"Market" for old macs?

[Jim Leonard]

woodelf wrote:
> Good reading but most games I'd buy rather than pirate. I will pirate 

When you're 16 and broke (I had to go to a friend's house to use a 1200 baud 
modem when his Dad was out of the house -- "5 miles, uphill, both ways!"), you 
pirate.  I did manage to scrape together enough to buy one or two games a year, 
but pirating helped me back then determine which games were worth paying for 
(usually games that came with high-quality materials in the box, like the thick 
informative glossy manual in Ancient Art of War, or the WWII history and 
tactics background novellas in some strategy games or flight sims).

Now that I'm older and have cash, I still pirate:

- Historical archival (old stuff)
- Looking for something decent to buy (music, programs) and when I find 
something worth paying for, THEN I buy it

Case in point:  Four years ago I bought a DVD burner for $1000 to help me make 
a professional DVD for retail sale.  I had some decent seed capital for the 
authoring software so I did some small research and bought Sonic DVD Pro or 
whatever it was called back then for $795.  The reviews were way way off; it 
was such an unusable steaming pile of crap that I ended up not using it but 
WORST was I had to eat the $795 because I couldn't return it (it was an upgrade 
to bundled OEM software and Sonic only offered refunds for full versions, not 
upgrades).  I went through two more programs before settling on ReelDVD which 
is what I ended up using to finish the project.  My point is:  Had I been able 
to pirate those programs, I would have saved myself $795 and 4 weeks of wasted 
time waiting for shipment->testing it->sending it back->waiting for 
refund->GOTO 10 etc.  Early state of the industry or not, I'll always hate 
Sonic for taking my $795 (it remains my highest amount of "money thrown away" 
to date).

Thankfully, most games and consumer-level software have demo copies that are 
somewhat functional, like the entire first level of a game, or a 30-day 
full-featured trial.  That is one of the few things I like about the current 
state of hobbyist computing.

Footnote:  The very best x86 DVD authoring software in the sub-$5000 range used 
to be DVD Maestro -- but Apple bought the parent company and killed off the x86 
division and products.  There are people lined up around the block willing to 
drop $4500 for this software but it simply isn't available for sale.  Fellow 
DVD producers I stay in contact with debate the pros/cons of pirating that 
software because it's unclear if it hurts anyone financially or legally.  Then 
again, we're not lawyers :-)
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)                    http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project?             http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at             http://www.mindcandydvd.com/