Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!ubc-cs!alberta!ami-cg!cg From: cg@ami-cg.UUCP (Chris Gray) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games Subject: Copy protection (e.g. the Lemmings debate) Message-ID: Date: 23 Feb 91 18:52:57 GMT Organization: Not an Organization Lines: 35 I hate joining this type of pointless argument, but here goes! It appears to be a fact that the vast majority of Amiga owners own A500's with no hard disk, little if any expansion memory and perhaps only 1 floppy drive. What conclusions would a game manufacturer draw from this? They would likely conclude that the best market satisfaction and hence the most sales, are gotten by making their games work as well as possible on that minimal machine. [This does not necessarily follow, but hang on a bit.] The fastest-loading, fewest disk swapping can be done in this environment by using custom loaders and disk formats. If the company judges that the irritation of expanded system owners at this is outweighed by the happiness of the minimal system owners, then they are doing "the right thing" by using custom loaders, etc. Thus, the are doing "the right thing" by producing games that are not HD-installable. [Note that this says nothing about support for multiple floppies, expanded memory, faster processors, etc.] The above conclusion may not be correct. If a very small percentage of the minimal-system owners buy the games [perhaps due to most of them pirating the games], and a relatively large percentage of the big-system owners buy the games, then the custom loaders, etc. could be "wrong". The numbers would have to be very skewed for this to be the case, however. So, we come back to an unanswerable question: what are the numbers? The software companies probably don't have any magic way of knowing them - they have the same guesses we have, plus the hard information from the registration cards they receive. If their best information says that the majority of their games are purchased by minimal-system owners, and that those people strongly prefer fast-loading games to slow-loading ones, then the "right thing" is to use custom loaders, and bedamned with hard disks! -- Chris Gray usenet: alberta!ami-cg!cg CIS: 74007,1165