RE: Amiga users didn't upgrade

[TCD]

There surely was a market for games after Commodore's demise. I think the question is: Would less piracy have saved 'the Amiga'? It's not hard to pin the massive loss that occured in 1993 as the main reason why Commodore went into voluntary liquidation and afterwards those who bought the rights just weren't interested (or incapable) to upgrade the platform. So did Commodore lose that much money because of software piracy?

[AestheticDebris]

It's a difficult thing to quantify, because Commodore didn't make money off game sales, only from selling hardware. This means that, more than Sega or Nintendo, they would have benefited from hardware sales from people who were fully intending to get all their software via piracy.

But on a longer term, piracy would put developers off producing Amiga software (or at least investing less time and effort into Amiga versions) and that may have lead to people moving away from the Amiga earlier than they otherwise might have done.

[Turrican_3]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

On the contrary, they didn't considered at all, except for Silmaris, doing any game for the Falcon. That alone shows that the Amiga game market wasn't as plagued and considered as a dead end before Commodore bankrupcy like it is generally presented on this very board

Hmm I find it hard to agree with this argument/logic.

We can only infer two things from what you stated, which I assume it's true (I have never followed the Atari camp that much, sorry ) 1. (some) publishers thought the Amiga market was still likely profitable and that 2. it had a way bigger potential compared to the Falcon

But... !
Software support (or companies for that matter) doesn't usually halt in a matter of weeks, or perhaps even months. On the other hand this is a relatively slow, painful process. One that clearly happened with the Amiga too, unfortunately.

And getting a decent amount of low cost efforts (as stated before, there weren't that many AGA-only releases, and small development costs obviously significantly lowers the risk) actually tells us very little about where publishers thought the Amiga market was going at the time.

Originally Posted by TCD

I was so shocked when I discovered that all the Bitmap Brothers games up to Chaos Engine were made on an ST and then ported to the Amiga

That scrolling though...

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Turrican_3

That scrolling though...

The gameplay is more stop and go anyway Luckily there is no time limit

[Turrican_3]

Sorry for the confusion, I should have been more clear in my reply... I meant generally speaking about almost all of the BB games that I can remember, not specifically about Chaos Engine.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by Turrican_3

Hmm I find it hard to agree with this argument/logic.

We can only infer two things from what you stated, which I assume it's true (I have never followed the Atari camp that much, sorry ) 1. (some) publishers thought the Amiga market was still likely profitable and that 2. it had a way bigger potential compared to the Falcon

But... !
Software support (or companies for that matter) doesn't usually halt in a matter of weeks, or perhaps even months. On the other hand this is a relatively slow, painful process. One that clearly happened with the Amiga too, unfortunately.

And getting a decent amount of low cost efforts (as stated before, there weren't that many AGA-only releases, and small development costs obviously significantly lowers the risk) actually tells us very little about where publishers thought the Amiga market was going at the time.

In the case of the Falcon they didn't ever started. No doubt about the Amiga market not being the centre of the game publishing world, it never was anyway, but it wasn't discarded by many publishers, even with the piracy problem. Most of the publishing house that made Amiga games jumped on the AGA ship. Why would they do such a thing for a system with non existing user base if they weren't expecting (and making) some profits ?

Of course ressources allowed to Amiga games weren't huge either compared to consoles but, again, it was never the case anyway. The ground breaking system seller Shadow of the Beast was made by 3 people. You will hardly find an Amiga game made by more than 5 people, even the most praised ones (Street Fighter 2 on the SNES had more than 20 people working on it).

With Commodore falling apart, there was no point of supporting the system, yet some publishers, even big houses, carried on for some time. The Amiga was like a zombie system for a couple of years. No commercial life or parent company anymore, yet some big houses making games for it.

[lionagony]

In regards to the Amiga's decline I always wondered what was said in this meeting that Frank Sauer of Agony fame references here https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=72381 "After Agony , Psygnosis clearly made us understand that the golden age of Amiga was over. It should be understood that as developers we always anticipate platforms, and a game that needs 2 years to be built can't be based on a platform at its life's ending."

That was the first half of 1992 so obviously Psygnosis saw things changing even by then which shocks me since 1991 was such a good year for hardware sales.

Edit: While going through some links on Frank's website I found this https://www.editionspixnlove.com/211...-n-love-8.webp which when translated says there was supposed to be a 6 minute!!! animated introduction to Agony with its own 200kb of music with 60 shots and of better quality than Dragon's Lair or SOTB 2 intro. There are a few drawings from it and it sounds like it was worked on quite a bit, such a shame that at least the unfinished animations have never surfaced.

[sokolovic]

Well the Amiga was released in 1985, so that's not very surprising that by the first half of 1992 publishers were anticipating the decline of this market.

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Well the Amiga was released in 1985, so that's not very surprising that by the first half of 1992 publishers were anticipating the decline of this market.

I wonder if Psygnosis had advanced word at that time of the coming A1200 which could potentially start a new life for the Amiga. I can't even imagine what stunning things the Agony team could have done with AGA since I think Agony's visuals rival anything on the SNES which was already sort of an AGA equivalent. From Frank's site he says Agony only sold about 20k so that was probably affected by piracy quite a bit. I still have my original boxed copy though

[slaapliedje]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

It's a difficult thing to quantify, because Commodore didn't make money off game sales, only from selling hardware. This means that, more than Sega or Nintendo, they would have benefited from hardware sales from people who were fully intending to get all their software via piracy.

But on a longer term, piracy would put developers off producing Amiga software (or at least investing less time and effort into Amiga versions) and that may have lead to people moving away from the Amiga earlier than they otherwise might have done.

Problem was, toward the end of the Atari ST and Amiga platforms, there weren't any (or very few) stores selling hardware/software for them (especially here in the USA). I weirdly know of more places selling stuff now than I did back in say '95/'96. It just dwindled really fast after about '93. It became simply easier to find software via piracy, even if one could afford to buy all the software.

People blame Piracy for killing old platforms all the time, but the truth of the matter, the only reason it didn't affect DOS/Windows as much was because there were actual places you could purchase DOS/Windows software everywhere... (now even that's about dried up for most things. Try finding brick and mortar stores selling PC software these days... that's about how large the shelves were for Atari / Amiga stuff in '96).

I think even by the time my parents bought the Mega STe in late '91/early '92, there was only one 'proper' store in the state of Utah that sold Atari stuff. (I say Proper, as there was a guy who sold stuff, but it seemed like it was out of his apartment...)

But all of the stuff was dwindling before. 1990, some computer stores had maybe one small section for non-DOS systems.

But back on topic, the Amiga was far more expandable, and I think a lot of developers used 1mb of memory for the lowest common denominator. For the Atari ST, many stuck with the 512kb in the 520ST, even though the 1040 had been out for a long time. But the ST also was a pain to upgrade anything on, until the STe line was released. The Amiga had so many options, always made me jealous back in the day (which is probably why I own more Amigas now than STs :P )

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by lionagony

I wonder if Psygnosis had advanced word at that time of the coming A1200 which could potentially start a new life for the Amiga. I can't even imagine what stunning things the Agony team could have done with AGA since I think Agony's visuals rival anything on the SNES which was already sort of an AGA equivalent. From Frank's site he says Agony only sold about 20k so that was probably affected by piracy quite a bit. I still have my original boxed copy though

They almost certainly did, but they probably also saw the specs as.too little too late and even then would be weighing up the likelihood of A500 owners jumping ship to A1200 and realistically knowing only a small proportion ever would.

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

People blame Piracy for killing old platforms all the time, but the truth of the matter, the only reason it didn't affect DOS/Windows as much was because there were actual places you could purchase DOS/Windows software everywhere... (now even that's about dried up for most things. Try finding brick and mortar stores selling PC software these days... that's about how large the shelves were for Atari / Amiga stuff in '96).

DOS/Windows was a weird beast, primarily because the platform as a whole was being kept alive by business software first and foremost. And businesses were much less likely to be running on pirate software (if you've ever been on the rough end of a software audit you'll know why!)

It meant there was a.much more significant base of customers who just might purchase a game or two. And coupled with its ever increasing base spec, made it a safer bet for releasing on even if it suffered similar levels of piracy as the Amiga.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by lionagony

I can't even imagine what stunning things the Agony team could have done with AGA since I think Agony's visuals rival anything on the SNES which was already sort of an AGA equivalent.

Yes, but would those games be any good? Agony sure wasn't. It's more a demonstration of technical capability than anything else.

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Yes, but would those games be any good? Agony sure wasn't. It's more a demonstration of technical capability than anything else.

Well different strokes for different folks I enjoyed Agony a lot as a game and played it often when it came out. Nowadays I like to throw it on just to stare in awe, it was such a showcase for the Amiga's potential. Just learning today about the planned massive intro, that would have been incredible to see.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

No doubt about the Amiga market not being the centre of the game publishing world, it never was anyway, but it wasn't discarded by many publishers, even with the piracy problem.

One could argue that by 1991 it pretty much was the centre of the computer gaming world. There was a quite brief period when the Amiga was the main platform to develop for. Of course if you include consoles it indeed never was.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

Problem was, toward the end of the Atari ST and Amiga platforms, there weren't any (or very few) stores selling hardware/software for them (especially here in the USA). I weirdly know of more places selling stuff now than I did back in say '95/'96. It just dwindled really fast after about '93. It became simply easier to find software via piracy, even if one could afford to buy all the software.

Here in Germany that shift happened in 1993. Before you could find a lot of Amiga games in stores that sold games, but by the end of 1993 PC games took over and only a few Amiga games were displayed (despite almost as much games being published in 1993 as in 1992).

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by TCD

One could argue that by 1991 it pretty much was the centre of the computer gaming world. There was a quite brief period when the Amiga was the main platform to develop for.

In Europe maybe, but not in the US or in Japan. That's difficult to be the centre of the computer gaming world by excluding these market.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

In Europe maybe, but not in the US or in Japan. That's difficult to be the centre of the computer gaming world by excluing these market.

Okay, that's a fair point. By 1991 the 8-bit era was coming to an end though and there was no clear 'winner' in the 16-bit market yet. It's also the time when PC games with VGA graphics and Adlib/SoundBlaster sound became standard and prices started to lower. I have no illusions that the Amiga would have made a big comeback in the US at that point, but I feel like that is the point when the tide turned for the Amiga.

[TEG]

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

People blame Piracy for killing old platforms all the time, but the truth of the matter, the only reason it didn't affect DOS/Windows as much was because there were actual places you could purchase DOS/Windows software everywhere... (now even that's about dried up for most things. Try finding brick and mortar stores selling PC software these days... that's about how large the shelves were for Atari / Amiga stuff in '96).

I think even by the time my parents bought the Mega STe in late '91/early '92, there was only one 'proper' store in the state of Utah that sold Atari stuff. (I say Proper, as there was a guy who sold stuff, but it seemed like it was out of his apartment...)

But all of the stuff was dwindling before. 1990, some computer stores had maybe one small section for non-DOS systems.

I absolutely agree with you. And excepting the 512K memory, it was true for expansion cards too. I bought mine 512K in a paper shop! The owner of the shop had seen there was a huge demand.

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

But back on topic, the Amiga was far more expandable, and I think a lot of developers used 1mb of memory for the lowest common denominator. For the Atari ST, many stuck with the 512kb in the 520ST, even though the 1040 had been out for a long time. But the ST also was a pain to upgrade anything on, until the STe line was released. The Amiga had so many options, always made me jealous back in the day (which is probably why I own more Amigas now than STs :P )

Yeah! Never really though of that! So it contributed to shorting the live of the ST when the 512K ceiling was reach and developer wanted to make more ambitious games.

[Turrican_3]

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

People blame Piracy for killing old platforms all the time, but the truth of the matter, the only reason it didn't affect DOS/Windows as much was because there were actual places you could purchase DOS/Windows software everywhere...

I don't know, in my area (Italy) it was relatively easy to purchase original software. Problem is, with the Amiga it was way easier (and cheaper) to get a copy.

But I think the point is mostly the one I mentioned a few posts ago: it's not necessarily piracy per se that kills platforms left and right, it's probably more accurate to state that too much piracy (i.e. not enough people purchasing stuff, in absolute terms) does it.

Case in point, the Sony Playstation: I'd argue back then (at least here) piracy was crazier than it ever had been with ANY past platform to date, I mean there was a time you could just walk many major streets and see tens of stands where you just went and purchased whatever you wanted on your nice (?) CD-R, often even with colour printed cover. Not to mention the amount of stores which modded your console for cheap (heck somebody even had them new, pre-modded and ready to purchase!)

And yet, publishers gave an almost unprecedented support to the platform.

So I guess the only reasonable explanation is the one I stated before: despite an ubiquitous level of piracy, there were enough people purchasing originals that financially justified development.

Originally Posted by sokolovic

In the case of the Falcon they didn't ever started. No doubt about the Amiga market not being the centre of the game publishing world, it never was anyway, but it wasn't discarded by many publishers, even with the piracy problem. [...]

I can certainly agree with this post. More than I did with the previous ones anyway.

It's nice being able to discuss in a friendly way even when seeing/judging things differently.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by Turrican_3

Case in point, the Sony Playstation: I'd argue back then (at least here) piracy was crazier than it ever had been with ANY past platform to date, I mean there was a time you could just walk many major streets and see tens of stands where you just went and purchased whatever you wanted on your nice (?) CD-R, often even with colour printed cover. Not to mention the amount of stores which modded your console for cheap (heck somebody even had them new, pre-modded and ready to purchase!)

And yet, publishers gave an almost unprecedented support

Maybe in the latter days of the PlayStation that was the case, but when the original PlayStation launched the cost of CD-R technology was still sky high. To the point where just being on CD was seen as a form of copy protection in and of itself (since the storage capacity was too big to be faked with a floppy based solution like those that existed for some cartridge based consoles)