Did piracy kill the amiga?

[Graham Humphrey]

They moved towards the console market because of Commodore's mishaps. That only really started after Commodore went out of business, that's not a coincidence.

And piracy didn't do the 8-bit computers much harm.

[DamienD]

Above 8 posts moved here from the for those old BBS fans... PART II thread...

[Monsterland]

Originally Posted by Graham Humphrey

And piracy didn't do the 8-bit computers much harm.

1. Investing in 8-bit computer game development was significant cheaper. Big hits where still oftenly developed by a single person in a private environment.
2. Consumers and developers didn't have/want much alternatives, the 8-bit homecomputer multitude where less likely to jump over to their 8 bit console alternatives which faded at the end of the 8-bit era and during the 16 bit haydays.

[cybernoid]

For me what killed Amiga was the fact that it could not connect to a vga monitor.

[Monsterland]

You see, I have no problems seeing commodore as a main factor in the demise of the Amiga but the reasons I read anywhere on the net concerning piracy just doesn't make sense.

It doesn't make sense to compare the amiga piracy environment with it's console counterparts, and neither does it make sense to compare it with the 8-bit homecomputer era as during that time games wheren't big investments, games where mostly made by hobbyists and oftenly picked up by companies who released them under their name to make a little buck, which wasn't very financial demanding or risky. The investments where small while the output could be relatively large, with the emphasize on 'relative'. This emphasize gets in a world full of pain when you have to invest in an entire team of programmers, artists and commercial positions.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Monsterland

Piracy on the Amiga was for several reasons more present then for example on the pc. First of all that pc users on average where more capital powerful and a lot of people had one in their home not only for playing games..Second there wasn't really a scene present which seeded a culture of demoshaping, musiccomposing, programcracking atmosphere. Let's not start the snes or megadrive, you can´t compare console piracy with homecomputer piracy as most console gamers do not buy consoles while having piracy in mind. Loads of people chose homecomputer because the games are so cheap..(yeah, right pirated games) while console games are so expensive. Back in the days it was part of the homecomputer scene, because the games are so cheap and cartridges are so expensive. Man, I know lots of parents who decided to buy an ST or Amiga for their kids because you can just copy the games instead of buying them in the shops like if it´s the most normal thing in the world.

For your second point.
The amiga 1200 never really took off because during that period developers didn´t consider it´s market as profitable and that IS because of the piracy problem. People doubted about getting a 1200 because the lack of software on the horizon. It was a vicious circle. Software do sell computers/consoles and not the other way around, developers lost interest in the amiga scene because their lack of profit.

I cannot really judge on your third point but anything will be done as long it is profitable.

Finally, I do see you what you are getting and I do understand that commodore and some other factors besides piracy are to blame but just lightly saying piracy was never any problem is just being naive or hypocritical.

Every person I know who owned an amiga only played cracked games, I've never seen someone taking the effort to buy one in the shops, amiga games disapeared rather quickly in the shops therefore. You can't say this has nothing to do with amiga's demise, stop putting your head in the sand because it might also have to do with your own actions. I see everyone over here showing a lot of love towards the amiga, which is great but it really looks awful to see (ex)crackers and distributors going all in denial. I've read (like most of you) a lot of gaming magazines back in the days, I've seen plenty of interviews with game developers and designers complaining about the piracy problem and their growing doubts of developing on the amiga, their slow but certain move towards the console market and I'm sure your points are also valid to a certain extend but let's be realistic about it all as well..

We all killed the amiga, thinking you didn't do it any harm by cracking, copying, distributing thousands of programs is a tragic denial

Console piracy was more wellspread than you are obviously unaware of.

As for the Amiga A12oo not taking off, thats strictly not true, pretty much all of the software companies of the day were doing versions for AGA so that pretty much nulls your point right away, the A1200 was actually selling very well until Commodore died.

As for you reading magazines about developers crying about their games being copied.... what did you expect them to do, cheer us on?

My actions and what i did have absolutely nothing to do with the state of the Amiga, yes i cracked a few titles, but the onus was on YOU and your friends to decide what you wanted to do, and you chose the pirated software option.

i didn't force you to copy anything, you made that choice yourself. I myself bought quite a lot of games, and virtually none of them were bought to crack either, so don't be waving the 'blame stick' in my direction fella, my conscience is clear.

If I didn't crack anything, there were quite a few other people ready and willing to do it.

Just because YOU were too weak willed to not buy software is your problem, not mine, and its disingenous and wrong for you to try and blame me and others like me.

So when you go into McDonalds and they offer you a Supersize and you accept it, is it their fault when you get fat?

Get real. As they say in the UK, you made your bed, now lie in it!

And one last point, i was also a games developer as well, I think that makes me slightly more qualified than you on this subject.

[oneshotdead]

I bought maybe ten games when I was a kid. I'm talking like 13 years of age. Then I met this other kid, who had an older brother.

He had several hundred pirated games, listed alphabetically on a bulky stream of that old perforated dotmatrix printer paper.

So I never bought a game ever again.
It was never a moral dilemma for me, cos I was a kid. I played games. I didn't care how I got them.

[JonSick]

Well think of it this way. When I were a nipper, I had a miggy when I was 11. How the hell was I supposed to whazz £35 a pop on a game? Seeing as I got like £4 a week pocket money, course I was going to go off, buy 20 disks and copy them!

I still think the problem manifests itself today. Why do people chip consoles? Because £35 is a lot of money to come by in an age where the credit crunch is looming, banks are being scared off with all the rubbish credit they've handed out and people not really aware that their £10 grand of credit card debt is a severe problem.

Right now, I own a Wii and a PC. I paid full price for all 5 of my games for the Wii (even now they are still only available full price) and about three for the PC. I'm older now and earn a decent wage, but I still have to plan a few months in advance with paychecks when I could be able to afford a hot new title. Last game I bought was Crysis (And god its good!) An 11 year old taxing his parentals every month for a new game is just impossible this day in age!

But that said, piracy never affected Sega! The only console pirated games were readily available for was the Dreamcast, but then Sega's days were numbered well before the Saturn came out. Result is Sega beat a hasty retreat and went into a software only forum!

Even Sony's future development is looking shaky with the PS3. They are redeming themselves now with the relatively new availability of decent titles, but its still got a lot of work to do to catch up with the Microwissoft audience. Whether they can convince people to pony up £300 compared to MS's £170 core system remains to be seen...

But you cannot say that piracy is an easy thing these days. With system updates almost mandatory for new gen consoles, detection of modifications renders the console useless! Even if you're new gen console is not online (like my Wii is not), system updates come mandatory with popular titles. For example the new Mario Kart Wii title has a mandatory system update that runs. TBH I didn't chip my Wii as, other than not being all too bothered about owning hundreds of games, I don't quite fancy taking the risk and bricking the system!

So Piracy is no longer an issue, yet console manufacturers are still struggling and still charging top dollar for their games!

Back in the Amiga days, sure everyone copied games but as the system was still thriving even when the A1200 came out, software still kept getting made. Just look at the hundreds of titles that were available, software houses had to be making their money someplace! Blaming piracy is just another reason the industry uses to charge us all their high prices! The developers themselves are still on slave wages, the software houses get bigger, yet the games still cost loads!

When the Amiga was in its dying days, PC architecture was at such a stage that it far surpassed what the amiga could do. Add to that the administration complications AT and Commodore was going through, there was no chance the platform was going to survive! The ideal of an inexpensive off-the-shelf system was dead the day Windows 95 came out. I mean really - how could Breathless - in which heavy expansion was almost a requirement - possibly compete with the smoothness of Duke Nukem 3D or Carmageddon! Mech Warrior II anyone? By today's standards even these games are hopelessly outdated, but their still graphically better than the Amiga and at the time, it was no contest! Just the final hurdle that Commodore was gone and the Amiga was a dead platform and that Microsoft ruled the roost being as it was pretty much the only offering.

You could also argue that CD Writers weren't even out then so piracy was near impossible, however I remember big-name stores selling titles like Mechwarrior 3D and Duke Nukem 3D for £49.99 which is a simply attrocious price for a new game! That's a week's work to some! Hell, most people's car payments a week are cheaper than that!

But ultimately, what killed the amiga was a healthy mix of:
Lack of platform development
Comparitively superior performance by (w)intel systems
Conduct of Commodore and future owners of Amiga

That in itself did far more damage than an 11 year old with a disk box of games could ever do! The industry was simply pissed that their games were being copied, but nevertheless, the industry still made plenty money!

[Retro1234]

Didnt every one drop the Amiga as soon as cheaper PCs and the PSX came out ? How could commodore have competed with Win95 and games on the PSX they would have been hard pushed to get a machine out at the same Price as the PSX to compete. But Now we`ve put the PSX and all are PSX pirated games away and got the Amigas back out

[fc.studio]

I think Commodore marketing killed the Amiga. Nothing else.

[JonSick]

Man, the PSX was fantastic! I loved that machine. Hated the games, they were all cack, bar Grand Theft Auto.

Modchip = £3
Solder/kynar = £1
Charge to chip someone's PSX = £25

Got me through university! By the time I did PSXs for about three people everyone wanted it. I cacked myself every evening wondering if FAST was going to come in and shoot me down! It was quite nice being the only chipper for miles around!

Xbox was great too, but not modded anything since. Too much hassle and too risky now.

[Arnie]

I "ditched" the Amiga for a 486 because of rumours of Comodores demise and games like Doom.

Big mistake, I absolutely hated Win 3.11 it wasn`t a patch on Workbench, playing Doom was all I did on the PC. So I sold the 486 and bought another A1200, very cheap cause people couldn`t get rid of them fast enough. I had a big stack of games, Retail & cracked, to keep me busy. Man cannot live on Doom alone.

Then Win95 came out and I never looked back. I kept the A1200 right up until BippyM took it away.

[Graham Humphrey]

I always found it strange that so many users ditched the Amiga so quickly when Commodore went out of business - I mean, it's not as if the computers stopped working or anything, is it? If you enjoyed using it and did what you wanted it to do there didn't seem much point in chucking it away.

[Monsterland]

Originally Posted by Graham Humphrey

I always found it strange that so many users ditched the Amiga so quickly when Commodore went out of business - I mean, it's not as if the computers stopped working or anything, is it? If you enjoyed using it and did what you wanted it to do there didn't seem much point in chucking it away.

In my case, and I can imagine it goes for a lot of people, I just was completely gaming addict wanting to play the awesomest games of the moment. I was very young and the Doom effect also caught me so I traded my 500 and 1200 in for a 486. I couldn't affort buying a pc while keeping my amiga which I would've loved. So yeah, I 'ditched' my amiga to play those awesome looking pc games. A while ago I bought a complete A500 set up which i'll never sell again ever as I'm not a poor dude anymore

I can imagine it went like this for other people as well, in my vicinity it did although my best friend just kept his amiga and got a pc from his parents, the lucky bastard as we used to call him.

[Arnie]

Originally Posted by Graham Humphrey

I always found it strange that so many users ditched the Amiga so quickly when Commodore went out of business - I mean, it's not as if the computers stopped working or anything, is it? If you enjoyed using it and did what you wanted it to do there didn't seem much point in chucking it away.

Well I could only play the same games so many times that I got bored with the Amiga. Like others have said before the Hardware was too expensive to upgrade my A1200 so it sat in a big box for some years. During which time the PC and the games and the Internet became affordable.

I don`t think I would have ever bothered with the Amiga again if it wasn`t for WinUAE.

[Graham Humphrey]

Well yeah, I guess Doom did have a big effect on that. I wonder if so many people would have rushed to the PC had it not existed though...?

Then again it may have happened anyway, just that it would have took a bit longer.

[DDNI]

The Doom effect was huge!

Back in 1993 I was working for a guy with learning disabilities. He received disability living allowance which was means tested. This meant that if he had more than £3000 of savings, his benefits would be reduced or stopped.

In june 2003 he had £2900ish in his account. This guy had nothing to spend it on. So to "aid" his world development me and him went out and spent it all on PC kit. IIRC it was a 486 DX2 15" screen and DOOM2.

From that day on every client and worker from the Health trust descended on his house to play DOOM2.

He loved that game, and the social interaction he got was huge!

[Misha]

@All

I`d have to say a bit of both,i still believe though what killed Amiga was some really bad decisions made by Commodore in the sale of the computer. I`ve read somewhere in another thread that David Pleasence bears alot of the responsibility for the bad descision taken,i can`t comment on that since i wasn`t privy to the details but in Gateway they had a buyer and due to the lack of interest in the platform they bit the hand off the only buyer that was interested.

I can`t comment any further because after it was sold to Gateway i left the Amiga Scene and don`t know what happened after. Piracy was a big big problem on the Amiga,games were cracked faster and faster. Imagine by todays standards if Amiga was still being developed for with the internet,back in the day cracked games were spread via post & BBS now a cracked game can be spread around the world within an hour of it being cracked,what chance would developers of had?

Sorry if i`ve repeated anything anyone else has said but i really haven`t read any of the other posts,saw the subject and decided to give my opinion.

[Motorola Inside]

Piracy always existed in software world but surely in the past was more incisive on the total of software around.
Here in Italy at golden time of Amiga and before piracy was particularly strong.
I remember in the '80 and at start of '90 almost all the software owned by people was pirated.
And the bad thing was that it was 'istitutional' because didn't exist laws versus this phenomenon or they absolutely weren't applied.

I remember in the 1989 i went in the shop where i bought my Amiga 500 because i wanted to buy an original game.
They have only one original game on selling,it was R Type 2.The rest of the games were copied by the people of the shop by request.
I asked for the original game.
The shop's owner tried to convince me to buy copied games in various ways.
He thought i was crazy because i wanted to spend 10 times in money than for a copied game.
At the end i went away with the original RType 2,one of 2 or 3 of the total of original Amiga games i ever bought.

Italy was one of the countries where Amiga was more sold,but when Commodore dead,the Amiga market dead quite fastly because the shops didn't sell much software because amigans weren't used to buy it.
At the same time PC market was rapidly growing and software was selling in big shops where was availaible also cheap software that people could choose as serious alternative of copied software.
I think last year when i've seen original Amiga software sold on a traditional software shop was 1996.

So i think :Yes,also piracy contributed to the dead of Amiga especially here in Italy.

[danwood]

I was still buying games from my amiga in shops until 1999 there were 3/4 shops in my town selling amiga games until then, not a vast selection but amiga games were still stocked then literally overnight amiga disappeared from all the shops