On Wed, 19 Mar 2003 18:47:06 -0800, "Shonner" <shonner@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>A company handing out software <snip>
Shonner you really should lighten up on your TA 'piracy' piety.
FWIW I own original boxed release discs of TA, TA:CC & TA:BT, TA:K and
TA:IP
The greater proportion of gamers discovering and wanting it are not
involved in authoring software, so don't hold with the 'piracy' issue
as emotionally as you do. Even if they did, your expectations are
unrealistic considering *all* the circumstances.
Although the original game may still be obtainable r-e-tail in the US,
it AND the add-on midules aren't in many countries around the world.
Official online or bug fixing support patch for the games has long
since been abandoned, having gone down the with the Cavedog ship. Even
if wanting to buy them, they certainly can't be obtained locally, nor
the modules even internationally were buyers prepared to pay
unrealistic current international shipping rates. (see Chips and
Bits).
When they *were* available and in curent distro, I too gave short
shrift to tight-arses who wanted me to burn them a copy of the game
but weren't prepared to shell out the reasonable dollars due in
support of what is unquestionably the best game ever written.
But with the current supply and distribution situation, if the
copyight owner doesn't keep the game/s in release and available for
sale, and people still want it, the course of action most people will
take to obtain it is self-evident.
By way of contemporary examples. SSI's PzG II and its ilk have since
been made downloadable freeware, and it might be said that it's
probably not a bad idea that the same wasn't done with TA *if* the
copyright holders don't want to release it bundled or offer it in a
budget redistro like Ubisoft have done with SSI/Atomic's Close Combat
4 & 5.
Knowing the genuine difficulty now of obtaining copies of CC & BT in
particular, and in the light that all support for legitimate owners of
the game has long since been abandoned certainly intimates a *moral*
lack of mutual obligation. With all of this rendering the *deliberate
piracy* issue moot from a practical perspective, if asked I would have
no hesitiation in burning a copy of CC or BT for those who can no
*legitimately* longer obtain same.
Iguana Bwana
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