When I was on the 64, the few games that I bought (ok, I admit it, I _was_ a pirate, but hey, what else was the 64 good for?) were ones that loaded up fine, and were fine games to play, but once you got into the game a little, the game locked. Everybody thought the game worked, so they distributed it. If the bigtime collector-pirates got a new game, loaded it up and it worked, they probably would never play it, and would pass it on to many other people. These people will probably play it a little, and if they like it, get far enough in the game to hit the copy protection. If they like it enough, they'll probably go buy the game. If not, they probably wont ever play the game again. Please note the great number of "probably"s in there. I know this is a great oversimplification, but I think the theory is there. Are any software houses reading this? If so, what do you think? -- Matt Ranney mranney@wybbs.mi.org t22918@ursa.calvin.edu mranney@mole.ai.mit.edu (or any other FSF machine)