Game rights on wrong wavelength | Drobe.co.uk archives

Game rights on wrong wavelength

By Chris Williams. Published: 6th Jul 2004, 22:46:33 | Permalink | Printable

Another RISC OS soap opera

RISC OS gaming info website AcornArcade have pulled their release of Wavelength, after dealer CJE asked for the download to be removed. Wavelength was developed in 1994 by Tom Cooper, and AcornArcade had secured re-publishing rights to Berty's titles, although CJE argued that the shoot'em up game is owned by the little known Skillsware.

"Apparently CJE have an exclusive distribution deal with Skillsware, so aren't too happy that we're giving away Wavelength for free," explained AcornArcade writer Jeffrey Lee, who also pointed out this Iconbar thread for the history of Skillsware (somehow related to the more well known Gamesware outfit), Eclipse and Imparo (previously Freedom2).

CJE are currently selling Wavelength for 15 quid, as some time ago they took over the Eclipse range of games and reportedly paid for the first couple of hundred sales, a target which hasn't been reached yet.

Meanwhile, keep an eye out for some CJE friendly, grovelling articles on AcornArcade.

Links

AcornArcade website

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Discussion

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The frequency of Wavelength's downloads offered at the time may have ended up with a Broad band of now so called pirate owners? Do we have to delete our copies now, or forward 15 sQuids to CJE before we end up in deep water? RISC OS software ownership and licencing rights are getting pretty tricky lately! Cheers, Steve. :blush:

Sawadee on 7/7/04 6:50AM
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Sawadee - you should be shot for mentioning the words frequency and wavelength in the same sentence. Some of us still have nightmares about the physics exams you know...

Ooooooo...It hurts my eyes....

md0u80c9 on 7/7/04 12:57PM
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Or alternatively delete the game and don't pay for it, have to list that game as one of the most annoying things I got off a cover disk

NoMercy on 7/7/04 1:45PM
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NoMercy: Why did you find it annoying? I thought it was pretty nice at the time...

MENTAT on 7/7/04 3:07PM
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Sawdee: Very good. Keep up the bad wordplay

MENTAT on 7/7/04 3:09PM
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15 quid for a ten year old game is ridiculous. Anyone paying that amount is likely to want an original copy, so aren't going to be bothered whether they can get a free copy online.

Have CJE thought that if they had a reasonable price more copies /might/ be sold?

ph on 7/7/04 6:18PM
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Nonsense like this has existed in the Acorn/RISC OS world for a long time. I heard the excuse from one retailer that "Acorn stuff holds it price" as a justification for not dropping the price on old hardware and software. Do that really think they will still generate sales on such an old game? This madness continues to the present once again with the current generation of RISC OS computers still selling at the same price as when they were first released a while ago now. We need a bit of price competition in this OS.

Fuzzy on 7/7/04 7:31PM
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I went around in circles wondering where and what to kill and always died in the end, I but relly I guess it just wan't my game

NoMercy on 8/7/04 2:14AM
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md0u80c9: Sorry about the bad memories, I never thought about it at the time. Lucky I didn't include the bit about getting tentacled (technical) over the 15 sQuids (octopuses) to help ARM CJE before we end up in deep water. Now don't tell me some of you guys had Marine Biology exam nightmares!!! ;-)

Wavelength may be an old game and 15 quids sounds like a lot of money to some people, but how do you think it compares to new games around the 15 quid price bracket? (Not being a games person, I personally wouldn't know). Cheers, Steve.

Sawadee on 8/7/04 8:57AM
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Wavelength from CJE is 5 quid on their special offer page ATM. These games from 1-10 quid are a more reasonable price but I think this should be the normal price, not a special offer. I recently bought SR2000 and Galactic Dan for 10 and 5 quid as my old versions no longer worked. No way I would have bought them at 25 and 20.

Maybe CJE should create compilation CDs of games. Say take every game on their site over 10 years old capable of running from HD or CD, stick it on CD and sell it for maybe 30 quid. You might end up with 50+ games on one disc. Now that I think would sell. Even 100 copies, that's 3 grand. Surely more than would be expected from selling individual games. There's already a Krisalis CD, maybe a 4th Dimension CD and 'the rest' CD would be welcome.

Tim on 8/7/04 11:10AM
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5 quids sounds great for a selection of games, I agree with *ph* comments that cheaper prices will always sell more games and the more games people buy, the more advertising this creates for potential buyers who see them. Tim: It could be that CJE reducing (15 quids) to the normal pricing range (5 quids) IS their special offer? Cheers, Steve.

Sawadee on 9/7/04 6:50AM
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