daryl@ihlpe.ATT.COM (Daryl Monge) (12/13/88)
I am curious about the aspects of software production for the 8 bit ATARI machines. As we all know, there is a considerable lack of new software for the 8 bit machines. However, there seems to be continued new software for apple, C64, etc. It seems to me that once a piece of software is developed for the other 6502 machines (especially the C64) that the conversion to the XL/XE machines would be fairly easy. Surely there are a lot of us professional types that would be interested in doing something like that. The question I do not know the answer to is what is the pay back for converted software? How much would the original author get? How much would the converting author get? How many copies would need to be sold to at least break even for the effort? There are a lot of 800's, XL's, XE's, and XE games out there. I can't believe the market is not there. Daryl Monge UUCP: ...!att!ihcae!daryl AT&T CIS: 72717,65 Bell Labs, Naperville, Ill AT&T 312-979-3603
kimes@ihlpe.ATT.COM (Kit Kimes) (12/14/88)
> I am curious about the aspects of software production for the 8 bit > ATARI machines. As we all know, there is a considerable lack of new > software for the 8 bit machines. However, there seems to be continued > new software for apple, C64, etc. > Survey's that I have seen show that a typical new computer owner purchases a great percentage of his software in the first six months with dollar spending dropping off dramatically after that. This indicates that there has to be a constant supply of new owners to really keep the software market healthy. Unfortunately, that isn't the case with Atari, except for the XE Game System, and they don't seem to be buying many disk drives. This means the best market is for cartridge based software. Atari seems to be the only company willing to supply this market and even they have been slow to bring out promised cartridges. I have been waiting for six months for (to name a few) Crossbow, Crystal Castles and Mean 18. If anyone reading this is going to the Winter CES next month, try to find out what happened to all the software and try to find out what new software is promised in the next six months :-) . I have sent private mail to a couple of people at Atari, but never received an answer. > It seems to me that once a piece of software is developed for the other > 6502 machines (especially the C64) that the conversion to the XL/XE > machines would be fairly easy. Surely there are a lot of us professional > types that would be interested in doing something like that. > If you want to take full advantage of the graphic capability of the 8bit (with the GTIA chip), there is a lot of work involved. Many of the people who know the 8bit best have moved on to the ST or Mac and seem reluctant to spend their time on the 8bit Atari. Word was that Origin was looking for someone to do Ultima V for the 8bit but couldn't find anyone. They have now stated that they won't be doing an Atari 8bit version. > The question I do not know the answer to is what is the pay back for > converted software? How much would the original author get? How much > would the converting author get? How many copies would need to be sold > to at least break even for the effort? > I think the pay for such a job is fairly low and is an upfront pay with no royalities for the programmer doing the port. It is the software company that is taking the financial risk and few seem willing to support the Atari 8bit. > There are a lot of 800's, XL's, XE's, and XE games out there. I can't > believe the market is not there. > I can state for sure that there is a market (although I don't know how big). I belong to a Users Group and we have a merchandiser at the meetings. Many 8bitters are buying older software simply because there isn't anything new to buy. What is new (such as some of SSI's war simulations) isn't to my liking. What bothers me is why doesn't some company that does support the Atari 8bit market bring in some European software. There wouldn't be any conversion work involved (unless it was written specifically for PAL systems, as some is now) and the only risk would be the shelf space and distribution work involved. Thunder Mountain was supposed to bring in Winter Challenge for the Atari 8bit, but I have never been able to find it and my source hasn't been able to get it from his distributor. I have written several letters to Access, Accolade, BroderBund and MicroProse with few answers and what I got was pretty terse and unencouraging. The only encouraging words I have heard came from ANTIC magazine who state that they are trying to add to the 8bit catalog by bringing back more old APX titles and adding some out of production commercial software that they can find and being a distributor for small companies or individuals who still support the Atari 8bit. If you think this is a good idea, at least drop them a note and thank them profusely. And, by the way Daryl, they have had more ACTION! typein software lately (as has Analog). The January issue has an 8bit shoppers guide with 8 pages of software/hardware and the addresses of 65 companies that still support the 8bit computer (although some of their offerings are getting pretty old now). Some of the software ANTIC is carrying in their catalog are TurboBase form MicroMiser, Super 3D Plotter II from Elfin Magic, some Infocom text games, StickyBear software for kids, MIDI Track II and III from Hybrid Arts and AdvanBASIC along with the modules such as the Optimizing Compiler for it. I applaud their efforts and hope they are successful. It will only work if we 8bit users support them though. They have also had some very good and worthwhile software on their disks lately. A subscription with disk is only $59.95 ($5 per issue). An excellent deal. When my magazine sub runs out, I am going to get the disk option. Kit Kimes AT&T--Bell Laboratories ...att!ihlpe!kimes
dlm@druhi.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) (12/15/88)
in article <3916@ihlpe.ATT.COM>, daryl@ihlpe.ATT.COM (Daryl Monge) says: > It seems to me that once a piece of software is developed for the other > 6502 machines (especially the C64) that the conversion to the XL/XE > machines would be fairly easy. Surely there are a lot of us professional > types that would be interested in doing something like that. > > The question I do not know the answer to is what is the pay back for > converted software? How much would the original author get? How much > would the converting author get? How many copies would need to be sold > to at least break even for the effort? I'll try and answer this since I used to write programs (SynFile+, PaperClip, BackTalk, and Sherlock) for the 8 bits. I also worked with a several people who were converting programs to/from the Atari 8 bit systems. As a general rule an author gets about a 10% to 20% royalty on software he writes. It varies based on market size, how well know the author is, past hits, is it a game or an application, etc. That royalty is on the publisher's selling price which is usually about 45% to 55% of the the retail price. So a program that sells for $39.95 will wholesale for about $19.98. The author will get 10% of that or $2.00. On a conversion the original author and the conversion author will split the 10% royalty, usually 50-50. So each will get about $1.00 per copy sold. Depending on the program being converted it will take between 3 and 9 months to convert a program from one 6502 machine to another. Applications usually can be converted fairly quickly since they don't have any fancy graphics, games take longer due to the graphics. So to make a conversion worth doing the converting author must be able to make 1/4th to 3/4ths of a years income off the conversion, depending on the amount of work required. If he expects to make $30,000 a year he needs to make $7,500 to $22,500 off that conversion. So he, the publisher and the original author all have to guess whether the program will sell 7500 to 22500 copies on the Atari 8 bits. Right now there are *NO* 3rd party programs for the 8 bits that are selling that well so it doesn't make much sense to port a program from a C64 or Apple // to the Atari. NOTE: I'm completely ignoring the publisher's expenses in the above. Ads cost about $5000 for a full page in 4 colors. Boxes, disks, labels, etc. are about $2.50 to $5.00 per copy (depending on how fancy). So the publishers break even point may be higher or lower than the converting author's break even point. Software publishers base a lot of their decisions on what machines to support on the SPA's reporting of software sales figures. They break software sales down by machine and type of software (business, games, etc.). According to the SPA the top 4 software markets are the IBM and clones, Macintosh, Apple // family, and the C64. All the other computers (Atari 8 bits, STs, CBM Amiga, Unix(tm) boxes, etc.) are lumped together as "other". The totals for "other" are less than the totals for any of the top 4 markets. There just isn't a lot of money to be made writing or converting program for the 8 bit systems. As long as the market is small you are going to see very few of the larger software publishers supporting the 8 bits. Small publishers or publisher/authors will support the Atari 8 bits since they can get by on smaller margins (no support staff, etc.). Dan Moore AT&T Bell Labs Denver dlm@druhi.ATT.COM or dlm@druwy.ATT.COM
RCH@cup.portal.com (Ric C Helton) (12/16/88)
Kit & Daryl, plus anyone else who'd like to comment:
What and how big a role does software piracy play in the development and
distribution of Atari 8bit software? What software protection schemes are
the current rage, and how does that affect the ability to successfully market
(and make money off of) Atari software? I had heard that piracy was the prima
primary reason new titles were not being developed for the Atari 8bit.
Thanks for your replies!
-Ric
RCH@cup.portal.com
RCH%cup.portal.com@sun.com
ucbvax!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!RCHOrdania-DM@cup.portal.com (Charles K Hughes) (12/17/88)
Piracy is not the reason why new 8-bit titles haven't been released for the Atari 8-bit. The reason is because it is not worth as much to CONVERT games to the Atari 8-bit. Why should a game company use 3-6 months of it's programmers time to convert a game that will sell less copies than a new game for the C64 would sell? We Atari 8-bitters have to face the fact that until we get a larger user base willing to shell out $40 per game everytime a new game comes out, we aren't going to get any new games (or applications for that matter). I do not often buy "converted" games, they are usually horrendous conversions. The worst example I have seen (and bought) is the Superman game. It looks nice on the C64 but is missing 1/2 the game on the Atari 8-bit. The reason the programmers gave was because the Atari has less memory! (The game requires a 130xe/800xl.) I dunno, maybe my math is wrong but I have checked out the 64 versus the 800xl and the 64 has less usable memory. Of course, the best conversions are great, anyone ever play the Ultima series? The converter for those games is known as Chuckles and he does a great job! This leads to a fact about software companies...they are out to make a fast buck...and they don't care about the quality of their games in secondary markets. Good examples of this are the Superman game above, OGRE (the ST/Amiga/IBM version allows you to play the OGRE versus the computer). These are simply done for economic reasons, but of course, whenever a game or application doesn't sell it is attributed to piracy. The software companies may believe that but I think it has a little more to do with price versus quality. As an example I wouldn't buy a $400 Lotus 123 spreadsheet when a $99 spreadsheet does everything Lotus does and more. It is easier for software companies to scream "PIRACY" than to believe that they may have put out an inferior product. Comments from programmers/software companies welcome. Ordania-DM (Charles K Hughes)
kimes@ihlpe.ATT.COM (Kit Kimes) (12/19/88)
> Kit & Daryl, plus anyone else who'd like to comment: > I'm hardly the one to ask since I'm not a developer, but I'll make some comments anyway. > What and how big a role does software piracy play in the development and > distribution of Atari 8bit software? What software protection schemes are > the current rage, and how does that affect the ability to successfully market > (and make money off of) Atari software? I had heard that piracy was the prima > primary reason new titles were not being developed for the Atari 8bit. > As a member of a User Group and a supporter of some local BBS's, I have to say that the majority of currently active Atari 8bit users are extremely conscience of the piracy problem. NO pirated software is allowed or even discussed at our User Group meetings. This is not to say there are no pirates. I don't know if there are or not. However, I do know that there are local boards that have some pirated software on them and, frankly, I'm glad that they do. If it weren't for this "service", some of the older software would no longer be available. Even some of the newer software that has been available in other countries but is not available in the US is available this way. Two that I have seen are Amourote (sp?) and Arkanoid. Arkanoid is a GREAT game and should be available here. I would buy a copy, even though I already have a copy. Honestly, I don't see piracy as the major problem. As has been stated before, the number of sales determine whether a company supports a certain computer or not. Commodore and IBM piracy is rampant, but they have such a large installed base and sell so much software that the companies put up with it because they still make a handsome profit. Atari software sales are way behind any other major brand computer. Even Infocom sees that it isn't profitable to convert their games for the Atari 8bit computers and they are mostly text adventures, with little worry about the graphics conversion problems. What's the answer? I don't know for sure, but Atari has to be in the forefront of the software battle. They have stated that they will be (at least, in cartridge based software), and that is a good commitment. I just haven't seen as much in the way of results as I would like. The XE game system is selling pretty good around here (thanks in part to Nintendo selling out again this year). Atari has to build on that momentum and strike while the 'iron is hot' but releasing good quality software. Kids are fickled. If their parents buy them an XE game system and they can't get 'Super Mario Brothers' and good software like their friends have, they will be back asking for a Nintendo for their birthday. I know my son has been after me for more than a year now, but I haven't caved in. Kit Kimes AT&T--Bell Laboratories ...att!ihlpe!kimes
RCH@cup.portal.com (Ric C Helton) (12/23/88)
In reference to the comment on users shelling out $40 for a new "game" [can we stick the work "program" in here? I still like app's, etc, better than games! ;-)]: if the game or whatever is *WORTH* $40, I will gladly buy it. I will not, however, buy the converted "Superman" for $40. You said so youself as to why not..... CATCH 22: We won't shell out the money on inferior software, but that is what we will get until we start shelling out money..... And if we shell out the dough on an inferior product, why should they improve it? -Ric RCH@cup.portal.com
RCH@cup.portal.com (Ric C Helton) (12/23/88)
An interesting point has been brought up... That of software no longer offered by any company commercially. What happens to these programs? Obviously, the copyright doesn't just vanish... Kit pointed out that some pirate boards do a "service" by keeping older out-of-orint titles alive. I am sure the copyright holder would have something to say about this. Is there anything we can do to get out-out-print software placed in the public domain, short of asking the author to tea? ;-) -Ric RCH@cup.portal.com
Ordania-DM@cup.portal.com (Charles K Hughes) (12/25/88)
In reference to the comment on users shelling out $40 for a new "game"
[can we stick the work "program" in here? I still like app's, etc, better
than games! ;-)]: if the game or whatever is *WORTH* $40, I will gladly
buy it. I will not, however, buy the converted "Superman" for $40.
You said so youself as to why not.....
CATCH 22: We won't shell out the money on inferior software, but that
is what we will get until we start shelling out money..... And if we shell
out the dough on an inferior product, why should they improve it?
-Ric
RCH@cup.portal.com
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
All above written by RCH@cup.portal.com
That is exactly the problem Ric, Atari users want quality at a reasonable
price. The Superman game cost $10 and I feel I was ripped off for $7 of that
$10. About the game/program switch, sorry but that is the way it looks right
now. Atari 8-bits and Commodore 64/128's have been relegated to the status of
video game machines. I prefer applications but the best ones are appearing as
public domain or shareware which makes it even harder on software companies.
Imagine SpartaDos being public domain, and Atari Dos being sold; why in the
world would anyone BUY Atari Dos?
Some examples of high-quality programs in the 8bit world:
Express 850
DeTerm
MyDos
Super Arc/Unarc (Robert Puff)
I know others but I can't think of them off the top of my head.
If anyone has their own list of high-quality software, please post it.
Ordania-DM@cup.portal.com
(Charles Hughes)RCH@cup.portal.com (Ric C Helton) (12/26/88)
Charles Hughes [Ordania-DM@cup.portal.com] listed a few programs that
are great code, and ShareWare, including 850 Express!, Super ARC/unARC, DeTerm
and a couple of others... These are programs written virtually for
free by the authors, and placed in the public domain in-so-far as they
require only credit via copyright, and no actual retail price.
It is (usually) very good code, better oft-times than the offerings
of Atari and its third-party software developers... A fact that early on
Atari tried to capitalize on (heavy relations with Users Groups)
and now seems to brush aside as trivial...
As a programmer who has written a few utilities, or mods to other programs,
please, do this as a New Year's Resolution:
Look through your software libraries for really good "Public Domain" or
ShareWare programs, and select a couple that are your favorite, or that
you use the most, and send the author $5 or $10. That will *not* set you
back much, and it could make the difference between whether we'll see any
new terminal programs like DeTerm [just dl'ed it a couple nights ago from
GEnie and *love it*, even more than 850 Express...] and Bob Puff's ARC
utilities.... I am not a big game player, though I am sure there are
not a small number of ShareWare games out... But please, if Atari and its
developers won't come out with new product, support those that do!
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and make that resolution stick! I am!
-Ric
RCH@cup.portal.com
...!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!RCHwilmott@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ray Wilmott) (12/29/88)
While on the subject of high quality public domain & shareware programs for the 8bit, let's not forget: Turbo-Basic & compiler package CopyMate 4.4 OmniCom Ace C Compiler Alf Diskcomm 3.2 ....and all the others I can't recall at the moment. -Ray