[Swainy]

Sorry if this has been posted but it kept me amused for 10 or so minutes, thought it might be worth a mention : Fight!

[Alan Arndale]

Swainy, on Apr 16 2008, 07:33 PM, said:

Sorry if this has been posted but it kept me amused for 10 or so minutes, thought it might be worth a mention : Fight!

Oh that's brilliant. And Lloyd Mangram sticks the boot in as well. Triffic.

[JohnC]

Quote

Man, I wish you’d done the same thing to protect the posts on WorldOfStuart

[Salty_Goat_Milk]

I used to pirate Spectrum C64 and Amiga games LIKE THE FUCKING STINK!

[MK-1601]

Interesting stuff, and they both have good points.

I think it's fair to say that even if piracy doesn't have a massively deleterious effect on the industry as a whole, it does occasionally manage to destroy the prospects of specific platforms. Most recently the PSP (which Stu strangely lists as the hardest format to pirate (?!) ). And that super-easy piracy had some impact on the Xbox1, Dreamcast, and (obviously) PC.

Stu's assertion that the arrival of the PS2 killed off PS1 development (two years before, even) is pretty massively dubious. I remember lots of developers very quickly shifting focus to the PC at that time. As is his referencing of Edge's laughable Severance review, from the enlightened time when any European-developed PC game would only get coverage in Edge when they needed something to sneer at.

[cubik]

Coming next from Stuart Campbell, a thrilling expose of the business dealings that led to the demise of Spangles, the popular 1970s sweet.

In it you'll get to hear him argue with the MD of the former Spangle Corporation about whether or not he had an en-suite bathroom, or if the introduction of the new "dog poo" flavoured range was the reason for their untimely end.


cubik

[Peter St John]

MK-1601, on Apr 16 2008, 07:36 PM, said:

Interesting stuff, and they both have good points.

But Bruce's recollections of Imagine are so wide of what was known at the time about the company that it casts a pall over the rest of his argument. His dogged insistence that no 8-bit software company made money after 1984 is just mind-boggling...

[footle]

Peter St John, on Apr 16 2008, 08:55 PM, said:

But Bruce's recollections of Imagine are so wide of what was known at the time about the company that it casts a pall over the rest of his argument. His dogged insistence that no 8-bit software company made money after 1984 is just mind-boggling...

I read his posts (and he was presenting a few straw hostages to fortune); and I don't recall him saying that.
There's no discrepancy between the position that piracy made the trading environment more difficult and Imagine was badly run and hence went to the wall.

[roadkill]

Peter St John, on Apr 16 2008, 07:55 PM, said:

But Bruce's recollections of Imagine are so wide of what was known at the time about the company that it casts a pall over the rest of his argument. His dogged insistence that no 8-bit software company made money after 1984 is just mind-boggling...

Yeah, I recall watching that video he links to not long ago and it's clear even from that that he wears practically opaque rose tinted spectacles.

The other thing from the vid was being highly amused to see the Ocean boss in his youth, since our paths had crossed much later when he'd fully embraced the inevitable baldness.

[Synchronated]

Amazing scenes.

Bruce is massively delusional. From him contradicting his (more accurate) earlier account of the demise, to blaming piracy for a TOCA game's failure (and AMAZINGLY for that of the atrocious and priced-above-SRP Severance) when clearly GT2 was just as vulnerable to piracy, to plainly not understanding what a torrent file or game ISO (described as a "bit torrent") is, to him repeatedly insisting there was no strong tail in PSX development (despite healthy game releases for years after the DC and PS2 were released) and that, hence, piracy killed the PlayStation.

I think RSC went easy on him.

[Murdock]

Swainy, on Apr 16 2008, 07:33 PM, said:

Sorry if this has been posted but it kept me amused for 10 or so minutes, thought it might be worth a mention : Fight!

Fight? He's being killed by SC. (I have loads more to read yet)

[Liquid Myth]

Would you "Imagine" that (ha ha).

[daveodeth]

Whoa what has Bruce been smoking, so much shite out of that man's mouth.

[vegetables]

It has to be said that when SC has valid points to be made, he's really good with them. I was in awe, there.

[MK-1601]

Synchronated, on Apr 16 2008, 09:08 PM, said:

Amazing scenes.

Bruce is massively delusional. From him contradicting his (more accurate) earlier account of the demise, to blaming piracy for a TOCA game's failure (and AMAZINGLY for that of the atrocious and priced-above-SRP Severance) when clearly GT2 was just as vulnerable to piracy, to plainly not understanding what a torrent file or game ISO (described as a "bit torrent") is, to him repeatedly insisting there was no strong tail in PSX development (despite healthy game releases for years after the DC and PS2 were released) and that, hence, piracy killed the PlayStation.

I think RSC went easy on him.

For all that, I don't think that Campbell repeatedly harping on about GT2's sales helps his argument. The flagship game on a console outpacing piracy you say? I'm sure GT will sell brilliantly on the PSP if it ever shows up, doesn't mean that the format isn't a radioactive wasteground for everyone else.

...

Neither of them will budge an inch on their ideologies. Bruce is like a one-man embodiment of ELSPA, ESA and FAST, and Campbell won't ever concede that piracy can affect specific games/platforms/publishers more keenly than others, regardless of whether the industry as a whole grows.

[Peter St John]

footle, on Apr 16 2008, 08:03 PM, said:

I read his posts (and he was presenting a few straw hostages to fortune); and I don't recall him saying that.
There's no discrepancy between the position that piracy made the trading environment more difficult and Imagine was badly run and hence went to the wall.

He says that piracy put the games industry in the doldrums, and that it was only cartridges that brought back the good times. Which, as I point out, completely ignores the hugely successful Ocean movie tie-in/coin-op era of the 8-bits.

Plus, if they'd actually fulfilled the Cavendish contract, instead of wasting money on a hardware add-on that no-one was ever going to buy...

[vegetables]

MK-1601, on Apr 16 2008, 09:20 PM, said:

Campbell won't ever concede that piracy can affect specific games/platforms/publishers more keenly than others, regardless of whether the industry as a whole grows.

But is this the case for companies like Imagine? He seems to provide pretty compelling evidence that it's not.

[alexander]

Amazing. It is like some sort of geeky play by Beckett. Two parallel arguments that are doomed never to meet. More! More!

[SeanR]

I like how Peter St John is clearly stuart campbell, and he's using an alt to back himself up...

[dng]

Peter St John isn't Campbell, unless he's been posting as him on his own forum for the last three years

also, if anyone cares, the accompanying world of stuart thread is here: http://z1.invisionfree.com/forums/worldofs...=10353&st=0