From: baiardi@dist.dist.unige.it (Paolo Baiardi (019) 931872)
Subject: Re: Wing Commander I ?
Keywords: Amiga Software, PC Software, Piracy
Organization: DIST --- Universita` di Genova
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 08:02:16 GMT

In article <1992Jul18.032731.11263@microsoft.com> t-jcisek@microsoft.com (Julius Cisek) writes:
>
>The Amiga CAN'T handle it.  But not because of hardware.  It's just not
>worthwhile spending time on an Amiga port when 1) you can make a lot
>more progress working on a new game for the PC market 2) your program
>will be pirated like crazy anyways...
>
The PC market is affected by piracy at least as the Amiga market, but I think mo
-re. Obviously my opinion is based on local reality, it's equally easy to find
PC pirated disk or Amiga ones, either games or tools.
Wing Commander, Falcon 3.0, and other simulations, are very complex, huge, multi
-disk programs, they naturally came as HD-installable, since the majority of PC
users own an hard disk.
The average amiga owner, on the contrary, doesn't own an HD unit, 'cause it's ex
-pensive, compared to a PC one, owns only a FD unit, so he/she has to swap disks
a lot for playing.
The development policy is quite simple, first: develop a good program for PC, 
multi-disk but HD installable, second, make a simpler version, no hd option, on-
ly 2/3 disks, this for Amiga, surely the fool Amiga owners will buy it.
For example, try a comparison between WWI Simulation games like 'Red Baron'
and 'Knight of the Sky', the former was developed for PC, then ported to Amiga,
even if it's HD installable, it's slow, sluggish and unplayable, with thousands
of options, the latter is simpler, a standard Microprose Product ( they use the
same random generator for missions since f-19 stealth for C64! ), easy to play
and funning, not all the programs born in the same way...
>
> If you want good software for the Amiga and are wondering why you don't
>have it, look in your collection.  How many titles did you buy?
>
Personally, I like flight simulations, I have played almost every game in that
field, but I don't have many disks, may be twenty games roundabout.
About them, half or slightly more are original, I have buyed a pirated copy,
played for a while, and the ordered the original version, the others didn't
value the price of the floppy, even considering that the original are quite over
-priced, they have always major/mino bugs.
Another thing, stop saying in manuals that 'we have developed this program for
years...' for justifying its price, like in Birds of Prey, when your aircraft
explodes in mid-air only because is flying over a canyon ( the genius who wrote
the collision detection routine didn't care about the negative height of the
canyon, for him, canyon and hill are the same thing ), and you have worked for
years for such a result ?
--
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