Author: Ratko V Tomic
Date: 21:04:34 10/09/00
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> Those in charge of these decisions seem to feel that copy > protection is rampant (apparently, even more rampant than ever > before), and that Chessmaster (and all other products) will lose > HUGE amounts of sales due to piracy. Some sales people never learn. Just because there are lots of copies (if indeed they have actually established so; how?), that doesn't mean at all the folks using the unpaid copies would have bought the CD if they couldn't get a free copy. People download hundreds of megabytes of utilities and games from the web that they would never buy if they were being sold. The hard CD protection only alienates legitimate users, it doesn't expand customer base. With 5 kids at home, ages 2-14, handling the game CDs, practically any game CD gets scratched becoming unusable within weeks. So I have copies (even several) of the games they like playing, I keep masters and kids can only play with the copies. I would return unopened any CD game with hard protection. And I wouldn't look at any future upgrades or products of that company. If one adds these kinds of side-effects, short and long term, I doubt the net result is worth the ill will produced among the otherwise loyal customers. When company mindset starts getting paranoid, it's a reliable signal to start selling any of their stock. Like with humans who tend to get paranoid as they age and get senile, it's a sign the corporate organism is well beyond its creative peak and the quick buck artists, who often take over at that stage, are merely squeezing the last penny out of the product, before the collapse.
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