Amount of game releases

[Seiya]

Originally Posted by Zak

Can anyone tell how many games have actually and officially been released for each Amiga system?

officially released what do you intend?

Official release could be any games released by an author (p.d., freeware, shareware, homebrew, giftware, etc); or do you intend games released by a publisher?

[Zak]

Originally Posted by Seiya

officially released what do you intend?

Official release could be any games released by an author (p.d., freeware, shareware, homebrew, giftware, etc); or do you intend games released by a publisher?

As I already said, there is no way to measure what anyone programmed anywhere and gave it to who-so-ever, so that's why I don't want to know about homebrew or freeware, just games by a publisher.

Edit: what if relevance was the main criterium? So a game is to be taken into consideration, when it has so and so many copies going around, no matter if homebrew or not? Something like that was a thought that came to my mind.

[Megalomaniac]

Maybe 'feels right' is a bad way to word it, but defining whether a game has "actually and officially been released" has a lot of grey areas - coverdisk games, 1990 v 2024, licenseware, what makes a company 'major' versus 'indie as hoffman put it, compilation-only games, localised games etc etc etc. Plenty of non-commercial games have more votes on LemonAmiga than a lot of commercial games, including a few which sold very well (especially in relatively niche genres like flight sims and a lot of open-world 3D stuff). Fair point that technically no Amiga game is 'homebrew' but that's the way the word is used now - McGeezer named Bomb Jack: Beer Edition that way as a pun on the word, indeed.

[sokolovic]

I thought that "Beer edition" was about how the game is intended to be played, not how he was made.

[Seiya]

Originally Posted by Zak

Edit: what if relevance was the main criterium?.

it's ok. i understood your first post.
the complicated thing is to find real information about that criteria. Some sites report a game as commercial, maybe some other report is freeware, other that is a shareware.
Supposed that Hall of Light and/or LemonAmiga have real info about that, you maybe know the amount of that type of games.

[malko]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Technically this is correct - as in, "there are a lot of homebrew games for my NDS" - but as a roguelike fan I have learned the hard way that once a word is captured then you might as well wave goodbye to proper usage. [...]

It doesn't imply that you have to stop teaching people that they are wrongly using a word.

[Pyromania]

I like the term Ghetto Games.

[kriz]

There never have been and never will be a official list of ALL games for the Amiga, Commodore had no control over the releases and that is/was the some of the beauty of it all.. Open for all devs, small or large

[TCD]

Originally Posted by kriz

There never have been and never will be a official list of ALL games for the Amiga, Commodore had no control over the releases and that is/was the some of the beauty of it all.. Open for all devs, small or large

There's that French website that really tries hard to list as many as possible. Seems like I misplaced my bookmark for it, but hopefully somebody else knows which one I'm talking about and can link to it.

[kriz]

This list: http://obligement.free.fr/listejeuxa...ejeuxamiga.php

[TCD]

Yep. So if you use that one it would be 13,521 released games. Then you can thin it out according to your own criteria. Good luck

[AMIPEGUSER]

It is really hard to say which games to sort out as official released and commercial, maybe.

Some examples…
If you look about the new releases the last years from poly.play.
Some of them are listed at HOL as no price because there are downloadable via itch.io.
But poly.play released them officially with big box, many gimmicks, manuals, posters etc..
These publishings are more professional as many releases in the 80s or 90s.
see Tristam Island, Blackwood Manor, Queens Footsteps etc.
Also the releases from Adrian and Mutation Software. Big Boxes, CD32 Versions in Highclass Boxes. All CDs are factory made and not burned.

If you looks on publishings in the 90s as games like Talmino, or Shanghai 98 by logistic dreams which are also published as commercial and could ordered or bought in Amiga Game shops, but they have no box. They was published in a plastic back and the Manual Cover was also used as „boxcover“. The Same Publishing system was used by German Schatztruhe. So was this homebrew in the 90s?

As you look on the games of Tronic Verlag it was also another way.
The games published as commercial by order via the Tronic Verlag an they come in standard plastic box (like most yellow releases from EA). Labeled Disks, printed manual, Box cover etc. but the games itself comes from programmer competition and was checked as good enough for a commercial release. Was it also homebrew?

What looks like homebrew are most releases from Alive media. If you looks on the CD covers there are really simple made and the CDs are just burned and not factory made.
These titles are really like homebrew but there are also sold as commercial.

In these times there are also commercial games which are just downloadable. If you look on Aquabyss or Tower 57 for OS4 and Morph OS. There are not for free but these games are really great stuff and very professional. On these great games a boxed version is still missing in my mind.

For me personally every game that comes in box (what kind of box ever it was) is something like commercial, because these boxes normally did not get away for free.
This counts to me for games which releases in boxes for money and the same game was free via download.
Exceptions are here the promotionals which made professional but get often boxed for free. See Helicopter Mission, Knax, Tony and Friends etc. But if you looks for them today the could really expensive.
Also commercials for me are these download games which are only available on purchasing and not free download.

[Zak]

I wonder how the music industry deals with this topic in comparison. I mean isn't it comparable? Like anyone can write music, but you also have official publications on disc, via download, streaming and so on. Yet they have official charts and say they can tell how much music was released. I wonder how they do this.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by Zak

I wonder how the music industry deals with this topic in comparison. I mean isn't it comparable? Like anyone can write music, but you also have official publications on disc, via download, streaming and so on. Yet they have official charts and say they can tell how much music was released. I wonder how they do this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intern...de?wprov=sfla1

[malko]

Originally Posted by AMIPEGUSER

[...] For me personally every game that comes in box (what kind of box ever it was) is something like commercial, because these boxes normally did not get away for free. [...]

I think is not that "simple". Some of these games are free to download because they are tributes from fans adaptation of commercial games from BitD which, BitD, would have required a licence from their respective owner to be ported/adapted. That, to satisfy retro-gaming enthusiaststhat we are a small amount of boxed copies exist and that, to absorb the costs of the hardware (box, floppy, CD, printed manual, etc.) the game get sold, doesn't make it a "commercial" game (they don't sell the game but are amortising the costs of the "physical parts").

Originally Posted by AMIPEGUSER

[...] This counts to me for games which releases in boxes for money and the same game was free via download.[...]

This is what is called shareware. But again, only original games or licenced conversions/adaptations can be counted here (recent last example being Ceccanoïd) and not games that fulfil above paragraph.

[AMIPEGUSER]

@malko

You are right, if you look this way on the regulations of licences and so on.
Than the these games did not counted. But as I said "for me personally" I think that way.
As I all others also said... it not easy to find out...

If I have a boxed version the game it will be stand in my shelf for commercial games, sorted by publisher.
Games without boxes are stored in other Boxes together if they have a original disk and
a manual, maybe. In that cathegory comes also Licenceware.

Yes, I know about shareware. I these kind I find itch.io is a good way to support the programmer. I always spend some money before I download a game via itch.io. If the programmer did use the donation option.

In the old days this was harder to get these games. I can remember that I ordered some "shareware" Full Version games in these days direct from the programmer.
I still have the originals from Legend of Falconia, Quelle von Naroth, Basket, Toon Factory, Fayoh etc. In all these cases you have to contact the programmer directly via letter (no internet) and put the money in the letter or send it via bank.
After that I get back labeled Disks and a printed Manual.
I have to pay for these games, but that is no commercial in my mind.
They will be sorted as shareware for me, too.

[sokolovic]

Since it was released as a shareware with no box, is Doom a non commercial game ?

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Since it was released as a shareware with no box, is Doom a non commercial game ?

Technically yes, because Doom was still shareware, it didn’t become ‘commercial’ until GT published The Ultimate Doom in 1995. (Not counting the 1994 32-X/Jaguar releases).

The PC US shareware market was alot more advanced than the Amiga shareware market what we knew of, the Amiga market was more akin to bedroom coders making PD games that were slightly better than the norm and hence they thought they could charge a few pounds to get the full version. Whilst the US PC shareware market was a massive part of how you bought PC games in the first decade or so, and they often were delivered in slim packets with maybe a cover, but certainly with publishers behind them in more instances than the Amiga market.

Again it’s how people want to slice the games results up, you either have anything or everything that is charged for or pick and select the sectors to suit.

[Daff]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

@Daff: your database is truly amazing, but I would really love to be able to search by multiple criteria at the same time. Any chance to get the .xls / .csv file for it?

The Amiga Game List have a download option, just make a donation:
http://obligement.free.fr/listejeuxa...chargement.php

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Don’t get me wrong, you have a great list, but all it’s all well and good trying to list every single Amiga disk

No problem, it's all points of view for our beloved Amiga.

Originally Posted by Amigajay

I know my numbers are closer to reality, there is no way there are nearly 6000 commercial Amiga games according to your numbers, no disrespect, but don’t come for me when you list things like ‘Pac Mine’ and ‘SB Mine’ 1-10’ and other Emerald Mines creators countless times on that list, and Scary Poems For Rotten Kids as ‘ commercial games’.

I know, Scary Poems For Rotten Kids is really "limit" to enter the Amiga Games List. Perhaps its "entertaining" for kids, so I include it on the list.