I have two Amiga 500 computers and Amiga 1200 and an AROS setup. I may not always use the computers on a specific regular interval pattern. I would probably say that I would more often use the AROS setup than I would the original hardware but I would run the original hardware on a maintenance run so to speak in that parlance.
I also have a Windows computer set up. I also have my Commodore, Atari, Apple II series, TI-99/4A, NES & SNES hardware to cycle through but also use the emulators. The reason that I do use emulation is in the development cycle. I would like to know the market size of the Commodore 64/128 and the Amiga. I know there is considerable overlap. On the other hand, it is really hard to predict. On the emulation front, there is no knowing how many unique users have the emulators in each platform. There is also the ability to recapture former Commodore users via the emulator front. This user base would easily outnumber the number of people who may actively use the original hardware. From a commercial video game developer point of view, the number of C64 users would be important to projecting sales potential from a return on investment point of view but also in terms of how much resources (especially financial resources) in producing the works. A commercial video game developer even for the Commodore or Amiga computers will have to make a reasonable amount of money and sales in order to be able to continue doing so. We don't spend a full-time work load producing commercial quality games to be earning less than we could working for a burger joint. Duh, Captain Obvious. We know that, right. Indeed.
On the flip side, it is very difficult to know how many. There is a very small percentage of the Commodore community who solely uses these classic computers. There are still some that do exist.
The emulator front consists of users who actively uses the original hardware and actively participate in the users groups. There is probably an unknown quantity of more people who have downloaded emulators and downloads the original games and demos for the C= & AMIGA computers and plays them on the emulators. Most of these people may not even be in any way or form being involved on the forums or they just browse the forums without ever creating accounts for leads to new games and demos to play and enjoy. This number of people can possibly reach the levels of 10 to 1 ratio to that of the people who still uses the original hardware and from time to time uses it and participate on the forums. If 1,000 to 2,000 people are active on the forum and there is probably around 10 times that that are semi-regular but there is another 10x times that.
If we learn from the C64DTV sales, if there is sufficient awareness brought out to the market at large, over a 100,000 people are interested. It is highly unlikely a couple thousand individuals bought up the 250,000 units supplies by any measure. That would be an awful large amount. I would say there is probably around 100,000 to 200,000 users on the emulation front for C64/128 and the Amiga. They probably amounted for nearly 1/3 of the sales of the C64DTV for example. The same crowd that downloaded some version of any of the C64 emulators that exist probably bought a C64DTV.
From a developer point of view, I would have to expense with some major capital to catch enough attention to get them. It is easiest for me, the lowest and easiest to reach branch to get the core communities that uses the forum. They would likely be the ones that will buy a video game for the C64 or Amiga.
This market size is probably around ~10,000 give or take. It is very unlikely from a sales point of view that 100% of those users would buy one's product. Getting 10% or even 20% of them to buy a video game, that was developed, would be amazing. In my rule book, on this market would be amazing. If we could get 20,000 to 50,000 C64 emulator users to be actively perusing the C64 forums and involved more, greater the market pool could be. Similarly, the same would be for the Amiga community.
The key is getting them out of the shadows of the internet and into the light some. Even my estimate from the C64DTV sales being emulator users, the potential size of the C64 emulator user base can be well into the millions. Then emulator users may not identify themselves as C64 users or Amiga users even though they use the emulators. This users base size could easily be reflected back on the original C= and Amiga market by a substantial level. While some of the original users have died. There have been others in the broader "retro computer" community, namely the retro/classic gaming community, that has been interested in the C64 and Amiga even though they didn't own one back in the 1980s or had later been introduced to them. So it does become a give or take. The emulator users base dominates the major portion of this retro/classic computer & console gaming community. This community is probably on the orders of around 5% to 10% of the original community given these systems have been part of the generation's cult culture of the late 70s and 80s and even into the early 90s. These systems and their games are icons of our generation's youth and holds a special spot in our hearts. In that respect, the user base as a whole can be a lot larger than we may notice.
