Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

EDITORIAL
onathan Potter says he won't
carry on. Games publishers say
it's the reason they've dropped
the Amiga. Big Amiga names like ASDG.
Gold Disk, New Horizons and Digital
Creations have all dropped below the
horizon for one reason or another. It's not
necessarily all connected with piracy, but
it has to be said that piracy on the Amiga
is rife.
Sometimes people use piracy as
an excuse because the only way they
can get to see a piece of software in
these Amiga shop-free days is to get a
dodgy copy of it from a friend. This is particularly
true of serious software - shops
are pretty much guaranteed to be able
to sell a E25 game. but a piece
of software retailing at E250? They
aren't likely to want to take the chance it
doesn't sell.
The software companies can get
around this to some extent by making
more demo versions of their software, limited
time versions, save disabled ver-
sions. versions where you can only use a
tiny area of the screen. It would help people
make the decision to buy and would
probably result in increased revenue for
the companyThey will, of course, still
have the problem of ensuring a wide distribution
of these demo versions, but with
magazines panting for new material and
the Internet becoming ever more popular,
only the insular of companies will find
themselves with difficulties.
But the area hit hardest Is certainly
games. People rip games off left, right
and centre_ It's not just an Amiga
phenomenon - every week in the leisure
computing trade mag CTW, some
company or other is claiming they have
lost millions of dollars (billions in some
cases) in revenue owing to pira-y. This is
sometimes because a pirated •sion of a
game is In some way improved, giving the
player endless lives or the ability to install
the game onto a hard drive, and I may
be in a tiny minority, but I won't buy a
game that won't take advantage of extra
RAM, processor power or additional
floppy drives.
I'm also not keen on games that don't
install on a hard drive. Perhaps its about
The 111
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am
EDITOR Patil Austin CIRCULATION DIRECTOR D a vid Wrem
DEPUTY EDITOR Ben Vost
ART EDITOR Tym Leckey
COMMERCIAL DIRECTOPI De nise Wright
NEWS EDITOR Adam PhiIlipi DISTRIBUTION C OM AG (01SISI 444055
COVERDISK EDITOR
PRODUCTION EDITOR
Neil Mohr
Judith Chapman
SUBSCRIPTION GI SI •I SI 29Si
GAMES EDITOR Tina Hackett
STAFF WRITERS Andrew Maddock Member of the Audit Bureau& 0111111110•15
Gareth Lofthftse
Dave Cusick ABC( 33,546
ADVERTISING MANAGER Simon Lees
AD SALES
AD SALES
AD PRODUCTION
Jane Normington
Si Horsefieid
Barbara Newell
ix
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Published D by IDG Meda
Meda House, e M ilton Park.
MARKETING MANAGER
MARKETING ASSISTANT
PRODUCTION MANAGER
SYSTEMS MANAGER
Oat Mawddey
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Thp final NB
•
Amiga Computing
OCTOBER 1995
If lommodore 178517Y —
killed the limigo, perhap5
pirarq will Bell 1105t
1011lf5 dt all Mel Mole
dangerou5 problem
time games companies looked to the
somewhat higher end of the market. After
all, who's more likely to buy a game - a
person who actively expands their Amiga
and is willing to spend money on it, or
someone whose only investment has
been a joystick?
Escom need to have a concrete
software strategy in place. It's all very well
getting the hardware back in place, but
without companies like ASDG and
LucasArts back in the fold, serious and
games users of the Amiga may as well
give up now and get that Mac or PC.
Perhaps, like Microsoft, Escom need to
have an in-house software team creating
new word processors, games and image
processing packages. They could afford to
get the best programmers out there, particularly
those in the public domain and
shareware fields, and really bring some
quality software back onto our beloved
platform.
Added revenue from software sales
could help to bolster R&D budgets,
pushing the Amiga back towards the
forefront of computer technology - where
it belongs and was ten years ago. We are
getting faster base level machines with a
greater capacity for RAM, and hard drives
CHAIRMAN Richa rd Hease
MANAGING DIRECTOR la ir Bloomfield
We regret Amigo Computing cannot offer technical
help on a personal basis either by telephone or in
writing. All reader erbqunes should be submitted to
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Amiga Computing a ar independent pubkcooan and
Commodore Minns Machines lid are not responsitie
for airy of the erodes in this asue or for an of the epos
ions expressed.
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•
are becoming more and more commo
place, but there are no staggerin
advances in the graphics, sound
operating system technology that powe
the Amiga.
The operating system could definite
stand a little more game-friendliness.
you give programmers the tool5_ the
need to rapidly scroll screens, pl..,s/ ba
animations, or manipulate bobs In th
OS, publishing houses wouldn't need
reinvent the wheel with every game th
write. This won't improve the situation
a vis piracy, but it might attract some
the game publishers back from other plat
forms where these things are, or will soo
be. taken for granted.
So who is this Jonathan Potter? He
the guy that spent the last four year
developing Directory Opus, only to thre
len to give it all up because his softwa
is available from every pirate BBS in
world.
IDG
NEW \IEDIA
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