Why game companies didn't make better games for Amiga

ancalimon · 14 February 2009, 15:15

I wonder why game companies did not make games for Amiga that supported better hardware like a 030. They did it for the PC. And they are still doing it. They make games that do not run optimal on today's hardware and as a result people keep buying better hardware.

For example: I have been playing XCOM on the PC and apart from the awful midi sounds, the game crushes the Amiga version in every aspect. There is shading, light variations, gameplay is fluent and instant. Apparently a 030 with 8mb RAM and AGA could have achieved a similar result. But Microprose made the Amiga version inferior. I mean do you have any idea about this? Maybe they stereotyped general Amiga users? Did they think PC users would upgrade but amiga users won't?

AmigaFriend · 14 February 2009, 15:34

I think at that time, not many people had accelerators on a A1200. So they had to make the game for a stock machine, 020 and 2Mb chip, to guarantee a solid title sale.

If Commodore had lasted longer, perhaps we would see titles for upgraded machines, who knows?

TCD · 14 February 2009, 15:36

Well i think the big game companies have only converted games to the Amiga with minimum effort at that time. So they only made games for a plain A1200 with maybe some added memory, but not made special options for accelerators. The Amiga wasn't produced anymore and the market wasn't big anyway.

pubzombie · 15 February 2009, 02:10

are there any miggy games that really make use of an 030?
cheers
Pz

kriz · 15 February 2009, 02:44

Games like: Genetic Species, Breathless, Wasted Dreams, Foundation, Nigthlong, Napalm, Nemac IV and some more....

pubzombie · 15 February 2009, 03:55

Night long and Wasted dreams look great - are they commercially available still?

alexh · 15 February 2009, 10:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by xpect

they had to make the game for a stock machine, 020 and 2Mb chip

I think they made games around the "stock machine" config of OCS + 512K chip + 512K other right up to the end. Deviate from this formula and you risked no sales as owners of higher end machines were terrible software pirates.

Galahad/FLT · 15 February 2009, 11:53

Put it this way, Speris Legacy was created for A1200 and CD32, and that couldn't even generate us any money over the advance we got (pitifully small), imagine if we'd only catered for bigger end machines, the sales would have been even bloody smaller.

Quite simple, whilst there was plenty of high end machines out there, the owners simply were not interested in buying software.

Now, say what you like about Speris Legacy, but a Team 17 title back then was still selling well, biggest mistake we made was leading on A1200, we tried to trim it down for OCS/ECS during development and realised we couldn't.

The money was in OCS/ECS, therefore you cannot blame developers for never utilising the AGA machines properly.

Zarchos · 16 July 2017, 15:37

Why waste some time and money when because of piracy the games are going to sell only a few thousands copies anyway ?
Do you know for a long time editors kept investing on developing for the ZX Spectrum and other 8 bits systems because the sales were much better ?
I agree anyway the prices asked for games on the 16 bit machines were too high ; but on the amiga the gamers were so happy to boast their collection of pirated games.
There was a price to pay for this juvenile behaviour.
Ask yourself : how many originals did you buy ?
3 ? 20 ? 50 ?

Galahad/FLT · 16 July 2017, 16:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zarchos

Why waste some time and money when because of piracy the games are going to sell only a few thousands copies anyway ?
Do you know for a long time editors kept investing on developing for the ZX Spectrum and other 8 bits systems because the sales were much better ?
I agree anyway the prices asked for games on the 16 bit machines were too high ; but on the amiga the gamers were so happy to boast their collection of pirated games.
There was a price to pay for this juvenile behaviour.
Ask yourself : how many originals did you buy ?
3 ? 20 ? 50 ?

Nonsense. Lemmings on Amiga sold 55,000 on its FIRST day of release, good games sold, thats why developers stuck around for quite a while after Commodore went down the tubes.

Decent games or at least well marketed games sold well on Amiga.

Silverstreak · 16 July 2017, 16:56

Sadly we got a lot of ST ports. You only have to see later OCS releases like Elfmania, that shows what the hardware was capable of. Still, there are some crackers out there. I actually think the better years are ahead of us, particularly with vampire et al.

donnie · 16 July 2017, 17:12

amiga 1200 does not offer much above the a500.

The amiga community would have been much better of without any of the a500 successors. They added nothing but incompatibility issues and division.

Lum · 16 July 2017, 17:30

1 button joysticks horribly curtailed amiga getting more variety, didn't they?

donnie · 16 July 2017, 17:33

amiga supports 3 buttons.

Most good games support 2.

Zarchos · 16 July 2017, 17:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Nonsense. Lemmings on Amiga sold 55,000 on its FIRST day of release, good games sold, thats why developers stuck around for quite a while after Commodore went down the tubes.

Decent games or at least well marketed games sold well on Amiga.

I don't think it is nonsense at all.
If you read recent developers' interviews you understand they were extremely happy to go to the consoles with cartridges, after seeing their games available on BBSs even before the official launch date.

Galahad/FLT · 16 July 2017, 19:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zarchos

I don't think it is nonsense at all.
If you read recent developers' interviews you understand they were extremely happy to go to the consoles with cartridges, after seeing their games available on BBSs even before the official launch date.

I can assure it is nonsense.

Thats why developers were still doing Amiga titles as far as 1997.

You do realise that all of those console games were available on the exact same BBS's don't you?

Certainly Gremlins eyes were opened when I explained that all of their Playstation titles were available for download.

Here is the programmer of Mortal Kombat 2 who confirmed that even though it was quite late in the life of the Amiga, it sold in excess of 120,000 copies.

http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=582189&postcount=21

Like I said, good games and well marketed games sold on the Amiga, i'm afraid your revisionist attempts at history will find no audience here

Zarchos · 16 July 2017, 19:56

No matter how good a coder you are, your ultra biased comment doesn't have much weight.
And keep for yourself the 'revisionist' word, we all know the connotation it has.
I might decide to call you a thief and a retard if you choose this path.

Sinphaltimus · 16 July 2017, 20:08

Wow, ancalimon posts the OT like a gallon of gasoline spilled on the floor and disappears waiting for everyone else to generate the sparks.

Galahad/FLT · 16 July 2017, 20:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zarchos

No matter how good a coder you are, your ultra biased comment doesn't have much weight.
And keep for yourself the 'revisionist' word, we all know the connotation it has.
I might decide to call you a thief and a retard if you choose this path.

What difference does it make how good a coder I am, when the discussion is about Amiga software sales?

It is a categorical FACT that Lemmings on Amiga sold 55,000 copies on its first day of release, obviously the final figure was significantly higher than that.

Psygnosis had MASSIVE success on Amiga, an independent publisher, largely making original titles, that invariably were considered AAA titles of their day.

Theres NOTHING biased about my comment with regards Amiga software sales, they are factually correct, feel free to prove me wrong.

I call you a revisionist because you are content to revise the history of the Amiga, a machine you have amply demonstrated on Youtube you have very little understanding about. Feel free to pick a different word, I really don't care.

You can call me a thief and a retard if you like, when you do, just make sure you conceed any arguments you have, because then you're done, demonstrating you cannot discuss without insults.

Have I insulted you? Please feel free to quote me where I have

idrougge · 17 July 2017, 01:28

Doesn't really matter if Lemmings sells 55 000 copies on the Amiga if it sells ten times as much on the SNES.

14 February 2009, 15:15	#1
ancalimon Supernormal Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Istanbul / Turkey Age: 43 Posts: 1,410	Why game companies didn't make better games for Amiga I wonder why game companies did not make games for Amiga that supported better hardware like a 030. They did it for the PC. And they are still doing it. They make games that do not run optimal on today's hardware and as a result people keep buying better hardware. For example: I have been playing XCOM on the PC and apart from the awful midi sounds, the game crushes the Amiga version in every aspect. There is shading, light variations, gameplay is fluent and instant. Apparently a 030 with 8mb RAM and AGA could have achieved a similar result. But Microprose made the Amiga version inferior. I mean do you have any idea about this? Maybe they stereotyped general Amiga users? Did they think PC users would upgrade but amiga users won't? Last edited by ancalimon; 14 February 2009 at 15:26.

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14 February 2009, 15:34	#2
AmigaFriend Registered User Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: CLI Posts: 1,462	I think at that time, not many people had accelerators on a A1200. So they had to make the game for a stock machine, 020 and 2Mb chip, to guarantee a solid title sale. If Commodore had lasted longer, perhaps we would see titles for upgraded machines, who knows?

14 February 2009, 15:36	#3
TCD HOL/FTP busy bee Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Germany Age: 46 Posts: 31,527	Well i think the big game companies have only converted games to the Amiga with minimum effort at that time. So they only made games for a plain A1200 with maybe some added memory, but not made special options for accelerators. The Amiga wasn't produced anymore and the market wasn't big anyway.

15 February 2009, 02:10	#4
pubzombie Registered User Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: westmids Posts: 900	are there any miggy games that really make use of an 030? cheers Pz

15 February 2009, 02:44	#5
kriz Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: No(R)Way Age: 41 Posts: 3,188	Games like: Genetic Species, Breathless, Wasted Dreams, Foundation, Nigthlong, Napalm, Nemac IV and some more....

15 February 2009, 03:55	#6
pubzombie Registered User Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: westmids Posts: 900	Night long and Wasted dreams look great - are they commercially available still?

15 February 2009, 11:53	#8
Galahad/FLT Going nowhere Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: United Kingdom Age: 50 Posts: 8,986	Put it this way, Speris Legacy was created for A1200 and CD32, and that couldn't even generate us any money over the advance we got (pitifully small), imagine if we'd only catered for bigger end machines, the sales would have been even bloody smaller. Quite simple, whilst there was plenty of high end machines out there, the owners simply were not interested in buying software. Now, say what you like about Speris Legacy, but a Team 17 title back then was still selling well, biggest mistake we made was leading on A1200, we tried to trim it down for OCS/ECS during development and realised we couldn't. The money was in OCS/ECS, therefore you cannot blame developers for never utilising the AGA machines properly.

16 July 2017, 15:37	#9
Zarchos Banned Join Date: May 2017 Location: Paris Posts: 39	Why waste some time and money when because of piracy the games are going to sell only a few thousands copies anyway ? Do you know for a long time editors kept investing on developing for the ZX Spectrum and other 8 bits systems because the sales were much better ? I agree anyway the prices asked for games on the 16 bit machines were too high ; but on the amiga the gamers were so happy to boast their collection of pirated games. There was a price to pay for this juvenile behaviour. Ask yourself : how many originals did you buy ? 3 ? 20 ? 50 ?

16 July 2017, 16:56	#11
Silverstreak Registered User Join Date: Mar 2017 Location: London Posts: 124	Sadly we got a lot of ST ports. You only have to see later OCS releases like Elfmania, that shows what the hardware was capable of. Still, there are some crackers out there. I actually think the better years are ahead of us, particularly with vampire et al.

16 July 2017, 17:12	#12
donnie Registered User Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: sthlm Posts: 226	amiga 1200 does not offer much above the a500. The amiga community would have been much better of without any of the a500 successors. They added nothing but incompatibility issues and division.

16 July 2017, 17:30	#13
Lum Registered User Join Date: Jul 2017 Location: USA Posts: 13	1 button joysticks horribly curtailed amiga getting more variety, didn't they?

16 July 2017, 17:33	#14
donnie Registered User Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: sthlm Posts: 226	amiga supports 3 buttons. Most good games support 2.

16 July 2017, 19:56	#17
Zarchos Banned Join Date: May 2017 Location: Paris Posts: 39	No matter how good a coder you are, your ultra biased comment doesn't have much weight. And keep for yourself the 'revisionist' word, we all know the connotation it has. I might decide to call you a thief and a retard if you choose this path.

16 July 2017, 20:08	#18
Sinphaltimus Registered User Join Date: Aug 2016 Location: Cresco, PA, USA Age: 53 Posts: 1,126	Wow, ancalimon posts the OT like a gallon of gasoline spilled on the floor and disappears waiting for everyone else to generate the sparks.

17 July 2017, 01:28	#20
idrougge Registered User Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Stockholm Posts: 4,332	Doesn't really matter if Lemmings sells 55 000 copies on the Amiga if it sells ten times as much on the SNES.

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