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From: Ordania-DM@cup.portal.com (Charles K Hughes)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Re: Financial aspects of new 8 bit software
Message-ID: <12657@cup.portal.com>
Date: 16 Dec 88 20:18:58 GMT
References: <3916@ihlpe.ATT.COM> <3918@ihlpe.ATT.COM> <12629@cup.portal.com>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 32


  Piracy is not the reason why new 8-bit titles haven't been released for the 
Atari 8-bit.  The reason is because it is not worth as much to CONVERT games 
to the Atari 8-bit.  Why should a game company use 3-6 months of it's 
programmers time to convert a game that will sell less copies than a new game 
for the C64 would sell?
  We Atari 8-bitters have to face the fact that until we get a larger user 
base willing to shell out $40 per game everytime a new game comes out, we
aren't going to get any new games (or applications for that matter).
  I do not often buy "converted" games, they are usually horrendous 
conversions.  The worst example I have seen (and bought) is the Superman game.
It looks nice on the C64 but is missing 1/2 the game on the Atari 8-bit.  The 
reason the programmers gave was because the Atari has less memory! (The game 
requires a 130xe/800xl.)  I dunno, maybe my math is wrong but I have checked 
out the 64 versus the 800xl and the 64 has less usable memory.  Of course, the
best conversions are great, anyone ever play the Ultima series?  The converter
for those games is known as Chuckles and he does a great job!
   This leads to a fact about software companies...they are out to make a fast
buck...and they don't care about the quality of their games in secondary 
markets.  Good examples of this are the Superman game above, OGRE (the 
ST/Amiga/IBM version allows you to play the OGRE versus the computer).  These 
are simply done for economic reasons, but of course, whenever a game or
application doesn't sell it is attributed to piracy.  The software companies 
may believe that but I think it has a little more to do with price versus 
quality.  As an example I wouldn't buy a $400 Lotus 123 spreadsheet when a $99
spreadsheet does everything Lotus does and more.  It is easier for software 
companies to scream "PIRACY" than to believe that they may have put out an 
inferior product.
   Comments from programmers/software companies welcome.


  Ordania-DM (Charles K Hughes)