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From: mmoore@ux.acs.umn.edu (Malcolm Diallo Moore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: Psygnosis Missed the Point!
Message-ID: <4083@ux.acs.umn.edu>
Date: 9 Jun 91 17:55:11 GMT
References: <1991Jun6.063912.23994@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG| <16792@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <1991Jun8.031144.26864@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Organization: University of Minnesota, Academic Computing Services
Lines: 77

In article <1991Jun8.031144.26864@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu| sss10@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gun Control is a firm grip) writes:
|In article <16792@darkstar.ucsc.edu> mcgowen@saturn.ucsc.edu (Richard McGowen) writes:
|>In article <1991Jun6.063912.23994@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan):
|>
|>Usually write intelligent things concerning the amiga world.
|>
|>
|>However, He has forgotten one very important thing that makes life with so many
|>people in the world livable, COMPROMISE.  Although some of his complaints are
|
|Compromise... then the game should be manually protected instead of a key disk 
|thing which usually doesnt work. There should be no need for compromise. What
|Psygnosis does with copy protection is not stopping piracy and almost
|encourages people to pirate so that they can make back-up copies for themselves
|rather than relying on a $15 fee for a copy from the company.

Exactly.  
|
|I wonder if psygnosis's version of lemmings for the IBM will have strong
|protection on it, making it unable to be HD mountable... then requiring IBM
|users to pay an additional $15 or so for a HD mountable version that relies on 
|key-disk protection. We rarely see this sort of thing on Macs or on Ms-dos 
|platforms but see it all the time on the amiga, and you say we should 
|compromise??? we want essentially equal access to our hardware.
|
Of course not.sAnd this is fact, because I saw it on show in our local
Software Etc. Store.  He ran it from C:\> and it stood for a few seconds,
and then it came up.  And no, it wasn't the demo, it was the real thing.
B
"He" was the dealer - no not a drug dealer.

|>still valid, for psygnosis to go as far as they did is amazing.  For one thing,
|
|
|This shouldve been available in the 1st place, instead of making people pay
|upwards of $50 for a HD mountable game. I paid $40 for lemmings, why should I
|have to pay an additional $15 or so just for a version that is HD mountable?
|

Far as I'm concerned, you sh|uld get the thing for free.  I wouldn't get it
anyway, because I'm on level 119.

>;most key-disk copy protection schemes I have seen on require you to insert the
|>on "one track of the floppy" than playing the whole game from a floppy.  
|>Secondly, if you ever had played a floppy based version of lemmings you would
|>know that the disk acess is LONG, especially on systems with less than 1 MEG.
|>In my opinion, I am much more concerned with floppy vs hard drive access times
|>than the time it takes to find one floppy amid 12 to 1000 floppies.  Finally,
|>we come back to COMPROMISE.  Psygnosis still does not want Joe Average to be
|>able to give their games (an investment of their money) to the kid next door,
|>down the street, and the one they met once at school who has the same kind of
|>computer.  On the other hand, most users that own a hard drive would love to 
|

THey aren't worried about Joe Q Pirate with an IBM.

|Manual protection is as efficient as on disk copy protection in preventing
|this sort of thing. "joe average" will find a program that will allow you to 
|make backups of all programs and merely use that to give the other person a
|copy. 
|
|>be able to take advantage of the speed their hard drive gives them.  If you
|>are going to play a game for over an hour, what is so bad about spending the
|>first 1 minute finding the key disk and not having to later sit through 10 
|>minutes of floppy access.  Psygnosis came more than halfway, but yet you
|>still want to condemn them for not going as far as you wanted.  This
|>is the equivalent of you getting a speeding ticket and then yelling at the
|>officer for giving you one instead of the one he gave you that only had you
|>going 5 mph over the speed limit rather than the 50 mph per hour over the
|>speed limit you were actually going.  If someone is doing something that you
|>see as going in the right direction, you should encourage them, not condemn

They half-did it.  Half-doing a job is like not doing it at all.  Would you
half-clean your bathroom?  Nuff said.

Malcolm "The Capital MD" Moore
Sig closed for repair/remodeling - Will reopen within one week