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EnigmA Amiga Run 1996 June
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EnigmA AMIGA RUN 08 (1996)(G.R. Edizioni)(IT)[!][issue 1996-06][EARSAN CD VII].iso
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earcd
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f1info.lha
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programmers
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why
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why
Wrap
Text File
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1996-04-14
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6KB
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158 lines
@5 Why you should Chose F1?
@3
Since I joined the Internet I have come under some abuse from programmers
that think F1 does not offer a good deal to programmers. These people had
never even read the conditions under which F1 operates. If you think F1
are exploiting programmers or are not giving good value then please read the
following facts first, then decide.
@2
In answer to the exploitation theory.
@4
A typical £3.99, 1 disk sale and SOME of the costs incurred:
Basic, obvious costs:
--------------------
£1.00 royalty
25p disk (we only use top quality branded disks)
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 wages (approx)
72p per cheque banked (bank charges)
30p Income tax (approx)
Total: £2.99
@1
Not so obvious costs:
---------------------@4
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 should be obvious.
Wages for two adults that run F1 10-14 hours a day, 6 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)
A Modem and internet account were specifically bought so I can upload F1
demo versions to Aminet and keep in touch with programmers and make more
new contacts, not cheap.
What about the many hundreds of pounds 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
that powerpack blows up again.
Advertising, ok we don't do much as it is not very effective for us,
but last year we spent over £800 on magazine adverts and got virtually
zilch in return, this money has to come from somewhere.
Don't forget we send EVERY program for review to every relevent UK mag and
some foreign one's too. We have approx 200 disks in F1 at the moment so
average that at 5 mags, 1000 disks costs us £250 + gawd knows how much in
postage and jiffy bags, plus the covering letters all take time too, I
spend a whole day a month just setting up reviews and I go through a
£20 inkjet cartridge every month or so due to the ton of letters I write to
customers/programmers/contacts etc.
@4
Every 3 months we pay out the royalties. This costs a bomb at 72p 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
be getting the gist of things.
@6
Also don't forget some of the benefits afforded to F1 programmers:
@4
* 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, also available from Aminet
in docs/lists). We hope to set up a web site sooner or later too.
* You have the advertising power of our top distributers behind you with
entries in their cat disks too. Companies like 17 Bit, Active, & Seasoft.
* World-Wide coverage, we have distributers in Australia, United States,
maybe 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 and your demos will probably end up on a CD-Rom sooner or later
due to contacts in the trade.
* 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 customers, we do all that for you.
Which means you are free to start your next project and keep the ball
rolling.
* 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 in Amiga
Computing. We took it on and immeaditely Amiga Format reviewed it and I
quote
@4
'This game has been around for sometime, but it hadn't really caught
our attention until now'
Mal had previously sent a review coy to AF. F1 later sent a review copy in,
because it was an F1 title it got noticed, reviewed and was awarded
'Selection of The Month' At the time of writing that AF is not on
sale yet I have a preview copy (May 96)
* Another good example is our best ever selling title, GRAC. The author
has recieved well over £1000 in royalty payments SO FAR. If he had sold
GRAC to a commercial software house he would of got around £500 as a lump
sum and would of lost his copyright,he would now have nothin.
With F1 he still retains the copyright to Grac, is allowed to do as he
pleases with it AND IS STILL MAKING MONEY FROM IT through F1.
So in some cases F1 offer a better deal than a commercial release.
Obviously GRAC is an exceptional case but we have other titles that are
looking like they may do the same, Magic Paint Box is doing well and in
its first quarter netted over £250 and don't forget MPB will be selling for
years. The Relics Of Deldroney Adventure games are always a steady seller
and have made a fair whack for its author.
* One last thing, all F1 programmers are entitled to a 20% discount on any
F1 titles they purchase direct from F1.
#8
Now ask yourself these questions:
@4
* Are F1 exploiting programmers?@5
* Are F1 offering a bad deal to programmers?@6
* When are you going to send in your program for FREE evaluation? :-)
@3
Steve Bye