Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: crawff on May 06, 2009, 03:54:03 PM
-
I was wondering if the impact of pirated games for the Amiga seriously contributed to Amiga’s downfall or was Commodore still largely to blame?
If we had brought all are games at full retail price, would Commodore have been in a superior financial position?
I am only curious… I remember reading my Amiga magazines at the time which suggested that Pirated games would spell the end of the Amiga… (as a mainstream system)
-
More software sales would have certainly helped the software companies, but Commodore was primarily a hardware company. And I believe it went out of business through no fault of its customers.
-
Mehdi Ali, Mehdi Ali... :whack:
-
Yeah, pirated games caused the end of the PlayStation, didn't them?
No: they caused the end of many developers, but $ony sold all the crap they could make (damn psx thing, breaks so easily...)
CMB was doomed because of the lack of innovation/vision of their directives. I don't see much improvement from Amiga 1000 on, really... AGA was a sorry excuse for an improvement, PC hardware was cheap, etc... you surely know the story. They had the power in 1984, but Amiga technology was about the same in 1994.
Now don't take me wrong: I like Amiga, and it's my all time favorite computer. But comercially speaking, marketing needs innovation, and CMB didn't delived it. They didn't allow Amiga itself to develop and evolve as envisioned by genius Jay Miner and the original Amiga team. So screw CBM. They got what they deserved. Bad thing is the actual bloatware OS situation. I hope M$ follows the patch of Commodore sometime soon. I'd love to see that.
-
I think there were a number of factors.
They put out the C-16 with improved basic and less memory to compete with a product that wasn't available and customers wanted more and not less.
They killed the C-65 even though it was practically completed and its sale could have kept Commodore afloat.
There were third party manufacturers who were making ram expansions for the C-128 because lines have been drawn for the REU but Commodore didn't want a product competing with the Amiga.
They didn't do research and development to improve the speed of the chips.
Irving Gould wrestled control from those who knew how to run the company and basically drove the company into the ground.
The banks started dictating how the company was to be run.
There was inappropriate pricing on some of Commodore's software.
They fired the CEO trying to save jobs at Commodore.
-
You also have to remember at that time, there were no real successful "computer" companies, no real corporate model on how to run one. Each of the "major" computer companies back then had something else to fall back on. The most successful computer company at the time (TANDY) pulled right out of the computer game in that time, preferring to let AST build the computers and brand them with the Tandy name. AST lasted a year after that.
That, and the fact that Gould treated CBM like a personal bank account, and no real marketing of the Amiga in North America (I don't remember one Amiga commercial on TV, but the C64 had tons), lead to the downfall.
In Canada the CDTV and CD32 had no marketing what so ever (even though the CDTV was sold here) No one knew of the CD32 and most people still don't. Infact, I know gamers who were lining up for a SEGA 32x system, because SEGA marketed it to the hilt. Commodore, nothing.
-
because SEGA marketed it to the hilt. Commodore, nothing.
"...to be this good, it will take SEGA ages!" ;-)
-
pirated games in any platform and console have brought to an increase of hardware sale.
Amiga had boom of proper success thanks to the piracy even if it was illegitimate.
Commdore is bankrupt because his executive were not good to manage it as it's owed.
-
..yes and we have a picture of the biggest pirates of the world:
(http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/9128/irvinggouldandmedhiali.jpg)
-
I think claims of piracy are used by management of every sinking company/industry... Music and movie industries are recent examples, it must be the piracy not the crap they are producing.
-
Indeed it could be argued that piracy HELPED the Amiga. When i got my first Amiga in 1992, it came with a pleathora of pirated games.
Without the abundance of cheap games (£2 per game plus 50p per extra disk) on the black market, I doubt I would have had many games at all, and would have got rid of the Amiga platform about 12 years ago.
Taking disks into school to copy/exchange disks with mates etc.
IMHO Commodore sold more Amigas because of piracy.
Be gentle.
-
To be honest..i would have to agree..
I only wanted an amiga after seeing one round my friends who had hundreds of games etc..
I was amazed (jealous).. so pestered my dad to buy me one...
-
Tension wrote:
IMHO Commodore sold more Amigas because of piracy.
Be gentle.
I think the same point was brought up in the Book "on the Edge". It applies to all the "Home" computers at the time, not just the Amiga, but C64, TRS-80, Apple 2 etc.
You most likely got the computer that most of you friends had, so you could swap games. Same idea with the Consoles at the time. More people bought Atari, or Intelivision because their friends had one and you could trade games.
Piracy helped the birth of home computers. With no internet and most people never owning even a modem until the late '80's- early 90's there was not alot to do, but pirate software. Now if you had a dual cassette deck for dubbling.... :lol:
-
Just think... if Commodore & the 3rd party developers had the gee-whiz to acknowledge & creatively handle the piracy as it was, instead of punishing the ethically centred few, they could have struck a deal that would have enabled everyone to be more profitable. Even the so called "backup" program companies could have kicked something back to an already profitable software industry. And that's exactly what happened when consumer CD-R's and CD recorders first came about. For every blank CD that was sold, a portion of the profit went toward ASCAP and maybe even the RIAA IIRC. But the industry as a whole (or should that read hole?) still cried fowl. lol
In other words (as if the Amiga wasn't already priced high enough for what it was toward the end), had Commodore built into the price, a reverse royalty of sorts to the active & approved 3rd party software people AND/OR lowered the cost of development, blah blah blah. Music industry could do this thanks to unions, but there is no such organisation with software companies - is there?). Piracy would have still happened, but there *is* profit to be made in its wake. And lets face it: games were expensive back then. When I look back at these mags/catalogues from the 80's, I'm aghast to see that MOST of the games back then were in the $40-$60 range. Exactly where they lie today. Had these companies NOT been so greedy (and this is partly what I am talking about when I say those of us that bought, were punished in a sense), they ALL could have lowered their MSRP's. I mean really. What incentive would someone have to go out of their way to buy a $50-$80 "backup" program/hardware doo-hickey or pay for expensive on-line BBS downloading when the games should have been more affordable from the get go?
Texas Instruments got greedy when they purposely screwed MOST/ALL of their "unofficial" developers with the introduction of their beige /4A model. That model was designed purely for the sake of locking out 3rd party developers for those not in the know. And look where it got that once *excellent* platform.
A LOT of Nintendo's developers bailed after a while too because of similar treatment. Squaresoft anyone?
Music industry did it to CD's, movie industry is doing it to DVD's and there are countless other counter-productive business examples that have gone on and continue to go on. Simplistically put: because of greed, politics and lack of energy to get things done unless it involves a ton of money for nothing. IMHO :madashell:
-
crawff wrote:
I was wondering if the impact of pirated games for the Amiga seriously contributed to Amiga’s downfall...
Short answer...No
Long answer...Use the search function, this has been discussed waaaay tooooo many times already.
-
crawff wrote:
I was wondering if the impact of pirated games for the Amiga seriously contributed to Amiga’s downfall or was Commodore still largely to blame?
If we had brought all are games at full retail price, would Commodore have been in a superior financial position?
I am only curious… I remember reading my Amiga magazines at the time which suggested that Pirated games would spell the end of the Amiga… (as a mainstream system)
As others have stated, the software pirates only caused some of the software developers to stop writing games and applications for the Amiga and write for different OSes instead, not because there was less piracy, but because there were more sales to offset the lost revenue due to the piracy.
I am sure that the pirates had some small affect on there being less games and applications for the Amiga as more and more developers moved to writing for MSDOS, Windows and even MacOS. That lack of good software late in the Amigas life probably had an affect on sales of the Amiga A4000, A1200 & maybe the CD32 (but we all know that C= couldn't get the CD32's into the USA due to other problems at the end).
Management of Commodore killed the Amiga, piracy just scared a few developers away and that only made it harder for the Amiga to survive at the end.
That is my take on the past in a nutshell, but very simplified, as there were so many other factors.
-
I remember some of my friends had a huge collection of pirated games. Everytime we went to the (only) local store selling Amigas to order any of the good titles, they could never get it.
It was easier to borrow or get my own dirty copy. I was just a spoiled 14 years old kid who wanted to play the game NOW, not some day when he maybe would find a legal version :)
-
Software Piracy tends to push hardware sales, so I don't think it killed the Amiga... probably actually kept it going for longer than it would have if there was no piracy.
To paraphrase the people at EPIC (Gears of War Creators) - "the people who know how and install top end graphics accelerators on their PCs are the same ones who know how to use newsgroups and torrent tools."
Off but on the subject too - PC Gaming is dieing due to piracy - but only cause consoles can take over. You can't compare the experience/quality of a 52" HDTV + Xbox360(or PS3) with a PC Gaming not matter the video card!
In the heyday of the Amiga, there where no consoles that could perform at the quality/level of Amigas (80's). It wasn't until the SEGA Genensis/SNES that some games even came close... but nothing as good as Wings or Awesome on those consoles! So getting games easy was probably something that kept the Amiga alive....
I also remember getting Amiga software was so hard unless you mailed ordered. EggHead software near me quit carrying Amiga software in 91 and EB quite in 92.
Part of the reason I went to a PC in 94 -couldn't find software new or used!
My 2 cents worth....
-
Off but on the subject too - PC Gaming is dieing due to piracy - but only cause consoles can take over. You can't compare the experience/quality of a 52" HDTV + Xbox360(or PS3) with a PC Gaming not matter the video card!
Hopefully for me PC gaming will stay alive because I just can't play with a joypad...I simply hate it.
Ironically a good ol' one button joystick made me a happy Amiga user.
-
mbrantley wrote:
More software sales would have certainly helped the software companies, but Commodore was primarily a hardware company. And I believe it went out of business through no fault of its customers.
Yes and No.
More software sales helped at first only the software company. right.
And many pirate copies help the hardware company. right too.
BUT not enough software sales or to many pirate copies make that the software companys dont make new games for the system.
and no new games damage at the end the hardware-company.
that (not the only one) problem what amiga have.
-
Pirated games definitely *helped* the Amiga...
-
takemehomegrandma wrote:
Pirated games definitely *helped* the Amiga...
at the start yes. but at the moment where are to many pirated games and not enough sold games, they was a part for the damage of amiga.
-
My first Amiga, A500 came with a stack of pirated games, which was good because that allowed me to get into the machine.
It wasnt that long before I was buying original AAA titles, I probably collected around 20-30 boxed originals, at about $20-50 each during the time I owned an Amiga.
Most of the pirated games I had I probably wouldn't have bought anyway so from the developers point of view I wasnt a lost sale.
-
How many $20 to $50 games could the average 14 year old afford per month or year from 1985 to 1995?
My point is that toward the end of Amiga production, piracy had affected the number of software developers writing for the Amiga and the number of new games and applications available, as well as the number of computer dealers that carried Amigas, or any software or games for the Amiga, hence your trouble finding the game you wanted at a local store.
Piracy did not cause all of Amigas problems, but I would say after 1990-1992, piracy was doing at least as much, or more harm than it could ever do good by enticing your friends to go buy an Amiga just because they too could pirate a bunch of games.
Without good, new software applications (and games) to run, any computer, no matter how advanced and great, is just a waste of electrical energy. One of the challenges for our Amiga community to stay alive and thrive is to have coders continue to write and/or port new and exciting software to the AmigaOS3.x, AmigaOS4.x and MorphOS2.x, so please support the few commercial developers that we have left, support the very few Amiga dealers that are willing to stock Amiga hardware & software when no one else will anymore. Don't PIRATE Amiga software anymore. It isn't helping anyone, or keeping our community alive. (not intended to be directed at anyone in particular)
Learn to program and join a group to write a new game or improve a web browser, or word processor.
-
amigadave wrote:
How many $20 to $50 games could the average 14 year old afford per month or year from 1985 to 1995?
This is a good point.
People talk about Amiga piracy a lot, but on the PC it was the exact same things. All my friends had pirated Windows, pirated Photoshop, etc etc.
But lets take a look at Photoshop....
Can your average 14 year old afford Photoshop? No, but does it really matter to Adobe if they pirate it? I mean most 14 years olds back then weren't actually using Photoshop in a business or to make money. Or, that is to say if it wasn't available through piracy then those 14 year olds wouldn't have gone out and bought it so, there really is no lost sales.
But, come 10 years later. Those 14 year olds are now out of College. Guess what program they are 100% efficient at?? Photoshop!! So, now they start their own business or work for a company and guess what product they are going to buy or get their company to use? Photoshop.
So to me, the kids using Photoshop is the best free advertisement Adobe could get.
Piracy didn't kill off MS because they were smarter than Commodore management. Kids in my school had just as much pirated "PC". More since people actually new what a PC was thanks to what I call Commodore's no advertising policy.
It's funny that the only place I ever say Amiga ads was IN Amiga magazines! Uh, I think the people reading those mags already new what an Amiga was.. oh Commodore lol!! :-)
-
PIRACY is all over even now, everywhere.
Who buys original games for their PS2, PSP, XBOX, PC machine anymore? The same applied for the Amiga market too. The difference is that the above machines have strong market and plenty of money.
I don't think that only piracy destroyed Amiga. It was just a piece of the cake.
-
Who buys original games for their PS2, PSP, XBOX, PC machine anymore?
enough
when not, no new games. simply way :)
-
Sure, but keep in mind that when the Amiga was even at its top, even in Greece was very difficult to find original games. So the only way, was piracy unfortunately. It's not our fault in some ways, but Commodore marketing to some countries like ours.
-
At its most popular ie the OCS and ECS years, most people that bought an Amiga did so for the games. Sure there was Lightwave, the Video Toaster and DPaint, but the A500 plus pirated GAMES (not apps) was what "Amiga" meant to users at the height of its popularity. So the proficency at photoshop argument didn't apply.
the fact is that most Amiga owners i knew had a collection of 200+ games: 195 pirated and 5 genuine. Now if anyone thinks that didn't affect the bottom line of the games publishers and programmers, they are kidding themselves.
Games piracy made Amiga hardware popular initially, but had a huge impact on games publishers choosing not to support Amiga and move on to consoles and PC ( where piracy was a fact, but because there were so many PC's out there, they could still make money, and CD burners were only for the rich, so it was harder to burn copies of PC CDROM games).
In the AGA years, people had huge hard drives ie 1 gig, they had 56k modems, so that it was easy and fast to download a 250k lha game file and store hundreds of them on your hard drive. Consequently, games publishers sold only about 1 in 10 of the games that were being played. Ofcourse that meant they lost money, moved elsewhere, and without software, the lifeblood of the platform dried up.
-
from stefcep2:
games publishers choosing not to support Amiga and move on to consoles and PC ( where piracy was a fact, but because there were so many PC's out there, they could still make money,
Yeah, few in the Amiga community want to talk about this--how, if Amiga OS were to go to x86-64, it would face the same thing the developers who went there did: success
:lol: (*despite* piracy).