Was the Atari ST to blame for badly ported games?

[Rob68K]

Miriad reasons but mainly:
Cheaper to do dirty ports rather than spend any more time on making the Amiga version better PLUS Amiga owners being more than happy to shovel up the crap rather than limit themselves to purchasing relatively few games that were programmed to make full use of the Amiga's features.
One could argue that were it not for ST ports helped to grow the Amiga market - if it was a choice between doing a dirty port and not bothering at all and the latter had been a more common outcome, the Amiga might not have had time to evolve into a proper platform it its own right.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Rob68K

Miriad reasons but mainly:
Cheaper to do dirty ports rather than spend any more time on making the Amiga version better PLUS Amiga owners being more than happy to shovel up the crap rather than limit themselves to purchasing relatively few games that were programmed to make full use of the Amiga's features.
One could argue that were it not for ST ports helped to grow the Amiga market - if it was a choice between doing a dirty port and not bothering at all and the latter had been a more common outcome, the Amiga might not have had time to evolve into a proper platform it its own right.

Cheaper how ? Making a good conversion of ST takes more time than doing it on Amiga first. Many games confirm that fact. In some cases it was almost "oups sorry, we took too much time to do the ST version, we were forced to make the amiga version in 3 weeks".

Basically, a game sells well when a game is well made. If as a dev you shove up crap sloppy game, be sure that the customers will point out the magic middle finger !

The publishers were forced to develop on Amiga, because the income on ST versions was too low ! They had no other choice....

[Rob68K]

It was cheaper to spend less time porting from ST to Amiga.
I know a couple of developers that did it in 2 or 3 days by running the ST display code on the Amiga and then blitting the ST format screenbuffer into Amiga bitplanes.
Horrible.
But when money was #1 priority, that's the sort of thing that was done.
Also, around the time I'm referring to ( 88/89 ) the ST market was far bigger than the Amiga's as the A500 had yet to really take hold.

[Galahad/FLT]

The thing is, and Psygnosis proved the point quite easily, if you write something on Amiga with no concerns whatsoever for other formats, you get to reap the benefits.

Most stuff by Psygnosis before Shadow of the Beast was them finding their way, programmers learning, graphics artists getting better as each game progressed.

1989 and Beast happened.

An original title, not licenced, showing what the Amiga could do, and well, the results speak for themselves.

Doing bespoke software on Amiga with no consideration for the ST made Psygnosis money, and that attitude kept making them money.

When did the ST version appear? Two years later.

And Beast was that landmark title that kind of directed their future Amiga releases.

Lemmings didn't need to be so showy, because how it moved wasn't necessary to how it played, but everything else on Amiga by them was done with Amiga as lead, ST version as best it could manage.

[Rob68K]

It would be interesting to know how much Psygnosis actually made in terms of profit on those pre-Beast games. Stuff like Arena, Deep Space ( never mind Brattacus ) were deeply flawed and everyone I knew in the early-adopter scene saw most of their stuff even up to a couple of years in as being horrible in spite of having some pretty good art.

[Foebane]

I sometimes wonder how some people could be so biased against the Amiga FOR the ST as my college best friend was, short of jealousy.

From the time he knew me at college, he berated me about my "crappy Amiga" constantly, and once he told me he and his friends in the late 80s would "persuade" people in computer shops against buying the Amiga, citing how flawed Workbench was, among other things. Considering he had a ZX Spectrum before his Atari ST, I can only assume his parents were "cheap" on him considering such things. Yet it was this friend who gained a 486 PC in his household that convinced me to get one for myself for Doom, the way paved for good when Commodore went bust.

My point is, he must've loved the days when the ST was primarily developed on as a priority over the Amiga. I told him once that programming on the Amiga was harder than the ST, and he seemed to cheer up.

How could anybody be so childish? From what I've seen of him since, he's still a keen gamer and now lives in Russia instead of Wales. He's on Facebook, now bald, and I've thought of friending him, but I get the impression I would bring up the old ST/Amiga rivalry once again, so I haven't.

[Foebane]

Seriously? Have I killed this thread stone dead?

[sparhawk]

Originally Posted by Foebane

From the time he knew me at college, he berated me about my "crappy Amiga" constantly, and once he told me he and his friends in the late 80s would "persuade" people in computer shops against buying the Amiga, citing how flawed Workbench was, among other things.

I guess I was always a Commodore fanboy, so I might have been biased.


When I had the C64, I had a friend who had an XL800 and I didn't really like it. Keyboard, colors, sound, etc. I always found the C64 far superior. When I bought my A1000 I was quite impressed with it and it was a big step forward. At that time I was working in a shop selling computers, and we had all kind, so I also had access to the ST, but again I didn't like it much. I always felt the Amiga far superior and user friendly.

[manossg]

@Keops/Equinox
@dlfrsilver

Thanks for the sober, interesting posts, amongst all these pitchforks.

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by Rob68K

It would be interesting to know how much Psygnosis actually made in terms of profit on those pre-Beast games. Stuff like Arena, Deep Space ( never mind Brattacus ) were deeply flawed and everyone I knew in the early-adopter scene saw most of their stuff even up to a couple of years in as being horrible in spite of having some pretty good art.

Brattacus was particularly interesting as it was one of those rare 4-color medium-res ST games, and the Amiga port kept all of that.

[mcgeezer]

I'd say the ST was to blame because if it didn't exist then more people would have purchased an Amiga and developers would have dug deeper to understand it.

The way I look at it is that in every ST there's an Amiga trying to get out, just a shame the developers and publishers of the day didn't realise as their modus operandi was to give kids the minimum but make the games look good on the back of the box.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

I'd say the ST was to blame because if it didn't exist then more people would have purchased an Amiga and developers would have dug deeper to understand it.

The way I look at it is that in every ST there's an Amiga trying to get out, just a shame the developers and publishers of the day didn't realise as their modus operandi was to give kids the minimum but make the games look good on the back of the box.

That was always the problem back in those days, the mid-1980s adverts for the Atari ST made the games LOOK impressive, but of course, until the people bought them and the games and saw what dogshit they mostly were with no refunds, they were suckered into the looks alone, as I was.

[redblade]

@McGeezer: If the Atari St didn't exist, how much would the Amiga sell for? Would they still have released an A500, or would the C128 be the A500?

I wonder if we still would have gotten those ports if the Atari ST was released with a different CPU. I read they were going to use a different CPU but chose the 68k in the end.

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by redblade

@McGeezer: If the Atari St didn't exist, how much would the Amiga sell for? Would they still have released an A500, or would the C128 be the A500?

I wonder if we still would have gotten those ports if the Atari ST was released with a different CPU. I read they were going to use a different CPU but chose the 68k in the end.

From my recollection the heritage of the Amiga is from the Atari 8 Bit machines, they had custom chips and display lists that are akin to what the Amiga Copper is.

It's a bit difficult to say how much the Amiga would have sold for without the ST, but I'm inclined to say it would have went for £499 instead of £399 as I remember it.

People just didn't realise or understand what the were getting for the extra £100 in the Amiga, so the uninitiated Mams and Dads would always opt for the cheaper of the two options... to be fair, most kids didn't care which is why the ST was a great machine and a stepping stone for many Amiga owners... (including myself).

[Retro1234]

I have a lot more fondness for the ST, although I never hated it and Gem wasn't bad, there are coding stories that the ST was used for coding then transferred to Amiga, seems more than possible, Gem and Word Processing did look sharper.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

From my recollection the heritage of the Amiga is from the Atari 8 Bit machines, they had custom chips and display lists that are akin to what the Amiga Copper is.

That's correct. Jay Miner was THE genius behind both series.

People just didn't realise or understand what the were getting for the extra £100 in the Amiga, so the uninitiated Mams and Dads would always opt for the cheaper of the two options... to be fair, most kids didn't care which is why the ST was a great machine and a stepping stone for many Amiga owners... (including myself).

An expensive stepping stone for my Dad, costing him £700 for both machines, one after the other, instead of the £400 I would've had for the Amiga alone. He did eventually sell the ST, but I suspect for only a tiny pittance of what it was initially worth.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Foebane

An expensive stepping stone for my Dad, costing him £700 for both machines, one after the other, instead of the £400 I would've had for the Amiga alone. He did eventually sell the ST, but I suspect for only a tiny pittance of what it was initially worth.

STs though were still sought of by musicians thanks to the MIDI built in, so there was still a market for it

[davidmcminn]

Originally Posted by Foebane

That was always the problem back in those days, the mid-1980s adverts for the Atari ST made the games LOOK impressive, but of course, until the people bought them and the games and saw what dogshit they mostly were with no refunds, they were suckered into the looks alone, as I was.

To be fair, not much changed in the 30 years that followed in that respect

Think of all the "Not gameplay footage" adverts that were doing the rounds a few years ago.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by davidmcminn

To be fair, not much changed in the 30 years that followed in that respect

Think of all the "Not gameplay footage" adverts that were doing the rounds a few years ago.

You mean all of the Triple-A modern FPS games that don't show actual in-game footage, but pre-rendered cinematics as a matter of course? Yeah, that always baffled me too, and most of the time, the actual gameplay looks better anyway.

But in the other direction in time, in budget games in the UK of the 1980s, companies like Mastertronic were putting direct screenshots from their 8-bit games directly on the cassette inlay back covers, to show people what to expect, even if most of them made up elaborate works of art for the front covers. Even a few companies put game screenshots on the FRONT of the box!

[AmiBoy]

There were screenshots from all versions in some covers, especially in the back covers.


I don't think the Amiga was hurt by the ST, I see it the other way around. ST had a market already before the home Amiga was out. A500 was helped with even poor ports as it started at least with a software base and immediately stood out with its sound. Graphics came after a while. 16 more colors usually, better scrolling etc attracted more buyers and caused a shrink in ST market -not on the higher end models though that had a more niche buyers group. It needed time to evolve and Amiga didn't have the time, the market and the strengths to follow up.


I have always seen the ST as the PC equivalent of the home computers and the Amiga as the Mac equivalent. The ability to expand on Amiga show it was the other way around but software wise the ST was closer to the PCs.