Posted By
Mad
on 2015-06-26
18:34:18
|  How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
Are there some labels where we can place our new game "majesty of sprites"? A lot of work has been done into it and I think it is worth to be on a propper disc with cover etc.. Are there any adresses or people or labels where I can try to get it published?
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Posted By
retroscener
on 2015-06-26
22:09:48
 | Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
Well, Psytronik Software I am guessing are the ones to ask, as they commercially released Adventures In Time for the Plus/4 on proper disk release with cover artwork not so long back. I still have my copy somewhere.
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Posted By
George
on 2015-06-27
04:08:06
 | Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
atariage.com deals with several plattforms. Maybe its a start to ask. Perhaps there is a way to make a cardridge. I love cardridges.
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Posted By
Luca
on 2015-06-27
05:07:00
 | Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
Psytronic, Revival Studios, Cronosoft, RGCD.
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Posted By
Mad
on 2015-06-28
18:59:38
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
Ok I think the best would be to ask psytronik. (I've asked already). But thanks for the other ones. I dunno about a catridge since it uses a whole disc, perhaps it's possible but at the moment i do not know  .. But it is a very good idea :)..
Ok it seems we get a Psytronik release. [YEAH]
There is only one problem left. We do not support the 1551 drive at the moment. I know this is a major flaw, but what do you people think about it, is atleast a little chance that plus4 people do own some of the other cbm drives (I think we support all of them except the 1551). I know this sounds a bit weird, but I don't see the possibility to get this fixed at the moment [The coder of the loader has nothing to do with the game and perhaps it will not be fixed ever].
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2015-06-29
02:38:47
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
1551 support was always rare. I think you may go without it without any strong disappointment on the users' part. When there will be proper loader support for 1551 drives, you may release a second edition or something like that. Or a "crack" of it with drive fixes and trainers.
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Posted By
Hans
on 2015-06-29
04:52:51
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
@ Mad: 1551-Unterstützung ja oder nein hängt letztes Endes von Deiner Zielgruppe ab. Für England und das kontinentale Westeuropa ist bzw. war 1551-Kompatibilität ein Muß. In Ungarn und anderen osteuropäischen Ländern sowie Nordamerika war die 1551 so gut wie unbekannt. Die haben alle mit der 1541 gespielt.
Ob und inwieweit das überhaupt noch eine Rolle spielt, mußt Du mal rausfinden. Die Ungarn zumindest haben ihre lahme 1541 alle durch ein SD2IEC ersetzt, nachdem diese Lösung populär bzw. bezahlbar wurde.
Wenn Deine Software SD2IEC-tauglich ist, erübrigt sich die 1551-Frage.
Das gilt umso mehr für die Überlegung, ein Steckmodul aufzulegen. Den Preis dafür bei der zu erwartenden geringen Stückzahl wird kaum jemand zahlen wollen. Zum Vergleich: ein SD2IEC kostet in Deutschland rund 50 €. Ein Steckmodul wird sicherlich teurer werden, selbst wenn Du das in China zusammenbraten läßt.
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
1551 support eventually depends on your target user group. In my opinion, for the UK and Continental Western Europe 1551 compatibility is (was) obligatory. In Hungary, other Eastern European countries and North America the 1551 was more or less unknown in the past. They fiddled around with their 1541.
Whether that's still relevant anymore you'd need to find out. At least most of the Hungarians have replaced their slow 1541 by SD2IEC modules as soon as those were availabale and affordable.
So, if your product runs from an SD2IEC, the 1551 compatibilty becomes a minor issue.
This scenario goes even more for the question of making a cartridge. Considering the expected small number of copies, its price would be way too high. An SD2IEC sells at approx. 50 € in Germany. I'm afraid that a cartrigde would be above this mark even if you find some Chinese backyard solder to do the board, the soldering and the housing.
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2015-06-29
06:25:44
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
I wouldn't be so sure that SD2IEC compatibility equals 1551 compatibility. Krill's loader is supported by SD2IEC, so it is possible to use fastloader in this case while not so with 1551.
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Posted By
siz
on 2015-06-29
10:10:43
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
I'm not sure but my last information was that Krill's loader is NOT supported by SD2IEC. And (as it was mentioned already) Krill won't have time to add support for 1551 in the near future.
So you should stick with 1541/1571 with stuff using Krill's loader.
Edit: just noticed that I wrote 1541 instead of 1551. Fixed. Sorry.
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2015-06-29
07:35:35
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
Ah, sorry! Probably I misread something somewhere.
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Posted By
Hans
on 2015-06-29
09:06:18
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
Falls das zutrifft, daß das Spiel nicht für eine SD2IEC geeignet ist und somit mangels 1551-Kompatibilität nur von einer seriellen Floppy geladen werden kann, würde ich es nicht kaufen. Ein Plus/4, der von einer 1541 gefüttert wird, ist wie eine Harley mit Fahrradpedalantrieb.
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
Assuming that it is true that the game can't also be loaded off an SD2IEC drive: I wouldn't spend money for a game which is neither 1551 nor SD2IEC compatible. A Plus/4 being alimented by a 1541 is like a Harley-Davidson driven by bicycle pedals.
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Posted By
Mad
on 2015-06-29
10:46:01
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
Hello! I am working on a seperate kernal load option. I don't know how the sd2iec is working. But the normal drive speed is very very very slow, you would have to wait several minutes from one screen to the other. If the sd2iec supplies some fastloading it would be another story.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2015-06-29
12:08:31
 | Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
Well, maybe just one more opinion:
because I more platforms (plus/4, C64 I and C64G), and I know how brittle the 1551 housing is, I never planned to get one.
I have a 1541, an 1541-II and an 1571. With fastloaders they fulfill my requirements.
On the other hand, I hardly believe, that anyone who has an 1551, does not own an 1541 or 1571.
With a built in fastloader the 1541 is much faster than an 1551.
An 1551 with a fastloader is a turbo machine, but very very rare.
I think an 1571 is easier to reach, and probably cheaper than 1551. More convinient.
Maybe 1571's fast block mode is faster that 1551 with turboloader.
If the IEE488 may become a reality sometimes, I even consider more the SFD-1001 than 1551 
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2015-06-29
13:09:04
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
@Mad: Checking the SD2IEC I found that it supports JiffyDOS. AFAIR siz, but I could be very wrong, said he is trying to convert SJLoad, a non-firmware implementation of the JiffyDOS protocol. Maybe you could have some co-operation.
@MMS: Believe it or not, I have 1541-II, 1551, 1571 and 1581 drives. Anyway, it is always a nice touch if a C16/Plus4 program supports the 1551 drives. Brittle case or not, I'd never exchange the 1551 for a SFD-1001. Who would support it on our platform? To see gazillions of free blocks on a disk is not a worthy feature it in itself.
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Posted By
George
on 2015-06-29
13:29:55
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
I still prefer the cartridge. The Floppy discussion will become obsolete then.
How many copies of this unique game will be sold? I think not many. Only die-hard collectors will by one. It will be unique, very rare and it will raise in value. The game deserves it.
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Posted By
Hans
on 2015-06-29
13:55:08
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
@George: Your question "How many copies of this unique game will be sold?" has only one response - as soon as the game is out in the field, it's going to appear in the Plus4world download area without much delay, which consequently does mean "no more sales, just download it for free". (This would, of course, the same if Mad made a cartridge rather than a floppy distribution. Then you'd find the appropriate CRT file(s) in the download sector).
To me, the pro & contra discussion regarding the 1551 leads away from Mad's question. If he wants to have success with his product within the Plus/4 community, the product ought to be compatible with genuine hardware invented & made especially for the 264 series, such as the 1551 floppy drive. If the software fits 1541, SD2IEC etc., etc. - lovely. But that only can be a nice side effect as long as a diskette release is on the slab.
Maybe your preferring a cartridge would provide a better copyright protection for the author. I'm thinking of a dongle barrier, as an example.
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Posted By
George
on 2015-06-29
15:19:27
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
There are several reasons, why i prefer cardridges from a collectors view and gamers view:
1) A cartridge and the whole box with manual are a great part of joy and an artform for themself. You hold the box in your hand, you look at the artwork, you read the manual, you look on the backside on the box and read the backgroundstory and look at the images. Your imagination begins to work. You hold the cartrige, you look at tha label with hopefully an nice image. You smile put it into the machine and let's play.
2) You don't need extra hardware.
3) We have not many carts for the plus/4 so far. The few we have are really disappointinig compared to the other systems. Even the Vic20 has great cartridge games..
4) Look at other systems. Even bad games put in a cart and a propper box, raise the desire to be collected and played (eg. ATARI systems, Philips Videopacs. etc,..)
5) The main reason: i really love cardridges.. Real plug&play.
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2015-06-29
15:48:05
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
1) Packaging and instruction manual usually came with disk and tape releases too. Cartridges should have no advantage from this point of view.
2) OK, but you cannot store your high score in this way.
3) So what?
4) Crap games only make the most fanatic collectors want to own them. Do any system really need crap games?
5) You do like 'em! Until you mistakenly or someone with no knowledge manage to insert it flipped over.  Then it will be plug&cry.
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2015-06-29
16:21:38
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
Hans, I just one to clarify one thing: if someone were to release a Plus/4 game and asked us NOT to have it available on the site, we would absolutely honor that. The old stuff we put up is no longer available to be purchased anywhere, and the new stuff we put up is (usually) sent to us by the creators.
So, that being said, I think what you wrote about "no more sales" is wrong. There are two examples I can think of: Church of Death and Adventures in Time. Both were available on the site, and available to be bought, and both had some sales. (I don't know the exact numbers though.) I'm guessing Reaxxion etc. also had some sales, though I never asked TMR.
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Posted By
siz
on 2015-06-29
16:29:47
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
As I was mentioned I'm getting back to the loader part a bit: I did a loader system which is in very early state but is capable of IRq loading from 1541/1551/1571/1581 and SD2IEC. In case of 1551 it's not a wonder, even the KERNAL loader is capable of that. Currently it's 1 bit only for the serial drives and does not support saving. (It uses the G.I. Joe loader on the SD2IEC side)
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Posted By
George
on 2015-06-29
17:02:46
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
@gerlizcer: I think you don't understand the emotional aspect of a game, when its burned on a chip with a case. But you don't have. I think there are the console-freaks and the homecomputer-freaks.
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Posted By
Mad
on 2015-06-29
18:43:17
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
I don't think I can port it to a module so easily, perhaps that will follow some time later on, at the moment I don't know about it, I understand the pro and con arguments very well. If i had known the loader from siz before this perhaps had saved me from the 1551 "misery". At the moment I am just trying to get the kernal loading ready (it seems that it writes sometimes in the memory but on places on the lower pages which are reserved for the keyboard input, must look deeper into that tomorrow). Krill mentioned that his loader is also able of using a kernal fallback for the 1551 with irqs enabled, however the problem there is that the rom must be enabled. So I just don't know at the moment if I can support the 1551 even if I am really keen to do that.. So perhaps there will be just a version for the other cbm drives. [Btw: the game can be downloaded freely, too, for me it's just nice to have the option in having a box for the game which makes it somehow complete and I think it's nice for people collecting plus4 games, even if there aren't many]
Anyway, I think that the only possibility to have flawless 1551 support (the compromise would be tons of blackscreens without sound for several minutes) would be a native implementation in the loader, which at the moment seems not so likely. So perhaps no 1551 support :(
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Posted By
MMS
on 2015-06-29
19:42:47
| Re: How to sell a new plus4 game commercially?
to not be Mad about the fact, if no 1551 support
BTW I agree with George: I saw several VIC-20 cartridges, but not a single C16 one. I know they exist, but I've been never met with any of them.
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