Piracy/Cracked Games

[russraine]

Hi everyone!

I just wondered what people's opinion of Amiga piracy is now when looking back to the 1990's.

I was about 7 years old when we got our first amiga (Amiga 500 Cartoon Classics pack) and to start with we only had original games.

But it didn't take long for us to find copied games available, and so free games or very cheap ones from Car boot sales or markets became the norm. We did buy a few original games here and there, but most of our amiga collctions right through from the A500 games until we stopped using our Amiga A1200 whe we got a pc and Nintendo 64.

At the time, buying copied games did not bother me, it was the norm.

But looking back on things now, I sort of have a different opinion.

Here is an example, in the mid to late 1990's we did actually buy 3 official games from Vulcan Software, but the rest I had were cracked copies.

Now in 2006 I am friends with Paul Carrington, the creator of Vulcan Software, in many ways, if you look at it the sensible way, the pirate copies of Vulcan games I had were literally stolen from Vulcan, I wouldn't steal from my friend Paul now, so why was it 'okay' to do so then?

I've sinced purchased many of Vulcan's PC software and I hope to have made up for the error of purchasing unoriginal copies of their software.

I'm interested to know what you all think...

Were you a user of cracked amiga software who now regrets it?

Were you a user of cracked amiga software who does not regret it?

Were you an Amiga Cracker, do you regret your illegal activites?

Were you an Amiga Cracker, do you still think it was okay to crack amiga software?

Does anyone here aquire cracked PC (or console) software?

Are there any PC crackers here, why do you crack? What is your argument for illegal piracy?

In my opinion, piracy was wrong then and is wrong now, although most of the software on my pc is legal, a couple of things are not, but I hope for this to change soon and become piracy free.

I believe Freeware with donation is the best poilcy for future software, and I like the idea of ingame advertising to make games Free for the consumer.


All views welcome, no judgments!

[kriz]

hehe I always copy everything i can! Also buy what i really like ... but paying for cracked copys suxx! I would never do that..

I dont see any problem at all with it, its not like i would buy all the stuff i have downloaded .. And also I have found alot of stuff that I have gone and bought later (thanks to the copy)..

Hehe everything gets cracked, even shareware stuff Why? Many reasons, the groups compete in releasing stuff fastest .. People want to try before buy.. Or are young/students and dont have any money for software

[adgloride]

On other forums I've heard people say they never realised they made original games for the Amiga. Most of my friends had Amigas and not many bought the original games. The Amiga had some fantastic games but at £25 each they were expensive, especially if you went out and bought a rubbish game.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by adgloride

On other forums I've heard people say they never realised they made original games for the Amiga.

Well those people must be very stupid then. Where did they think those games came from?

[gifgit]

I was just the same,I had about 10 original games and masses of cracked/copied disks.I know it`s a cop out excuse but I simply couldn`t afford to buy a new game when I wanted to so I did what most others did, I got copies from friends and went to boot sales.Some things never change and piracy is one of them,most of my sofware on my pc is downloaded via limewire or whichever P2P net work I`m using at the time.Unfortunately software will always be considered expensive and piracy will be rife on any system.I look at this this way (to justify myself).
How would I feel if I`d payed over £100 for mcafee internet and virus sofware and then found out that I could have got it for free?

Phew ! Glad to get that guilt off my chest.

[adgloride]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

Well those people must be very stupid then. Where did they think those games came from?

They were probably refering to how easy it was to get the pirated games. I can remember robocop 3 I think it was and the dongle you had to plug into the joystick port to get it to work. It was meant to be uncrackable and the hackers cracked it in 2 days.

[russraine]

Keep the views coming!

[whiteb]

Originally Posted by russraine

Hi everyone!


Were you an Amiga Cracker, do you regret your illegal activites?

Were you an Amiga Cracker, do you still think it was okay to crack amiga software?

All views welcome, no judgments!

Hahahahaha, you should PM galahad dude

[musashi5150]

I agree with gifgit. I was a kid when I got my first Amiga and I'd have to save my pocket money for weeks to get a new game - so rather then have no games to play I just got copies from mates and invested in an original of X-Copy

I don't regret what I did at all - It was seeing all the great cracktros that got me into coding. In fact, I often preferred looking at the cracktros to playing the games

If I could go back in time would I choose the legal route? ..... not a chance. I wouldn't trade my education of the 'scene' for anything.

[Muzkat]

I too had about 10 original games and over a hundred cracked ones. Back then I didn't feel guilty about it at all. Games were very expensive, and also there were never too many original games on the shelves when I was a kid, even when the Amiga was booming. So I used to copy games off my friend - save money, and get access to heaps more games too.

Times have changed alittle bit. When people say that "piracy killed the Amiga," I feel abit guilty. As for modern PC software, I find it way too expensive. Let me illustrate:

New release book: $30 (Australian dollars)
New release CD: $25 - $30
New release DVD: $30
New release PC game: $100 or more

What the hell! I just can't bring myself to pay that much for a game, especially when you can complete many of them very quickly these days, and also because 95% of modern games are complete crap. I even refuse to pay that much for an iD Software release, and I am an iD junkie.

However, if I do really, really, really like a game which I have burnt, I wait until the price has come down abit (to say around $30 - can take a few years or a few months), then I buy it. I do feel abit guilty burning software, becase I am a creative person, and I know how hard those guys who make games must work. So I don't want to freeload entirely.

But, I feel antivirus software and antispyware software should be free. All of it. It shits me that people are making money from people's net and PC insecurities and fears.

[musashi5150]

Originally Posted by Muzkat

When people say that "piracy killed the Amiga," I feel abit guilty.

Yeah, I feel that a little too - but then I think back to my pre-Amiga days when I had a Spectrum (yes, I know C64 was cool - but Speccy was what I could afford ). I remember back in the day when Speccy games were £1.99 - that's great, pocket money goes that far

But since then games stopped being simple 1 man operations in bedrooms and got to be big business, prices swelled, gameplay got crap and fewer truly original games were released because the big companies always wanted to turn a huge profit - and original games were seen as more of a risk. Look at some of the crap licensed games that were released

IMHO as long as games cost more than blank media there will always be piracy...

Although piracy surely contributed, I think it was the lack of hardware updates that killed the Amiga - it just got left behind...

[adgloride]

When I had my spectrum then c64 I must have had boxes of original games. I must have had about 2 or 3 blank tapes with a few pirated games on them. When it came to the amiga nearly all my games were copies, I couldn't afford them at all.

At the time I think I got £3 spending money a week so it was almost impossible for me to buy a original game at £25 each. I had to sell my c64, disc drive and about 2 boxes of original games and 2 boxes full of discs to be able to afford the £250 second hand for an amiga 500 plus.

[bippym]

It's quite ironic how 15 yrs ago nobody could afford £20-£25 for a game (Because of pocket money).. Now my kids have a DS and PSP and GBA and they have loads of original games which they paid for themselves (and they currently only get £3 p/w each but can earn more cash by helping out around the house)..

They save and save (we buy sweets etc in bluk so they rarely waste money) and also spend xmas/birthday/easter money etc on games..

They don't complain or whinge that they can't have this or that (well sometimes they do) they simply save up for the game(s) they want and once they have the new game it is all they play for a while!

[Mick_AKA]

Sad to say I have rarely purchased a piece of original software since owning an Amiga
As others have said, I used to see guys selling cracked copies at my local car boot sales for a couple of quid, and with that sort of temptation you were looking at anywhere from 5-10 games for the price of a single one retail, yes looking back I do feel bad, and most of my current library of Amiga titles are original, but its the same now really, i mean there arent many students that can afford full copies of things like 3dsMax of Softimage so lecturers in a round about way encourage students to grab pirate copies.
Even now, seriously how many people running emulators have all ligitimate roms?
Ok, end of the day im a thieving little goit, but god damn its fun

[killergorilla]

Originally Posted by bippym

It's quite ironic how 15 yrs ago nobody could afford £20-£25 for a game (Because of pocket money).. Now my kids have a DS and PSP and GBA and they have loads of original games which they paid for themselves (and they currently only get £3 p/w each but can earn more cash by helping out around the house)..

They save and save (we buy sweets etc in bluk so they rarely waste money) and also spend xmas/birthday/easter money etc on games..

They don't complain or whinge that they can't have this or that (well sometimes they do) they simply save up for the game(s) they want and once they have the new game it is all they play for a while!

Good to hear matey, I'd be happy for my kids to do the same if I had any!

[Adderly]

I copied so many games i had hardly time to play them, only archiving and catalog, sorting, swapping....
Older (and wiser?) now i buy the games i want to play and this way i can really enjoy them - and good games are rare if you are a long time game enthusiast, i only buy ~10 in a year, only those who are worth the money.

[bippym]

10.. I bought 1 this year.. FEAR

[Rick Dangerous]

Back in 1986 we first met after school for gaming on the Amiga.
But those gaming-meetings went later on into a copy-session.
Anyone knew a buddy, who supplied him with cracked games.
So we sat there for hours and hours to do just copies.
There was no gaming at all!
We used "White Lightning" and later "X-Copy" to do this.
The feelings we got at that time were:
- It's forbidden, but it's somewhat exciting
- Hopefully no one catches us, we heard about several people which got into conflict with the law (Police visits the parents!).

But I think, that this 'Copy-Scene' was very important for the C64 and later the Amiga. People had to buy these machines to play cracked games!

And, in my opinion, this one thing in late 1980's put the gravestone on the Homecomputer-Market:
INTEL-MICROSOFT-IBM decided (they were forced to) to allow Third-Parties to develop hard- and software for their PCs.

Cheers,
Rick

[Slayer]

When I first brought an Amiga in 1986 I always intended to buy everything... and even though today I have a vast collection of original software I too got into the scene so to speak...

but for me it was simply obtaining and having the stuff... I spent thousands of dollars (per month) on telephone calls to OS boards... which was really stupid... I could have brought two original games a week, in hindsight I didn't need the scene... I mean, I had the money to buy what I wanted anyway... I mean, I could afford the damn calls afterall...

Someone brought me an xbox at xmas, I brought kotor I and II... Morrowind, Halo and Halo II and guess what? I've finished them all... heh...

I brought a 360 and I've recently finished Oblivion... an earlier ordered modded xbox has finally just arrived this week... boosting a X3 chip with LED screen etc and a 300 gig harddrive...

I won't be using it for piracy... I buy the games and finish them... not collect pirate versions them and waste my time...

I should have stuck with my gut feeling in 1986...

moral of the story... trust thy self

nb: only applicable if you are honest and have self respect... heh

[Slayer]

just to note... last week I paid $300 for a collection of 38 original games...

I still collect the software when I get the urge but I've put a hold on any more hardware purchases...

hence to say, my bank balance is going back up... heh...

the xbox media center plays a mean ddf video...

[Ultron]

Problem with all the people that pirated then, and don't today:

All the Amiga game producers are already bankrupt and the Amiga is dead.

[Slayer]

ya probably don't have any right to state the obvious there Ultron...

leave that to old elitests like myself... heh...

I certainly did my bit to support the console... hell, I'm probably the only one left in the southern part of earth that still only uses an Amiga...

one of around 35 systems :P

[demoniac]

Originally Posted by Rick Dangerous

We used "White Lightning" and later "X-Copy" to do this.

I haven't thought of White Lightning for a long time! Thanks for reminding me of that.

I wouldn't steal from my friend Paul now, so why was it 'okay' to do so then?

It's probably just guilt from knowing that you took some revenue from someone you know. On the flip side, Paul probably would give you a copy since you are friends.

The last game that I bought was Might & Magic VI SE with all the prequels. I enjoyed them when I was younger, so I decided to get the box set and support the "artists". MM6 itself was disappointing. Also, New World Computing was bought out by 3DO, so the money most likely did not go to the original designers. In the end, did I really help out the situation? I gave money to a corporation, voted that I liked the new game with the purchase where the company will consider making another crappy sequel. If I had tried the game out beforehand, I won't not have bothered buying it. Also, the repacking of the older games wasn't not great. Since then, I haven't bought any modern PC games nor have I really played them.

Another scenario... Dreamcast was slashed to $50. It was announced that they would stop production of the console. So if you knew that your purchase would not go to the employee who was going be fired, would you still buy the games?

[SilentBob]

I did pirate software on the Amiga, yes. Mostly because my folks were stingy and I never had much of an allowance scheme. But that's a bad excuse, I know. So if the main cause of the downfall of the Amiga was piracy, of course I regret what I did. But when you're broke all the time and the games were at your friends next door, it was hard to resist. * Silentbob goes and stabs himself in the head for his stupidity *

Today I try to buy as many games (the ones I like mind you) as possible though. Too little too late maybe, but still.

[DDNI]

Like many on here, I pirated Amiga games without hesitation.
Recently I pulled my collection of 400 discs out of the loft. When I went through them I amazed myself that I had played so few through to completion.

I had very little feeling of attachment to any of them except the originals, all of which I remember saving for and buying with my Father.

With hindsight the fervent collecting and hoarding of hundreds of pirated games didnt allow me to enjoy the games at all. If anything it devalued the work that went into them.

Had I bought all of those games, would I have given each one more time? Would I have enjoyed them and appreciated them for the programmers skills? - Almost certainly

Did the Amiga suffer due to piracy? I dont think so. Amigas were sold because people had or could get software to use on them. Software was pirated on all platforms. Those platforms evolved into new consoles and PCs. The companies behind them, unlike Commodore, had strong forward looking leaders and clear development programmes. Sadly Commodore grew fat on the Amiga 500, they foolishly neglected their only fruit until it was too late for the compromised A1200 to rescue them...

Just my tuppence worth...

[Ray Norrish]

I only started buying games when that money was "disposable". Guess i didn't have any disposable income back in the 80's cos I was too busy trying to make a living... I think there's an argument that it's still parents that pay for the games?

[coze]

I'm trying to play this SKR cracked pool of radiance at the moment. Not only they cracked the codewheel question, but they've also trained it, the game adds some money and jewelry into your inventory every a few turns. And guess what, the money+jewelery become too heavy in time, you have to drop them or suffer encumbrance penalty. Not to mention that having all that money kills all the joy that can be taken from the game. That's why now I'm hunting ebay for an original copy. (I always adored the art on the manuals anyway)

[Mick_AKA]

My dodgy copy of Monkey Island i brought had a photocopied remake of the codewheel

[Strings]

Was fairly young when I got my first Amiga. But I do remember buying quite a few games. But I think the mischief belongs chiefly to my Dad... because copied games just started appearing and appearing until it made up about 80% of all my games.

[bippym]

I think pretty much everyone had pirated games for whatever reasons.. and it looks like most ppl had the same reasons back then

Little cash and it was too easy to get hold of!

[bird]

IIRC i only bought ambermoon and beneath a steel sky for my amiga, buying all those empty disks for the weekly copysession was costly enough.
I dont feel bad about it as i didnt have the money, so from my point of view there was no real loss for the Game Studios. Play the crack or dont play at all. No profit for them either way.
Today i buy the Stuff i consider worth paying for, thank god there still are cracks to check things out.

[NOB]

Good point!Piracy makes a computer great!

[Galahad/FLT]

Think the main problem was the jump in price from 8bit machines. Software companies were under the illusion that because 16bit machines were more expensive, then people must be able to afford to pay more for the games.

Most prestige 8 bit titles were £14.99 or less, Amiga traditionally was £25.99.

Once software companies had written their game engines, not a lot was needed to tweak them into becoming different games.

Piracy was always going to happen no matter what the price, but £25 for a game was a lot of money for me. And I bought what I liked to play, but how fucked off would you feel to buy a game, and then complete it the day after you got it?

[astuermer]

Originally Posted by bippym

It's quite ironic how 15 yrs ago nobody could afford £20-£25 for a game (Because of pocket money).. Now my kids have a DS and PSP and GBA and they have loads of original games which they paid for themselves (and they currently only get £3 p/w each but can earn more cash by helping out around the house)....

I think the reason is/was the price of the gambling hardware...
If I think back to 1986, when my dad came home with his (later my) Amiga 500... he paid around 11.000 ATS for it (approx. 799 Euros). My current extended A3000 costs more then 800 Euros.

People (kids) couldn't afford such expensive games as long as they have spent all their saved money for a 512KB machine as the A500

You say your kids have GBA and co... here in Austria you can get the GBmicro (I think it's GBA compatible) for 99 Euros (during Xmas for 89 Euros). So the basic hardware for using games is much cheaper nowadays.

Answering the questions: yes, I got around 250 copies during the 90's and very few originals: Mr. Nutz, Syndicate, Quik and some others. Now - 6 years non using the disks, they're all full of read/write errors *gg* and I had to buy my favourites at eBay for a few (and sometimes many) bucks/Euros.

Best regards, Andi

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by DDNI

Like many on here, I pirated Amiga games without hesitation.
Recently I pulled my collection of 400 discs out of the loft. When I went through them I amazed myself that I had played so few through to completion.

I had very little feeling of attachment to any of them except the originals, all of which I remember saving for and buying with my Father.

With hindsight the fervent collecting and hoarding of hundreds of pirated games didnt allow me to enjoy the games at all. If anything it devalued the work that went into them.

Agreed... The ones I cherish are the originals. TBH a lot of piracy could be used to test games. If it was good I usually bought it... (Dungeon Master) but if shite I chucked it. Recently tried a PC game called Ubersoldier... glad I didnt even burn the image to a disk... it was totally boring. Even the wife was laughing at how scripted it was. Now if I had paid £30 for it on the basis of reviews I would have felt totally cheated.

[Jope]

When I was a kid, I had a continuous supply of warez from my scene buddies, so I didn't really bother buying anything. Also I couldn't afford any, since I had pocket money of 10FIM a week, when games cost 350FIM..

I mainly played around with the Amiga, not the games.

When I got older, naturally my pocket money grew and I also got summer jobs etc, but at that time I was so much more interested in the inner workings of the machine (and BBS's and around 1993 the Internet) that I didn't really want to play too many games.

When I hear the statement "Piracy killed the Amiga" I just roll my eyes and shrug my shoulders. Piracy made the C-64 and it also made the Amiga. The Amiga died in 1994 when C= went bankrupt.. Nothing to do with piracy. Naturally after that the profit margins for everyone who stuck with the platform went down, so the community started to ban piracy so that there would still be sw for the machines in the future.. So this whole topic is really something that came much after the Amiga was already 1.8288 meters under.

Nowadays I try to buy as much of the productivity SW I use as I can, I mainly play old games on Amigas and C-64s and on my PS2.

The PS2 isn't modded, but it has a hdloader.. I have bought almost every game that is installed on the HD, except for a couple of us/jap only releases (katamari damacy .. ;-).

When I had a modded PSX in the 90s, I once noticed that the machine was covered in dust and beside it was a huge plastic bag full of burned CDs. Then I realised that if I intend to have a console and actually play games on it, I must buy the games.

Buying the games I play means I only buy good ones, and I also have more motivation to play them if I had to spend a fortune on them.. 60e for a new PS2 game is daylight robbery, but that's why I only have a handful. :-)

Gaming on the PC? Nah. I have a 1GHz Transmeta pocket computer (www.oqo.com) as my main PC.. That doesn't do games (Minesweeper?-). Thus I'm stuck with my Nokia phone (yes, I buy mobile games!), PS2 and old CBM hardware to keep me entertained. :-)

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by Jope

Gaming on the PC? Nah. I have a 1GHz Transmeta pocket computer (www.oqo.com) as my main PC.. That doesn't do games (Minesweeper?-). Thus I'm stuck with my Nokia phone (yes, I buy mobile games!), PS2 and old CBM hardware to keep me entertained. :-)

That is ONE beautiful PC...... I'm sold on it... its VERY nice

[DDNI]

Originally Posted by jope

Gaming on the PC? Nah. I have a 1GHz Transmeta pocket computer (www.oqo.com) as my main PC.. That doesn't do games (Minesweeper?-). Thus I'm stuck with my Nokia phone (yes, I buy mobile games!), PS2 and old CBM hardware to keep me entertained. :-)

Will it run WinUAE?

[Jope]

It will, WB runs ok-ish but demos and games are too much for the little Transmeta chip. :-)

[astuermer]

/offtopic/

Thought of buying an OQO too, but I never thought it's a real - looks like a fake for me *grin*