Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!POSTGRES.BERKELEY.EDU!dillon
From: dillon@POSTGRES.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga pirating... (Dragon's Lair)
Message-ID: <8812140153.AA22440@postgres.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 14 Dec 88 01:53:40 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 35


	Such a program I would never in my life buy.  A separate partition?
Going directly to the low level hardware when there are several DOZEN different
drivers out there?  Instant incompatibility with all new HD products?

	I would say that it is indeed your fault (the philosophical position,
not specific persons).  The old time attitude of just being able to take over
an entire machine, bypass everything, and go to the hardware directly is not
a viable means with todays micros anymore.  Forget the damn copy protection.
For a properly written package, you will loose more money due to lost 
clientel (due to the refusal of many people to buy copyprotected programs)
than to any pirating.  And while many exceptions to my last comment exist
today, just as many exist to support it, and the future is obviously
moving towards it.

:n writing Don Bluth's Dragon's Lair, we were sorely aware of the
:need for Hard Drive support on copy protected software.
:Particularely, for a game such as this which has 6 and some odd Megs
:of data.  
:
:Our solution was to include hard drive support in the form of a
:dedicated partition.  This, however, required a great deal of time
:and money to implement.  In addition, because the game (as most
:Amiga games) takes over the system completely, all interfacing needs
:to be done at a very low level, and as such needs to be rewritten
:specifically for each hard drive controller.  When we contacted Hard
:Drive manufacturers, only Comspec gave us the support we needed to
:produce this feature for the Amiga gaming community.
:
:So, it's not all the fault of us "big bad developers."  There are
:many difficulties in implementing these much sought-after features.
:In addition,this support will often reduce the effectiveness of the
:copy protection.
:
:Mark Vange
:Visionary Design Technologies