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:
