EnigmA Amiga Run 1996 June/EnigmA AMIGA RUN 08 (1996)(G.R. Edizioni)(IT)[!][issue 1996-06][EARSAN CD VII].iso/earcd/amos/amsls496.lzh/AMOSLIST/[e-mail]_Sat Apr 6 06:18:59 1996.msg

Internet Message Format | 1996-05-01 | 10KB

Received: from conan.eds-ms.com (conan.eds-ms.com [204.240.136.11]) by mail1.access.digex.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA13695;  for <[e-mail]> ; Sat, 6 Apr 1996 06:18:57 -0500
Received: from relay-1.mail.demon.net by conan.eds-ms.com (5.x/SMI-SVR4)
    id AA02954; Sat, 6 Apr 1996 05:45:20 -0500
Received: from gate.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.65]) by relay-1.mail.demon.net
          id ab12716; 6 Apr 96 11:44 +0100
Received: by f1lw.demon.co.uk (V1.16/Amiga)
    id AA0008k; Sat, 6 Apr 96 10:42:13 GMT
Date: Sat, 6 Apr 96 10:42:13 GMT
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Demon
X-Mailviewer: Mail 1.12
From: Steve Bye <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject:
Status: RO
X-Status:


I have just been catching up on the postings to this list and I noticed
a rather nasty post about F1 Licenceware. Though I am sure the majority of
people on this list are intelligent enough to realize Mr Sewards comments
were ill informed and thoughtless, I feel I should put the record straight.
I have posted this message to Mr Seward personally and to the Amos list as I
feel F1 is owed exoneration by this guy.

> As for the Licenseware option, I'm none too happy about the way companies like
>'F1 Licenceware' treat the people who send in programs.

F1 'treat' people who send in programs very well, ask anyone who has sent
something in to F1. I know that's not what you meant but it could be an
impression created and F1 prides itself of a courteous/fast/effecient
service, one of many reasons F1 is so successful and popular with
programmers.

>For example, if one sends a program into F1, they only give the programmer
>1ukp for each sale. If they charge 4ukp for a 1 disk program, they are
>making 3ukp on each sale.

Hahahahahaha, if only that was true we would be rich, we would also be very
greedy, and it wouldn't happen. If we had zero overheads like you seem to
think we would prob charge 2.00UK per disk. Wake up dude, you obviously
know NOTHING about business. F1 make approx 1.00UK per sale of a 3.99 title,
the same as the programmer. What you need to remember is that F1 comprises
of me and Belinda (my wife) and my son, we HAVE to make a living from F1 as
it is a full time job, we need to eat occasionally and pay the mortage, if
we can't do that F1 is dead.

>A cheap disk should only cost about 20p at the  most

I can get very cheap and nasty disks at 15p each (if bought in massive bulk)
which is what we did at first, after many complaints of faults appearing on
the disks after a few loadings we decided to buy only top quality branded
disks, we use TDK (coloured) branded disks (or sometimes Fuji branded)
and they cost us 25p each even in bulk.

>In the end, F1 are making at least 2.50ukp on every sale.

OI! You are talking crap with no evidence or experience or facts. What you
are saying is almost libelous and you should be very careful. I have spent
the last 3 years building a good solid honest reputation for F1 and then
someone like you comes out with total rubbish like that. F1 is a business
and we are NOT a charity, but we are fair. I have structured our prices
in line with market forces. Anyone that knows F1 from the beginning will
know that originally our prices were 2.99 a disk, but it didn't work, we
couldn't break even and the big distributers refused to stock F1 titles as
they wern't making any money from them.

>Of course, this would be more if the program was on more than one disk.
>What is it? 25p to the programmer for each additional disk?

Caught out your ignorance again here. For a start F1 make no extra on
multi-disks sold by distributers they make the extra and we just claim the
25p extra for the programmer from them, we do make extra on them if sold
direct from F1 (naughty profiteers that we are)

>Taking this into consideration,
>if a program was on 5 disks, and F1 sold it for 8ukp, they would be making a massive
>5ukp if not more on each sale! This is, in my opinion, explotiation.

Aha you have given it away by using the keyword 'exploitation' I bet you are
a bloody student, you know the type that hasn't lived in the real world yet.
Take my advise and DO NOT go into business, you will fail.
Anyway I don't really have/need to justify why F1 are making money
but because you are so ignorant of business concepts I will give you a brief
run-down of how overheads work,listen and learn matey;

A typical 3.99, 1 disk sale and SOME of the costs incurred:

Basic, obvious costs:
--------------------

1.00 royalty
25p  disk
12P  jiffy
25p  stamp
 1p  label
25p  F1 cat disk (given free with every order)
 2p  Printed orderform as above
 2p  Wear and tear
 5p  My time
72p  per cheque banked (bank charges)
30p  Income tax (approx)

Total: 2.99

***Already this has blown a hole in your theory that we make 3 profit***
   We are already down to 1. profit

Not so obvious costs:
---------------------
All the money invested in equipment, two A1200's with hard drives, A500 and
A600 for testing purposes, Injet printer, TV's/Moniters, Action replay cart
for ripping screenshots for the mags and the cat disk And lots of other odds
and sods that would be obvious to anyone.

Wages for two adults that run F1 14 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Extra phone line + many phone calls to programmers, magazines, distributers
etc. In business you need many good contacts to get anywhere and this means
many hours on the phone.

Income tax also means we need to employ an accountant, our books are kept in
professionl condition in case anybody should accuse us of dishonesty with
the royalties (see you in court dudes)

The Modem and internet account were specifically bought so I can ul F1 demos
to Aminet and keep in touch with programmers and make more contacts, not
cheap.

What about the many hundreds of quid invested in buying disks/jiffy bags/
labels/printed material in bulk, I have about 1000 of supplies in the F1
office right now, I could be earning interest on that dosh instead.

Spares and repairs to machines, not cheap when you blow your CIA's or
summit.

Advertising, ok we don't do much as it is not very effective for us,
but last year we spent ovr 800 on mags and got virtually zilch in return.

Don't forget we send EVERY program for review to every UK mag and some
foreign one's too. We have approx 200 disks in F1 at mo so average that at
5 mags, 1000 disks costs us 250 +god knows how much in postage and jiffy
bags, plus covering letters all take time too, I spend a whole day a month
just setting up reviews and I go through a 20 inkjet cart every month or so
due to the ton of letters I write to customers/programmers/contacts etc.

Evry 3 months we pay out the royalties. This costs a bomb at 75p per cheque
and postage costs. Not to mention two days of number crunching and double
checking figures.

There is many, many more little things like that, but I am sure you must at
least be starting to understand what overheads are?

Also don't forget some of the benefits afforded to F1 programmers:

* Due to the good repuation of F1 titles being of generally high quality
  your program will usually get noticed, a nice head start.

* Due to many contacts made in the trade and with the UK mags a very high
  percentage of our titles get reveiwed in the mags, this is another bonus
  Our top titles get reviewed in ALL the mags, since we started we have had
  hundreds of reviews (listed in our cat disk, available from Aminet
  in docs/lists).

* You have the advertising power of our top distributers behind you with
  entries in their cat disks too. Peeps like 17 Bit, Active, Seasoft to name
  but a few.

* World-Wide coverage, we have distributers in Australia, United States,
  soon Germany and we did have Sweden once. If you supply a demo version it
  gets uploaded to Aminet and sent to top PD libraries all at our expense.

* Once your title is in F1 you are free of the constraints of having
  to market your product, buy disks, stamps, jiffies, you don't have to copy
  disks and post jiffs and deal with awkward customers, we doallthat for
  you. Which means you are free to start your next project.

* A perfect example of the benefit of being in F1 is with the game Teeny
  Weenys by Mal Lavery, he released it as Shareware, sent it to all the mags
  and lots of PD libraries. He got 1 (one) sale and one review inAmiga
  Computing. We tok it on and immeaditely Amiga Format reviewed it and I
  quote 'This game has been around for sometime, but it hadn't really caught
  our attention until now' Mal had sent a review coy to AF. F1 then sent a
  review copy in, because it was anF1 title it got noticed, reviewed and was
  awarded 'Selection of The Month' At the time of writing that AFf is not on
  sale yet I have a preview copy (May 96)

Do I really need to go on? I think not.

Now ask yourself, are F1 ripping off programmers?
                  are F1 giving programmers a bad deal?
                  are F1 EXPLOITING programmers?

Well Mr Seward, please post your apology to F1 on the Amos list whenever
you want :-)


Ok we have both had our say, I feel better now, it's that word
'exploitation' that really gets my back up. I apologise if you are offended
in any way but I and my wife Belinda were extremly offended at your remarks
as the last thing F1 stands for is exploitation and we take that as a
personal insult. Until you are better informed I ewould suggest you keep
your opinions to your self and not try to give a hard working respectable
outfit a bad name, whathave we done to you? We didn't refuse one of your
programs by any chance did we???????

Have a nice day.

PS. Please excuse any typos, I am tight for time and this was written on the
    fly. I have better things to do like filling orders.

--
/\Steve Bye-F1 Licenceware/\