jtreworgy@eagle.wesleyan.edu (08/10/89)
In article <4639@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM>, wayneck@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Wayne Knapp) writes: > 5) Pirates kill a large amount of impulse buying, which can > easily amount to 80% of your sells. I know this because > less than 20% of the sells every bother to send in registration > cards. > If you are a software developer who relies on impulse buying to sell a program, then you shouldn't be developing software. What I assume the above statement means is that 80% of your sales do not depend on the quality or longer term enjoyment of a program. This is bad, and any program which has had it's impulse buys killed by people who've seen it already doesn't deserve the sales. > Now the numbers can move some, but the essence is that your $3,500,000 > is off by an order of magitude. Sorry about the cold water, but is > very hard to make a living writing Amiga software. > I won't deny that.... but what I know is that most of the people who develop software for the Amiga are doing it because they love the Amiga. Not because they are trying to get rich. And even if they didn't get a dime out of it they would probably do it anyway. (I am not justifying anything here... I just think this is true. I don't do much on the Amiga yet in terms of writing, but when I had a commodore 64 I wrote tons of software... good, polished, working games, utilities, productivity software, etc... and I never tried to sell, sharewareize, or whatever it... I just gave copies to my friends & user groups. I enjoyed it.). Anyone who is writing software for the Amiga, and doesn't like what they are doing, should get out of the business NOW & not inflict software on us which isn't a labor of love. -- James A. Treworgy "You should have seen me with the poker man, jtreworgy@eagle.wesleyan.edu I had a honey and I bet a grand, jtreworgy%eagle@WESLEYAN.BITNET Just in the nick of time I looked at his hand" Box 5033 Wesleyan Station -Paul McCartney Middletown, CT 06475
wayneck@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Wayne Knapp) (08/12/89)
In article <454@eagle.wesleyan.edu>, jtreworgy@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes: > In article <4639@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM>, wayneck@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Wayne Knapp) writes: > > 5) Pirates kill a large amount of impulse buying, which can > > easily amount to 80% of your sells. I know this because > > less than 20% of the sells ever bother to send in registration > > cards. > >If you are a software developer who relies on impulse buying to sell a program, >then you shouldn't be developing software. What I assume the above statement >means is that 80% of your sales do not depend on the quality or longer term >enjoyment of a program. This is bad, and any program which has had it's impulse >buys killed by people who've seen it already doesn't deserve the sales. > I would be willing to bet that most of the major sellers have very large amounts of impulse buying. How many people have bought Deluxe Paint to only play with a few times. I know of only a few people that really use that program. How about Scuplt 3D? Most only raytrace one or two pictures and then go on to other stuff. There is nothing wrong with this, after all what is being sold is the right to use the program. It costs money to get those programs on the shelf. There is nothing wrong with wanting the sales from people who will pay for it, but are likely to only use it a few times. >... I don't do much on the Amiga yet in terms of writing, but when I >had a commodore 64 I wrote tons of software... good, polished, working games, >utilities, productivity software, etc... and I never tried to sell, >sharewareize, or whatever it... I just gave copies to my friends & user >groups. I enjoyed it.). > It really shows, you seem to be speaking from a lack of experence. It takes a lot more to run a business than a being able to write code. Remember, software producers have to make a living. If there is no money to be made, people will produce far less programs. >Anyone who is writing software for the Amiga, and doesn't like what they are >doing, should get out of the business NOW & not inflict software on us which >isn't a labor of love. I love programming. I write good solid code. However just because I don't want to give my code away shouldn't offend you. After all I'm not fourcing anyone to buy my program. A labor of love doesn't pay the bills. Your thoughts are like that of the GNU type folks. I for one don't believe that all software should be free or purely a labor of love. I don't see anything wrong in making money off of well written useful code. It really doen't matter if the author likes writing software for the Amiga or not, what matters is the product produced and offered. Besides who are you to judge if my work is a labor of love or not, you don't even know me! Wayne Knapp