From: goodman@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Marc Goodman)
Subject: Re: Bilestoad
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 22:57:48 GMT

payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne) writes:
>I do not believe that DataMost was in financial trouble when the Bilestoad
>came out. Your assumption that piracy was a major cause is probably
>wrong, but untestable, and therefore, not a meaningfull argument. 

Datamost was in financial trouble by 1984.  My contract with them was
signed on December 28th, 1982.  At that point the claimed to be
getting out of the software business, because they couldn't make a go
of it (in spite of programs like Aztec and The Bilestoad).

The Bilestoad was voted one of the most popular games in 1983, in
spite of the fact that both previous games I wrote sold about four
times as many copies.  This was IN SPITE OF the fact that by 1982 a
significantly larger customer base existed, since many more apples
were out in 1983-1984 than in 1980, when the first game was published.
This, coupled with the fact that MANY people have told me that there
were large numbers of pirated copies indicates that piracy WAS A
SIGNIFICANT FACTOR in reducing my income.  Since I dropped out of the
market because I couldn't earn enough in it, we may therefore infer
that piracy was a contributing factor to me dropping out of the
market.

>The
>lost profits argument -assumes- that everyone who pirates a program could
>afford to buy is (no lost profits otherwise). I suspect that most of the
>time, this is not the case. And I suspect that the claimed lost profits
>exceed the expendable cash of the American public by an order of magnitude.
>Note, I am not defending piracy, but I am attacking the lost profits
>argument.

No, it doesn't assume that everyone who pirates a program would have
bought it.  It assumes that SOME SIGNIFICANT FRACTION of the people
who pirated the program would have bought it if they COULDN'T GET IT
FOR FREE.  Given the sales on the first two games I wrote, I certainly
believe this to be the case.  If The Bilestoad had sold as many copies
as SpaceWarrior or Planetoids (and the very fact that you've probably
never heard of either of those would seem to indicate that it SHOULD
HAVE), then I could have at least paid off my mastercard and recouped
my investment of time in developing the game.

>None of which has any bearing on the fact that the PUBLISHER screwed the
>programs authur, they did not pay for the copies that they sold. Or do you
>call this piracy also?

Cute rhetorical point, but I'm afraid it fails on the facts.  Softdisk
did not begin publication until 1986 or thereabouts, long after the
rights reverted back to me and also after ``normal'' sales of the game
had ceased.  Datamost did default on $4000 in royalties, but even if
they had paid those, it STILL wouldn't have been as much money as the
previous games, nor enough to recoup the six months I spent developing
the game in the first place.

>You know, we are still talking about different things. Not just here,
>but all through both posts. Probably the best thing to do is just to
>drop the issue. Or post what you want, but not as a response to my post.

Well, now that you know the facts, I can't imagine that you'd want to
belabour your point any longer.
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