Spawning from the Retro version of Granny's Garden available from 4mation thread in the software & utilities for the pc, mac or unix forum, I had a question which piqued my own curiousity.
4mation have released a new "retro" version of Granny's Garden consisting of the original graphics and sound but wrapped in a Win32 executable. So, for just under £15 you now get a version of Granny's Garden which won't work with original BBCs, Electrons, Macs, Linux or any other OS apart from Windows.
The question is, how many of us would actually buy Granny's Garden at full price (£14.98) if they offered the original, untouched version as a standard disk image which could be used with any BBC emulator or converted to work on an original Beeb, along with an electronic copy of the manual?
This is purely a speculative poll ... if the numbers warrant it, I might even post 4mation an email and draw their attention to it.
Let the voting commence,
Sam.
Would you pay full price for a Granny's Garden disk image?
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CMcDougall
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johncummins
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http://www.4mation.co.uk/retro/granny.html
has this just been added of has it been there for ages? Shame it's not the a version that will run on beebem - do u think it could be converted so it would either run on beebem or an original bbc micro?
has this just been added of has it been there for ages? Shame it's not the a version that will run on beebem - do u think it could be converted so it would either run on beebem or an original bbc micro?
It was released on 8th December 2006.johncummins wrote:has this just been added of has it been there for ages?
Umm .. nope. See the reason for the poll, in the first post!johncummins wrote:Shame it's not the a version that will run on beebem - do u think it could be converted so it would either run on beebem or an original bbc micro?
It's a Windows executable and is intended for use ONLY with Windows 98, ME, 2000, 2003, XP & Vista. Which, in many peeps opinions, is frankly pants.
Hence, the reason I started this poll - I was curious to see whether people would be willing to pay the full price they're asking for a BBC disk image.
Sam.
err ... no, they're already more than ruthless with their copyright enforcement, as Dave will, I'm sure, be able to confirm.Moist_Mog wrote:Maybe they're testing the water to see whether it's worth carrying out with their enforcement of the copyright...?
Check out the sticky Announcement at the top of every forum.
Sam.
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algenon_iii
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Nope, and I'd advise you that you're best off not selling them.
I suspect a fair few software houses responsible for old 8-bit (and 16/32 bit) games turn a blind eye to hobbyist sites such as this giving away software images (or don't care as it's for free). After all the people down loading the images may already have the tape or wouldn't buy it anyway - nothing gained but more importantly nothing lost.
However I bet once people start charging for it they'd do something about it as the money you'd be making is money they could of made. They have gained nothing but have lost £15. Plus once a fee is charged you wouldn't have a leg to stand on, it's software theft/piracy (call it what you will) you can claim to be doing this out of the kindness of your heart but it'd wouldn't wash. So you could end up with a nasty fine and a criminal record (just like the dodgy bloke in the market selling pirate CDs and DVDs - please pardon the pun).
Take Superior Software, they're still around making PC versions of their classic games (as Superior Interactive). I bet they know about this place but because cd-roms with their software on aren't being sold then they tolerate it, if cd-roms were sold the site would hear from their lawyers.
I suspect a fair few software houses responsible for old 8-bit (and 16/32 bit) games turn a blind eye to hobbyist sites such as this giving away software images (or don't care as it's for free). After all the people down loading the images may already have the tape or wouldn't buy it anyway - nothing gained but more importantly nothing lost.
However I bet once people start charging for it they'd do something about it as the money you'd be making is money they could of made. They have gained nothing but have lost £15. Plus once a fee is charged you wouldn't have a leg to stand on, it's software theft/piracy (call it what you will) you can claim to be doing this out of the kindness of your heart but it'd wouldn't wash. So you could end up with a nasty fine and a criminal record (just like the dodgy bloke in the market selling pirate CDs and DVDs - please pardon the pun).
Take Superior Software, they're still around making PC versions of their classic games (as Superior Interactive). I bet they know about this place but because cd-roms with their software on aren't being sold then they tolerate it, if cd-roms were sold the site would hear from their lawyers.
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retro_junkie
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alchresearch
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This was the case with me. Back in the 90's I contacted Gremlin Graphics for permission to re-release their old Spectrum games. They happily agreed providing I didn't modify them or charge for them.algenon_iii wrote:I suspect a fair few software houses responsible for old 8-bit (and 16/32 bit) games turn a blind eye to hobbyist sites such as this giving away software images (or don't care as it's for free). After all the people down loading the images may already have the tape or wouldn't buy it anyway - nothing gained but more importantly nothing lost.
When Gremlin got took over by Infogrames, they were all over me. Luckily I still had the letter of permission from the MD and I never heard from them again. I suspect they wanted to re-market the games for mobiles similar to what Amstrad did with Spectrum games and their e-mailer.