pouët.net

Yeah, let these amateur and hobbyist developers put _more_ time in their game projects for some arbitrary reasons that no longer matter.

tbf, cracktros were a blip in the now massive history of the demoscene. An important blip that sparked the future, but in this day and age they don't matter at all and this kinda of clout chasing is outright sad imo. Let's move on and focus on demos and creativity.



You're delusional if you think these guys make games for profit, they make games for the passion of their old platform and the money probably makes them break even in time spent.

As for the game industry at large, piracy still runs rampant and still has impact on games being developed, i'm not calling it out here, as in this case that doesn't matter.

This is why the whole thing is so confusing for me - what's the point of "cracking" (or well, apparently just releasing) a game where 1. there's no technical challenge in doing it (download ADF, upload ADF, done) 2. there's no Robin Hood factor because the developer is probably just a single person doing it in their spare time, not a AAA studio 3. the target audience is a specific demographic / niche that has both the economic background and the cultural awareness to buy the game just to support the developer.

Just makes no sense to me, other than "this is what we always did" - which as I noted is for some reason always somehow ends up being the worst parts.

@Gargaj: I'm not TRSI so I can't know how they reason but perhaps it's a "try before you buy" thing they think they're doing?

What percentage of goods you purchase can you try before you buy?

No I am not.
Might be the authors would hope to get some pennies from. If they did, what you gonna (hope not sarcastically) tell them? That they are delusional? Good luck!


Also, I had a feeling this sentence was especially underlined... just to be retracted few minutes later:


So the topic is about... Requested refund? Money sent? Piracy and TRSI? "Wasted time" and the work put into (what may in - some way - do hurt, true...)

Well, I agree with Gargaj (what Gargai said? ;)), that's it is for the "we do it cause we always did". They (pirates) do it for the old spirit/feeling as well, I guess. And what can be done here. Nostalgia?

Well, well... Take care, dudes!

PS.

So true. And, as well, sooo often experienced and seen.

Well, if - in the past - one have had a possibility to play some of the computer/console/etc/etc games before one could have bought them, one surely would have saved some important(!) bucks.
But from another hand, if one have finished the game, that itself costed
for ex. 59,99(something) or more.. Sow why bother to buy it when you are done with? For your collection? If you like a game and you know it is good, you buy it (almost) immediately.
I think.


Gargaj, there are some, and you know it ;).
You can have a food/fruit/wine sample or a car ride before you buy... Certainly, the surprise may come later...

Try before buy in this particular case was clearly not the reason since the itch.io page of the game has a "Download demo" option and the supplier purchased the game from the itch.io page.

the topic is about a bunch of dorks spreading a passion project because 'they used to back in the day' which is incredibly lame.

I think the creators are very aware of their position within the market lol. I really don't understand what point you are trying to make tbh

As always, I strongly agree with okkie, especially on the part with TRSI being dorks, and old lame dorks to boot.

I don't think there is any harm done here. People who would still buy an Amiga game most likely will be part of a die-hard enthusiasts community, will quite likely know the authors personally. And everybody will be aware that paying for the game mostly is a sign of respect, and not actually of commercial value to anyone.

I simply can't imagine a single sale getting lost due to TRSI's release. And I do believe one could argue that getting your game pirated *could* also be seen as a sign of respect. This obviously would have been much clearer if there had been something to crack and/or a trainer getting added. The way it is, from the asumed perspective of a cracking scener the release is simply lame and won't get you anywhere into the charts.

The one thing here that would have pissed me off was the "requested refund"-thing, but that luckily did not happen.

I assume "Federation Against TRSI" is already printing some stickers and disk sleeves.

Oh totally, it's just really pathetic.

Let's entertain that angle for a while (I think it's absurd but just for the sake of argument) - don't you think that in a situation like this, knowing there's (potentially) money on the line, the sign of TRUE respect would be to contact the author beforehand? I'm even willing to go entertain the (again, absurd) idea of "oh a popular crack can serve as a pretty good second wave of publicity", but even then, shouldn't the author have a say in this? Like, surely if you're doing this to the BENEFIT of the author, shouldn't they be made aware about it first, perhaps approve of it?

Or else you can just admit that you genuinely don't care what happens because you are stuck in the past and think what you're doing is the same righteous crusade of delivering software to the Eastern Bloc like it was (maybe) in the 80s.

We're in 2022. The world and the games industry has changed and you can be conscious about what you do in reaction to it.

I fully agree that there about a million better ways to show respect.

I've quit the cracking scene well over 20 years ago (was a rather short adventure), but I still remember the perspective they had on things. From this perspective "if this game is to be taken seriously, it must have been released by a cracking group" makes sense. You can see it as a tradition.

Just to be clear: Not my perspective. Not a fan of TRSI. Hoffman is one of the sceners I adore most. I absolutely do not want Hoffman to feel hurt by such an action. He's rightfully complaining.

I just wish to point out that a related subscene that still exists in parallel to ours might have a different perspective on what's OK, what's tradition and what's not.

I'd like to give a short story on this:

I always loved graffiti, and had highest respect for the scene.

Then, my dad made a dream come true for both him and me: He bought a very old diesel train, and we did do (very non-profitable) tours across Germany with it.

And one day when we went to the trainyard track that he had rented for it, the train was fully covered with graffiti, including the window. It was a nightmare to clean it, scrubbing by hand for days. Also, to us it was clearly visible that this was not a Deutsche Bahn train, but a hobbiest project. How could they do such a thing to us?

So I was clearly very negatively affected by this.

But after a couple of days of cooling down I got back to where I am today: I understand that from the logic of the graffiti scene their action had been fine. And I still respect the graffiti scene.

I can see the parallel of the two stories, but I think in both cases it begs the question: if this is the attitude, what is the moral core of your movement?

Pretty impractical in todays modern age of digital delivery. I can also predict the backlash you would receive for not including a WHDLoad installer which in effect would have to remove the copy protection to make it useable. Chances are any implementation would negatively effect the small paying customer base and would offer a red rag to the groups to try harder. That is if there's any cracking talent left willing to put the effort in. Based on the Amiga crackers I've spoken to they wouldn't touch a new Amiga commercial release with a ten foot barge poll, because they respect the effort.



On sales I agree there probably isn't any harm done. However, I've heard from a bunch of developers who just find the whole thing disheartening. Scamps train analogy is pretty on the money.. spend months, years even, grafting, refining, polishing only to send it out into the wild and get tagged by some punks. However, the developers recover and they get back on the horse.. why? because making shit is fun. But wouldn't it be nice if it just didn't happen?

Somehow this whole thread reminded me an article I read a few years back about a move made by a group of indie devs concerning their game. I don't draw any parallels to the situation of the amiga game we are discussing here but I think this article probably explains the way of thinking of all these groups who release games like this.

@Gargaj/Scamp
I got your two subject in one quote ;) Cool.

Life had it, I happened to be dawn with graffiti crews and dudes at some point.
Quite often divided by the legal/illegal attitude. By the vision some of them had.
For example, there are some unwritten rules writers would not break. For ex. bomb the historical monument or a private property (car, house) and etc. But some DOES!

Being interested in a psychology;) (call it as you want) I tried to understand, to sum it up (obviously, in my personal point of view, but quite wide)... These are some points.

1. Sucks to get its own, personal car/train (woah) painted!
The illegal painter (bomber) does not care too much. Well, at all. He is more like a hunter! He gotta find a victim, paint fast, and (if possible) take a picture to shjow to his cronies. I called it a "killer instinct" (after the RARE's game ;)). There is no deeper reflection. It is like an instinct. They need it for living. Just a panel, belton, montana (name your own) cans and time - as the biggest enemy.
2. Graffiti artists (more then some) usually practiced on the dark side. That's like this.
So if you admire graffiti, know some of them were or are hardcore bombers...
3. I will not go deep into the cracking scene, but long story short - there is no moral core. PPl need dopamine, serotonin and it is is almost the same for both movements.
I heard ppl died on some the graffiti actions, in Berlin. Or got short-circuited in the Paris' subway electrical system...
RIP for those guys, anyway.

It looks like at the beginning graffiti and cracking had similar "robin hood", from poor conditions basics. I think, it was a matter of time when it changed, started to be a competition, feeding the all-the-time hungry EGO. I suppose.

Anyway, I may bring nothing here and surely some of you are asleep already.

We can not do anything about it. It is like this...

@scamp.
Not many of you know but after the train being bombed, you had 2-3 days to clean your train (I know, I know) almost with no harm. Since 4th day on, the paint starts to impregnate and is HARD to be removed...
It also depends on the paint mark.

Side note (another one).
I was thinking today how djh0ffman felt to decide to post here. He is an old scener (btw, you did some real cool chip-tunes back in the days, thanks for that, man). He was in many groups (you know what I mean, djh0ffman;)) and knows the scene probably better than many of us... And you still got that bad feeling. Perhaps that's absolutely normal. Ahh, I see your last sentence...


Yes, it would (have been)...

Have a good evening!

If i was a developer putting my sweat, blood and love into something as niche as retro-computing i would like my product to be enjoyed by as many people as possible, regardless the ways of distribution.

As was said already, those who pay for retro stuff dont do it because they have to, but because they want to support it (which is great) and want to own the original. I can see no financial damage here... heck i even know musicians who were asking for scene-contacts to "leak" their album to so it will get some more plays and recognition. In the end more popularity may even result in more sales (although thats speculation, obviously i dont have numbers). Anyway im pretty sure theres no measurable loss here.

Putting an old cracktro in front of an otherwise unmodified software is surely not the high art of cracking and can be considered lame but I also see no harm and no disrespect here.
As El Topo already pointed out: take a look at the c64 scene. The very same discussion has been held a hundred of times over there and in the end its mostly "well if the release adds some value (good intro, trainers, fixes, etc...) its all good - otherwise its lame."
Lame in this context meaning the other groups dont respect the release due to low effort, nothing to do with disrespect towards the actual developers.

You know best how the scene holds its traditions high, warez/cracking-scene and the demoscene alike. If it wasnt this way we wouldnt need competitions at demoparties or demoparties at all, we would have digital art-festivals with showcases and everyone would be a winner (and im pretty sure there are people who would actually prefer that as well as those who wouldnt find the motivation to do stuff anymore).

The fact that software can be copied (not stolen! its not gone afterwards, theres a difference...) should be seen as a feat, not a bug. Them devs who do acknowledge and appreciate that and still make their cut by delivering a good product are my real heros (minus those who make their (giant) cut by selling cosmetics and pay2win mechanics mostly to minors, but thats not a topic for retro stuff).

Also, Im pretty sure the obligatory "If you like this software, buy it!" is meant seriously (most of the time).

But you're not.

Unless the game makers specifically contacted TRSI for that, it's not their job to do it. Producers have promo channels where they give out free advance copies, with the agreement they'll promote them and not spread them any further. What's happening here is, TRSI is deciding they're the promoter, and their promotional campaign is, whoever wants this free can have it. That's all done without the permission of the game makers. Even if it did result in more sales made than lost, it's piracy, not a service.

We all had our fun back in our teenage days of rebelling against The Man, but in the era of grown-up hobbyists and homebrewers, we should have a little more respect for each other, and let the producers decide how to distribute their work.

At least back in the day there was some pride in cracking really fiendish copy protections, crunching levels so the game fit on fewer disk sides, fixing bugs, fixing PAL/NTSC issues.

This game wasn't even protected. The achievement of TRSI is that they managed to buy a game and add an .nfo file to it. There's not even any street cred to be had. It boggles the mind.

Okay, simply introlinking a new game is par for the course in C-64 scene (with the occasional ruffings in forums) - but asking for a refund for the freshly-"cracked" game, wow, that's bold. =)