jimomura@lsuc.on.ca (Jim Omura) (11/25/90)
Looking at the results of the early results of the games survey
a thought crossed my mind and I thought I'd ask about it.
I have had about 11 computers over the years and I currently
own 5 (4 working and 1 burned out). As such I have the luxury of
picking and choosing which programs I'll buy from a wider array
than most people. I've essentially stayed away from copy protected
software -- even in games. It may surprise people to know that although
I don't really play games much, I have bought a fair number. Yet
on a rough guess, over 1/2 the games I have, not including the extremely
short demos in some magazines, are *not* copy protected, and if you
include the short demo programs, a strong majority of my games
are not copy protected. How did this happen?
1. Games that Radio Shack sold for my CoCo and CoCo3 were *not*
copy protected. Nope, none of them. I bought almost all of
the games that came out and they are excellent games at good
prices.
2. Some games for the Atari ST I bought, such as Wayne Gretzky Hockey
were not copy protected. I hope this will be a trend. I
have not really been checking which games are copy protected
but I'm thinking about asking about it in the future.
3. Some of the games I have for the Atari ST came from the magazine
disks. I find I'm fairly happy playing some of these games.
Others aren't so good. An example of one game that was quite
good was "Robotz" in the Sept 1990 issue of "ST Format". This
game would have been quite competitive commercially around the
time PacMan first hit the scene. It's very enjoyable, but
perhaps not something I'd have picked up at normal game prices.
I'm thinking about submitting ratings on the "magazine games"
to the poll since they are becoming a fairly substantial part
of my game software collection.
4. Some of the games I've received online have been legitimate
and workable. So far none have been *good* mind you, but that's
a theoretical possibility. :-) Actually, I've received sources
for Hack variations and discarded them. I like Hack/Rogue type
games, but I have it on the CoCo3 and I don't feel the need
for another one. If I *had* compiled it, I expect it would have
been workable and likely as good as the commercial version of
Rogue I play on the CoCo3. So it's probable that you can be
very happy playing "legitimate, free" games from BBS/Online
sources. Maybe those should be rated in the games poll too?
My feelings being as they are lately, copy protection may be
a good way to ensure that I *won't* buy it. I have substantial
alternatives and will soon be getting another major alternative.
Later this year I'll probably buy a Sega Genesis. You see it's
a matter of not liking copy protected *disks* for me. Disks are
*not* meant to be permanent media. I don't know why this isn't
understood by some people. The projected minimum latency for a
floppy is only about 5 years. In theory, after 5 years, if the company
has gone bankrupt and you have no backup of a program, you're not
going to have the program at all. I do *not* buy software that I
don't want to keep, so why would I buy software that will "evaporate"
on me over the years? Yes, I really do play old games! That's
why I will not mind buying Genesis cartridges. I've bought a number
of CoCo3 cartridge games as well and will also buy more of these if
they are still around. And no, I won't make "illegitimate" copies
of copy protected software. If somebody doesn't want me to have
a backup, I feel that obviously the person wants to make more money
selling me another copy later, so if other people will provide me
with a similar product and willingly allow me to make backups I'll
simply buy that other product instead.
All in all, if copy protection is a factor in software sales
it might partially be showing up in the games survey. It seems
that not many of us are playing games. To some extent I think
we *all* have a negative feeling to games because we expect that
they are are copy protected. Is this partly what's going on or
am I completely wrong?
Cheers! -- Jim O.
--
Jim Omura, 2A King George's Drive, Toronto, (416) 652-3880
lsuc!jimomura
Byte Information eXchange: jimomurajfbruno@rodan.acs.syr.edu (John Bruno) (11/26/90)
In article <1990Nov25.150840.8250@lsuc.on.ca> jimomura@lsuc.on.ca (Jim Omura) writes: > > Looking at the results of the early results of the games survey >a thought crossed my mind and I thought I'd ask about it. > >[Discussion against copy protection deleted] > >Cheers! -- Jim O. >-- >Jim Omura, 2A King George's Drive, Toronto, (416) 652-3880 >lsuc!jimomura >Byte Information eXchange: jimomura I agree completely. One of my major peeves about copy protected software is that it can't be installed on a hard disk. Your stuck with a physical floppy diskette while you are REALLY paying for the software itself. The honest people are the ones who get penalized. Unfortunately, I suspect (or more important, software publishers suspect) that more money is lost in releasing unprotected software to "potential pirates" than would be lost by offending those who boycott protected software. When unprotected software starts outselling protected software (don't hold your breath), publishers will take notice and MAYBE they'll stop the copy protection (again, don't hold your breath). ---jb
scott@tab29.larc.nasa.gov (Scott Yelich) (11/27/90)
>I agree completely. One of my major peeves about copy protected software is >that it can't be installed on a hard disk. Your stuck with a physical floppy >diskette while you are REALLY paying for the software itself. The honest >people are the ones who get penalized. Yeah-- My drive wouldn't even read the second disk to ``BLOOD MONEY'' (I use a backup program on it and my drive used the BACKUP DISK fine... but not the original. Whatever...) I like the way ``BATTLE CHESS'' was done. You enter the codes at one time. (Battle Chess is great on a hard drive...) ``THE IMMORTAL'' makes you enter codes every time you go to another level. (I have yet to see how this can be put on a hard drive...) Scott -- Signature follows. [Skip now] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott D. Yelich scott@[xanth.]cs.odu.edu [128.82.8.1] After he pushed me off the cliff, he asked me, as I fell, ``Why'd you jump?'' Administrator of: Game-Design requests to <game-design-request@cs.odu.edu> ODU/UNIX/BSD/X/C/ROOT/XANTH/CS/VSVN/ -----------------------------------------------------------------------------