Would you believe it! We couldnt! Just as everything was about to hit
the fan, in March 97 the Amiga found an owner, not just any owner but an
owner with money, namely Gateway 2000.
Immediately Vulcan planned for the future! Our dreams that held us tight
were going to happen, our hopes raised at the prospect of new Amigas
being made, perhaps a complete unit ready to buy that will be marketed,
distributed all over the world and available to users in the high street
shops at a price that would compete with current PC`s and with
technology to match.
Vulcans plans for the rest of 1997 was to make Amiga titles for higher
specifications, we chose to go CDRom only with all future titles knowing
that we could catch up with PC competition, we started catering from
other language support to ensure world wide penetration, we invested
heavily in our company and started to live again, we signed up more
development teams, we started on higher specification development
strategies catering for graphics cards and sound cards.
Throughout the rest of 97 we published Strangers, Uropa2 and Finally
Odyssey which were all re-vamped and turned into Multi language Amiga
CDRom titles.
Hellpigs the Multi-CDRom adventure was going to be awesome, Wasted
Dreams was looking incredible, Hard Target the virtua cop clone is
looking fantastic, Genetic Species is absolutely outstanding, Breed2000
was being revamped, Valhalla IIII was re-written to cater for full actor
speech, 3D Games creator was re-designed to cater for Graphics cards,
JetPilot expansion was initiated, Desolate was signed, overall 1997 was
looking great with renewed hope, Phase 5 with PPC boards, Vulcan
signing the World Foundry with PPC projects like Explorer and Maim &
Mangle, investing in development hardware, PPC boards, Graphics Cards,
faster processors, going to Cologne and meeting the new owners of the
Amiga, new contacts, new possibilities, everyone I spoke to was excited,
magazines were happy, developers were happy, publishers were happy, I
was ecstatic at Sadeness starting in the games market, finally some good
competition, I helped AliveMedia start up their games publishing company
and finally felt like the market was coming together, I was encouraged
by Aurora works entering the publishing market from across the water,
Amiga shows began popping up, Ohio, Italy, Germany Belgium, what a
brilliant beginning to the rest of 1997 indeed!
...but all the while....software sales were falling, companies were
closing, projects were being cancelled......
Forget it! because Amiga speeches were being made, hope was back with
vengeance, everyone I spoke to was on a high, other developers stated
CDRom only titles, more projects were being developed for graphics
cards, high CPUs and now PPC specific......we saw the potential in the
platform, we opened up Vulcan America to supply our titles to America
and Canada, our expanding development and publishing responsibilities
became more demanding so we transferred our Mail order operations to
Weird Science Limited and we transferred our Distribution company to GTI
in Germany so we could spend more energy in our development dream, we
established a development network of support and help for all our new
Amiga development teams, we concentrated on bigger and better Amiga
CDRom productions, we were on the road to glory! Nothing could alter our
destiny, nothing can stop the Amiga being reborn!
.....this is where we were wrong.....
2 things, just 2 little things kicked us where it
hurts....................
.....one thing is something we RELIED on, and the other is something we
ASSUMED.
The Amiga has something unique, a community, many individuals and
companies who believe in the Amiga and its future with many users around
the world. All sounds great but lets analyse it in detail to get a
complete picture of what the Amiga community is made up from and what
makes it work commercially.
Youve got Amiga magazines all around the world who love doing what they
do, putting so much of their lives into their jobs and all need
advertising revenue and Amiga users buying their magazines to continue.
Youve got Amiga web promoters who, review Amiga software and hardware
and offer excellent Amiga support to users around the world with
information and news, they do this because they love doing it and many
are non-profit orientated.
Youve got hardware development companies like Index and Phase5 who are
trying to push the Amigas hardware forward, realising there is a
commercial gap to be filled and doing what they do out of inspiration,
they depend totally on the Amiga users buying their hardware.
Youve got shops and mail order companies around the world who sell
hardware and peripherals who advertise in magazines who all rely on
Amiga user upgrading their hardware.
Youve got shops and mail order companies selling software around the
world who advertise in magazines who all rely on Publishers publishing
and Amiga users purchasing new software.
Youve got dedicated Amiga distribution companies who exist in the
minority market who all rely on the Amiga retailers purchasing the
Software.
Youve got thousands of talented artists, musicians, coders, developers
and teams who invest their time, money and lives to create software on
their prized platform because its in their blood who all rely on the
Amiga Publishers Publishing their creations.
Youve got Amiga publishers who publish Amiga products, invest their
time, money and lives into producing and marketing Amiga titles and
making them available in the market place to retailers and distributors
who rely on the Amiga developers developing and the Amiga users
purchasing the software.
The list goes on and on but the moral of the story and the `simplistic
flow chart` dictates that every single related Amiga company and active
individual in the Amiga commercial market all rely on each other, and
all rely ultimately on one thing to make it all possible!
One thing that makes everything else work.
One thing to give it a purpose and a way of making a living.
One thing to ensure magazines keep printing new issues.
One thing to ensure hardware developers continue to progress.
One thing to keep all the retail outlets in business.
One thing to ensure the publishers remain.
One thing to ensure the developers remain.
One thing to keep the Amiga Alive!
And that one thing is the Amiga user Buying the merchandise, whether
its magazines, hardware or software.
I cant speak for magazines sales but there are fewer magazines around
with extremely low ABCs compared to 94.
I cant speak for Hardware sales but I do know we get so many complaints
about supporting CDRoms, Graphic Cards, fast CPUs, Hard Drives and even
AGA...and why Genetic Species wont be on floppy for the A500 :)
However I can speak for software sales and sadly this element has
decreased ridiculously over the last 4 years from mail order, retail and
wholesale all around the world.
They say that hundreds of thousands of Amiga users still use their
Amigas, I honestly dont know the number but I do know that Amiga
software piracy is rife and with the total Amiga buying user base at
its lowest current level, that there is simply no longer enough users
left who BUY software to justify the developers and publishers
investment.
A quick note about piracy. It does sadden me to see our latest Amiga
releases and other recent Amiga titles available on pirated CD`s. It
tears me up to think that people are making money from the illegal
duplication instead of my developers, my company, my distributors and
all the other hard working people in the Amiga industry who deserve that
revenue, however I do not blame the pirates or the piracy for the
current Amiga situation.
Piracy is rife in any industry whether its, designer jeans, music, video
or other computer platforms but because the buying share of these
markets is large enough, it can sustain the illegality and still
continue.
The Amiga market however cannot sustain the piracy due to its size, an
Amiga users who uses pirated software cannot really care about the
Amigas future so do not enter into the equation but the Amiga users who
truly cares about the Amiga`s future make up the users who BUY.
The Amiga user who BUYs is the thing we relied on (and many other
companies too).
Yes there are allot of you out there who have upgraded your machines,
bought your towers, bought your CD drives, bought your Memory and CPU
upgrades and bought all the latest software and my hat comes off to you,
I understand that you also share the same frustrations as we do and that
you have done everything in your power to help keep the Amiga market
alive, but unfortunately your numbers are at an all time low right
across the scale all around the world. This results in developers,
publishers, distributors, retailers and mail order companies all feeling
the squeeze and licking their wounds.
From March to December 1997 (10 months) Vulcan prepared for the Amigas
future, I know things dont happen overnight but with the Amiga market
being at its most critical and at its lowest point ever I knew that if
Vulcans dreams and hopes for the Amiga as a commercially successful
platform did not materialise in that specific period of time then the
Amiga market would never recover.
Perhaps its time to share Vulcans vision, I know from my experience and
my logic that the only way the Amiga computer can ever make a commercial
comeback (and I enforce the word commercial) and for the Amiga to once
again have stupendous and vast software development, once again have
millions of buying software users, once again have huge publicity with a
plethora of magazines, once again have hundreds of publishers, retail
outlets, distributors, once again have continued and advanced 3rd party
hardware development, once again be the leading computer in
technological advancements and as a result once again be the best home
computer used throughout the world, it all comes down to one essential
ingredient called...................Money.
Certainly by licensing the Amiga technology and allowing many companies
to build components, motherboards, and complete systems allows the
Amigas technology to progress but we must ask ourselves a simple
question, who is going to buy this upgraded technology?
Certainly not the new computer purchaser in the high street, as for one
they cant see it in their shops, would be hard pushed to hear about its
availability, cannot see the vast software support to the scale of other
platforms and certainly would not be turned on by the end price of the
components or systems being sold.
So that simply leaves the existing Amiga users and loyal enthusiastic
upgraders.
The problem is that this number alone is way too small. This means that
re-sellers of systems and components need to rely on mail order and
specialised outlets and due to small potential sales it requires higher
purchase prices which causes the vicious circle creating fewer
upgraders. Not even thinking about the small amount of developers and
publishers who would support this new technology due to the small amount
of potential software sales.
You see the idea of technological advancement with PPC, Graphics Cards,
3D Chips, better motherboards faster CPUs, towers etc. is all very well
and all something I believe the Amiga needs but the current Amiga
community or market is already way too small to make any of this worth
while.
To me it seems that, the companies and users who really care about the
Amigas future and have stuck it out through the worst of times and
invested a good number of years of their life into the Amiga and want to
build the Amigas future suddenly have the whole responsibility, with all
the risk, expense and investment to bring the Amiga back to glory, this
is something that will not happen at the current level, no matter how
hard Phase5, Index and other hardware companies try, no matter how hard
developers push the limits, no matter how hard Publisher promote, no
matter how hard the re-sellers sell and no matter how hard the existing
users buy, this approach is never going to work due to the size of the
existing user base and it will never encourage new users to the platform
as there is no cohesion, no distribution, no marketing, no price
benefits, no software support and no overall direction for it to become
apparent and compete in the world computer industry.
The only way the Amiga has a chance of revival in Vulcans opinion is
Money!
Money poured into the cream plastic until it spews out the sides, money
at the level of Sonys investment into its Playstation.
We are talking a complete base Tower computer system, with High
resolution Monitor, keyboard, floppy drive, a 24xSpeed CDRom, 1Gig to
10Gig hard drive, a modem, A graphics card with 4Mb on board, 3D
Chipset, 32Mb memory, combined 060 CPU with 200Mhz PPC board, Mpeg
decoders, sound card, external speakers, (backward compatible only) AGA
chipset, new operating system, pre-installed web broswers, Email
applications, word processors, spreadsheet and accountancy software, and
bundled games software which has all been invested into and acquired for
the purpose and finally the word AMIGA on the outside.
This is not good enough on its own, no far from it, this needs to
manufactured in masses by one company or at least co-ordinated by one
company, this needs to be sold to distributors and re-sellers all around
the world, this item needs to be available to buy in every shop on the
planet, this system need to be backed up by world-wide advertising and
marketing promotional campaigns in consumer press, magazines, radio and
television adverts, it needs to be launched as an awesome computer with
an incredible future that is an alternative the current PC platform and
finally this system has to be around the user buying price of 400 to
enable it to work.
Anything less, anything removed, anything left out and the Amiga has not
got a hope in hell of catching up in the ever moving commercial computer
market....even the above specs will only work with dedicated software,
massive marketing and extremely low price point.
No money will be made by the company who initiates these actions, on the
contrary money will be lost as the hardware and software would cost far
more than the distribution price, but the money spent now will be
creating a future goldmine with greater potential than any one can
imagine.
If this `base level` launch was combined with investment in future
hardware advancements, investment in software support to allow
developers to excel it would give reasons for publishers, magazines and
shops to once again think `Amiga` and this dream will become a reality.
Currently the Amiga community has all the people and companies available
to make the above system a reality...the thing lacking is the direction
and the money.
So to reflect, Vulcans Amiga vision and Vulcans existence in the
commercial Amiga market relies on 2 things which are not making
themselves apparent. Throughout the last 10 months our Amiga development
and Publishing continues whilst the commercial Amiga market gets worse.
If Vulcan continues its recent strategy on the same level of waiting for
the Amiga market to recover whilst still investing in a decreasing and
more diversified market then it would only be a matter of time before
Vulcan Software would cease to exist and only the 2 mentioned things can
alter that fate for us and others.
As we have invested so much of our lives into the Amiga market, we do
not wish or intend to leave it, but rather see it through to its
ultimate destiny, as with any good book or film the Amiga market is the
similar where you never know whats going to happen next.
The only way Vulcan can remain active in the Amiga market and to support
its future to the full is if we can stay financially sound, strong in
resource and talents and function as a successful business.
This is why in 1998 Vulcan plan to develop entertainment titles for the
PC and Playstation platforms where there is a combined and large active
user base. Certainly we are aware that these markets are saturated but
these market do have active distribution network with millions of
potential customers.
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AMIGA TITLE CANCELLATIONS
|
To enable a smooth transition to other platforms we have invested a
great deal in our teams and development operations and as a consequence
many Amiga development projects have been cancelled namely, Breed2000
CDRom, 3D Games Creator CDRom, JetPilot expansion CDRom and Valhalla
IIII CDRom so the teams and individuals can concentrate on other formats
and other projects. This is a decision that didnt come easy for us but
one that is vital to our future plans that enable us to support the
Amiga.
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AMIGA TITLE CONSEQUENTIAL EFFECTS
|
As a consequence of the last 10 months the development team responsible
for Hellpigs the Multi-CD adventure title has halted development of that
title and also decided to move onto other business ventures.
Currently the Wasted Dreams development team is waiting another few
months to see if anything happens in the Amiga market that would
indicate a reason to continue with their development plans.
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AMIGA TITLE FUTURE RELEASES
|
Genetic Species CDRom is all ready for a February 98 launch and close
behind it we will see Desolate CDRom and Hard Target CDRom closely
followed by the Genetic Species World Creator CDRom.
Our future Amiga development is based on extremely high specifications
and will take advantage of Graphics Cards, fast CPUs and 060/PPC boards.
We are actively supplying a selection of our developers with PPC boards
and along with Explorer 2260 and Maim&Mangle we will see other exciting
high specification Amiga titles being developed and published by Vulcan
through 1998.
We will still operate our Amiga Publishing operations and actively sign
new Amiga development teams and individuals. As long as there are
developers developing for the Amiga we will always be available as a
mainstream commercial publisher.
I hope all the above will clarify Vulcans future plans and that it shows
that our plans are not carried out in spite or malice but are simply
choices that our company is forced to make if we are to continue. Vulcan
as with many other Amiga companies have worked extremely hard and you
will find no one more loyal to the Amigas future than we `are` and `have
been`, but we simply cannot change the Amigas future with all our
efforts alone.
2 things are needed if the Amiga is going to survive, 1 thing is in your
grasp and the other is the responsibility of the owner of the Amiga.
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Visit their web site at :-
amigaflame.demon.co.uk