Welcome to this issue's mailbag.
Dear WOA,
Nice special issue. One problem though - it wasn't very related
to the Amiga's birthday.
Phillip
Damn. I was hoping you wouldn't notice. There were a lot of things
in there about the Amiga's birthday, but I agree, it wasn't particularly
extensive was it. Sorry about that, but you still liked it didn't you?
Dear WOA, I was reading the article about Shareware etc which was on the Amiga Club International magazine in May/June 1999. Taken from your WoA magazine.
I feel that alot of points made in the article are either wrong or
mis-guided. So I'm obviously here to put my 2 pence worth
across
I think on the whole Samuel Brookes has put his points across well and informed those who do not know what shareware is but he may have mis-guided people.
The first thing I notice is he is saying that people don't have time or effort to get other money for various countries but he makes out that that is no excuse. Of course you can goto the Post Office and change money if you want to pay £2.50 just to change the money and then however much money you want depending on the country. Or as he says you can get an International Money order if you want to pay £8 like through the main-stream bank I am with.
I think before Samuel Brookes says about these 'great' ways of sending money he should research into what he is talking about because Post Office charge £2.50 and then you have to send cash through the post that won't get their at the best of times or you can pay £8 extra for an International Money Order. I don't think either way is very good because one you have to pay extra and chance and one your probably paying more for the money order than you are for whatever you are registering.
Trusting a bank is much a different matter. They are a 'real' buisness and so if it is well known they are hardly likely to run off with your money, I wonder where Samuel Brookes does his banking.
If he has to pay off a big phone bill then he can't register
the software but if he goes out more next month he can
afford it next month simple!
He says that yes and no it is easy to become a shareware author and *make lots of money*. Well if he implys that it is easy to make lots of money then he has no idea of the Amiga market situation. Amiga commercial games will sell little more than 500 copies worldwide if they are lucky and utilities will sell very few. I don't think shareware authors make programs to make money they make program as either there is no software available that does what they want to do, or they want to improve on someone elses program and so they make it. It is normally the people who think they can get rich quick who make the worst software and get the worst amount of replies.
The last bit I did not understand is he makes out that Amiga shareware authors are the only 'normal' people creating games/utilities for the Amiga. Who exactly does he think makes the Commercial software. Do you see any big computer industry names on the Amiga? I think not... these days commercial Amiga software is made by dedicated teams of 'normal' people so basically everything these days is made by 'normal' people on the Amiga market.
The 'moral' that Samuel Brookes makes is true on the PC market but not at all true for the Amiga market. The Amiga Shareware market has very little space between itself and the Commercial market because authors who make products for the Amiga either go from Shareware to Commercial or it is all basically the same thing.
Overall I don't think that shareware authors are creating software to make money because most are realistic and know they aren't going to make a living. The only way to support these authors is to register their software if you like it and it requires that or just email them and tell them. Most authors that don't ask for any registration fee get very little feed back and this may cause them to give up. So the real 'moral' is support your authors with emails and letters if no registration is required and this is how they will continue.
Chris Seward
via Email
Ah, I thought I recognised your name from somewhere
We probably should have done some research into the cost of posting money abroad as neither me nor Sam knew the exact figure. Thanks for pointing that out.
I agree completely with the last point. If no-one supports shareware authors then a lot of them will go to the so-called 'greener pastures' of the PC where they feel they will make more money. This, however, according to various official sources as you could have seen in our previous issue's bumper crop of Interviews.
Epic Marketing's games person quoted the figure of game sales closer to 1000, and possibly more if the game had the correct publicity before release. Games such as Napalm which were very hyped, months before their release can expect higher sales figures than those quoted by Epic.
However, you are just about guaranteed a certain number of sales in the Amiga market, which is why it is one of the easiest to actually make money in. As is demonstrated by your letter to me. In the PC world you'd be hard pushed to find two creators of a similar type of product contacting each other with friendly advice.
Dear WOA,
Just a quicky to say I loved the ARexx articles last issue. Very
useful. Thanks.
John
Don't thank me, thank Joe. He's the one who wrote it Anyway, I've
passed your comment on.