Amiga, Commodore and creativity

[Astral Rag]

The Kick Off 2 World Cup: Competitive e-sports with a 25-year-old Amiga game - Since 2001, players have been gathering annually to play the (digital) beautiful game.

 

[index.php]

http://www.indieretronews.com/2015/12/whdload-182-is-now-completely-free-for.html

What an incredible Christmas gift for both Amiga owners or Amiga FS-UAE/WinUAE users on a PC, as the very popular Amiga software ' WHDLoad ', which allows you to play hundreds of Amiga games from a hard drive, is now completely FREE! Yes indeed, after all these years of having to pay to be a fully registered user, gamers can now download the software and use it to your hearts content without such things as nagging screens.

 

[Kev Inkline]

 

[Jarpie]

... What could've been...Fuck you Mehdi Ali, fuck you.


Here's very interesting interview with David Pleasance who was the head of Commodore UK in the early 90s:


Edit: Here's Pleasance's talk in Amiga30UK:


Edit 2: Goes over some same stuff in both videos.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

 

[Suchy]

This looks amazing.

http://www.indieretronews.com/2016/03/caren-and-tangled-tentacles-impressive.html

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

A 2005 interview of Fumito Ueda, lead designer of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, has been translated into English, revealing that he was an Amiga fanatic and inspired by Another World and Flashback.

—Did you have a clear idea of what you wanted to do with a computer?
Ueda: No, not particularly. I ended up getting into CG, which led me to work in the game industry, but at the time I was into trying out everything, whatever I could.

—Why did you choose the Amiga, then?
Ueda: At the time, the Amiga was in the spotlight thanks to its use in creating TV shows like Ugo Ugo Ruga. I actually was torn between the Amiga and the Mac. (laughs)

—A fateful choice!
Ueda: Yeah. I think my choice had a big impact on where I ended up. But I loved animation. I used to make little animated flipbooks. I didn’t really know much about the distinction between full animation and limited animation. But I thought it was cool how, in animation, it wasn’t about having a single, beautiful still image—in fact, when you look at a single animated frame, it might not even be drawn that well, but when it’s put together and animated smoothly, it looks cool. So I chose the Amiga because I wanted to do animation like that. There was also this popular Amiga tech demo called “MegaDemo” I had seen, which I thought was awesome.

—Were you completely self-taught with the Amiga?
Ueda: Mostly, yeah. There was nothing like the internet back then.

—When you consider that, it seems like a really difficult environment to learn the Amiga in. Were you still living in Osaka then?
Ueda: I was. After graduating I supported myself with a part-time job for awhile. Luckily, right at that time there was company in Osaka who was using an Amiga to make CG. I joined them as a part-time employee, but when I got there, although they had a brand new “CG Department”, they actually didn’t have any real work waiting for me to do. The President had bought an Amiga just because he liked the hardware, but he didn’t have anyone who knew how to use it. (laughs) Anyway, I started using that Amiga to make things for Kansai Television.

...

—Do you remember what you sent to WARP?
Ueda: I do. It was a CG movie of a car driving through the rain. (laughs) That’s all it was, but there were some polished little touches: the rain looked good, and there were puddles, and the wheels left a wake in the water as you drove. I don’t think they had seen anyone do anything like that yet.

—Did you have any influences then, for what you were doing?
Ueda: Hmm, let me think… my life back then pretty much revolved around the Amiga, to be honest. (laughs) I spent a lot of time poring through magazines for Amiga info. I like doing that kind of research, and there was very little info available for the Amiga in the first place. If I found a book, any book, that had even the slightest information, I would buy it. The Ugo Ugo Ruga show wasn’t broadcast in Kansai, but a friend of a friend lived in Tokyo and taped it for me. Watching that was a thrill, “I can’t believe they made this on an Amiga!!”

—So basically, you were a full-on Amiga Otaku.
Ueda: Games like Flashback and Out of this World had just come out, too, and I played them then. I still consider them masterpieces.

 

[Suchy]

Fucking SID man, fucking SID...

 

[Mortmal]

So i found a nice little blog about the amiga and a list of finished but canned games, never released to the public:

http://cd32covers.blogspot.fr/2016/05/unofficial-cd32-release-unreleased.html
No rpg there alas.

 

[Haba]

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

 

[Makabb]

Did Amiga have the best soundtrack for games ?

 

[Makabb]

... What could've been...Fuck you Mehdi Ali, fuck you.

.

Two options.

Either Amiga would be just another ps4 or xbone or (highly unlikely because we don't live in a perfect world) Amiga would be capable of being 5 times more powerfull than average pc of today.


Amiga was the best product of its times undoubtedly and will so forever remain in our hearts, let us cherish the memories.

 

[Makabb]

 

[Jarpie]

... What could've been...Fuck you Mehdi Ali, fuck you.

.

Two options.

Either Amiga would be just another ps4 or xbone or (highly unlikely because we don't live in a perfect world) Amiga would be capable of being 5 times more powerfull than average pc of today.


Amiga was the best product of its times undoubtedly and will so forever remain in our hearts, let us cherish the memories.

I think Amiga was doomed once PC started to gain traction in 1989-1990, big problem for Amiga was at the time that it was closed system, instead of having multiple manufacturers. Another huge problem for Amiga/Commodore was the image, Amiga was always seen much more of "arcade-gaming" machine, when PC became go-to computer for ambitious rpgs/strategy/adventure/etc-games so I don't think Amiga could've been saved unless they had genius people in chage. Once the certain image or reputation is set, it's very hard if not impossible to change, so it would've IMO needed extraordinary work to make Amiga/Commodore competitive.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

http://pixwerk.net/home/news/40-tower-57-on-amiga

Tower 57 on Amiga
It hasn't been long since the last update, but I know a lot of you backed the game for the Amiga version, so it's a real honor and personal moment of pride to be able to show you our first Amiga screenshots! (courtesy of Daniel Müßener from GoldenCode).

Please keep in mind these are the very first development screenshots, and as such might look a bit ... erm ... underwhelming, but rest assured that this is major step!

Daniel is currently writing the Amiga-specific "blitting code" (in other words getting things to render on-screen correctly, with and without transparency, with and without axis flipping, etc.) which is why everything looks a bit broken right now, but the rest of the "non-platform-specific" code (game systems, logic, etc.) is already compiling.

In the words of Daniel: "going well I'd say" ^_^

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Such a large choice of tracks, of which many are good.

Video picks 10 crap, nonsensical tracks.

 

[Epsilon]

... What could've been...Fuck you Mehdi Ali, fuck you.

.

Two options.

Either Amiga would be just another ps4 or xbone or (highly unlikely because we don't live in a perfect world) Amiga would be capable of being 5 times more powerfull than average pc of today.


Amiga was the best product of its times undoubtedly and will so forever remain in our hearts, let us cherish the memories.

I think Amiga was doomed once PC started to gain traction in 1989-1990, big problem for Amiga was at the time that it was closed system, instead of having multiple manufacturers. Another huge problem for Amiga/Commodore was the image, Amiga was always seen much more of "arcade-gaming" machine, when PC became go-to computer for ambitious rpgs/strategy/adventure/etc-games so I don't think Amiga could've been saved unless they had genius people in chage. Once the certain image or reputation is set, it's very hard if not impossible to change, so it would've IMO needed extraordinary work to make Amiga/Commodore competitive.

What? The Amiga was the machine for immersive adventure and RPGs. Until the brass at Commodore decided that they didn't need to make new hardware, just rehash what they already had and focus on marketing. Then what happened was the PC's caught up with the Amiga and it was no longer feasable to make indepth graphical games for the system. Since you could not assume that the potential customers had expensive hardware like Blizzard or Cyber/PPC daughterboards.
There were a few graphically intensive games that only came out for the Amiga, because at the time the PC's weren't up to spec, and in many cases Amiga versions of games were superior to the PC versions, both graphically and sound wise.
What killed the Amiga was not lack of support from the market or developers, it was the ineptitude of Commodore management; decreasing the budget of research and development, whilst increasing that of marketing, but especially the draining of funds by Mehdi Ali.

 

[Luzur]

Commodore and Amiga fell thanks to the marketing staff, too much fundcutting and the bosses (IRVING AND ALI, IM LOOKING AT YOU) and their blunders with the Amiga (which was years ahead of the PC in tech), not directly because of PC.

EDIT: wtf 3 words just *pof!* gone

 

[Kev Inkline]

I think it tells about Amiga's potential for serious cg work that even after a few years of virtual standstill in its technological progress, Amiga was still used for rendering stuff for the first season of Babylon 5.

 

[Jarpie]

... What could've been...Fuck you Mehdi Ali, fuck you.

.

Two options.

Either Amiga would be just another ps4 or xbone or (highly unlikely because we don't live in a perfect world) Amiga would be capable of being 5 times more powerfull than average pc of today.


Amiga was the best product of its times undoubtedly and will so forever remain in our hearts, let us cherish the memories.

I think Amiga was doomed once PC started to gain traction in 1989-1990, big problem for Amiga was at the time that it was closed system, instead of having multiple manufacturers. Another huge problem for Amiga/Commodore was the image, Amiga was always seen much more of "arcade-gaming" machine, when PC became go-to computer for ambitious rpgs/strategy/adventure/etc-games so I don't think Amiga could've been saved unless they had genius people in chage. Once the certain image or reputation is set, it's very hard if not impossible to change, so it would've IMO needed extraordinary work to make Amiga/Commodore competitive.

What? The Amiga was the machine for immersive adventure and RPGs. Until the brass at Commodore decided that they didn't need to make new hardware, just rehash what they already had and focus on marketing. Then what happened was the PC's caught up with the Amiga and it was no longer feasable to make indepth graphical games for the system. Since you could not assume that the potential customers had expensive hardware like Blizzard or Cyber/PPC daughterboards.
There were a few graphically intensive games that only came out for the Amiga, because at the time the PC's weren't up to spec, and in many cases Amiga versions of games were superior to the PC versions, both graphically and sound wise.
What killed the Amiga was not lack of support from the market or developers, it was the ineptitude of Commodore management; decreasing the budget of research and development, whilst increasing that of marketing, but especially the draining of funds by Mehdi Ali.

That was maybe so in the mid- and late 80s but it started to really change in 1990-1991 when games started to get bigger and bigger, and started to require HDs, and PC got ahead of Amiga. I remember those times very well, amiga was seen as computer with arcade-y games and PC was for rpgs and strategy-games. Couple horrible ports, such as Ultima 6 for Amiga, and couple high-profile games having 11 discs, like Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis and Monkey Island 2 killed Amiga as a serious platform, also PC getting Ultima 7 and Ultima Underworld in 1992 was nail in the coffin. Amiga was effectively dead and buried by 1992 when looking back with hindsight, although there were couple games which showed what Amiga could do, such as Hired Guns and Liberation: Captive 2, but those were too little too late.

Amiga 1200 could've saved Commodore and Amiga if it'd been released in 1991, and C= would've done real push to make developers move to it from Amiga 500. I've seen some claims that C= pushed the release of Amiga 1200 by about 1,5 years because they had too many Amiga 500s on warehouses. Can't wait for the book Commodore: The Amiga Years, should be good (bad) read on how utterly fucked up C='s management was.

I saw a lot of similarities when Apple came out with their iPhone and how Nokia utterly lost their marketshare, and that was partly because Nokia's image had become so fucking stale and old, and this is what happened to C=/Amiga. Once the PC started to get games with VGA-graphics, it changed the whole thing, and Amiga started to look ancient and unfashionable; "Why get Amiga when you can have awesome PC?" was the thing I heard and saw a LOT. It wasn't just that, many old developers have said that piracy was one of the reasons what killed Amiga, for example Hired Guns was very popular game, but it sold like shit because everyone had it pirated, same with games like Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies.

 

[Epsilon]

... What could've been...Fuck you Mehdi Ali, fuck you.

.

Two options.

Either Amiga would be just another ps4 or xbone or (highly unlikely because we don't live in a perfect world) Amiga would be capable of being 5 times more powerfull than average pc of today.


Amiga was the best product of its times undoubtedly and will so forever remain in our hearts, let us cherish the memories.

I think Amiga was doomed once PC started to gain traction in 1989-1990, big problem for Amiga was at the time that it was closed system, instead of having multiple manufacturers. Another huge problem for Amiga/Commodore was the image, Amiga was always seen much more of "arcade-gaming" machine, when PC became go-to computer for ambitious rpgs/strategy/adventure/etc-games so I don't think Amiga could've been saved unless they had genius people in chage. Once the certain image or reputation is set, it's very hard if not impossible to change, so it would've IMO needed extraordinary work to make Amiga/Commodore competitive.

What? The Amiga was the machine for immersive adventure and RPGs. Until the brass at Commodore decided that they didn't need to make new hardware, just rehash what they already had and focus on marketing. Then what happened was the PC's caught up with the Amiga and it was no longer feasable to make indepth graphical games for the system. Since you could not assume that the potential customers had expensive hardware like Blizzard or Cyber/PPC daughterboards.
There were a few graphically intensive games that only came out for the Amiga, because at the time the PC's weren't up to spec, and in many cases Amiga versions of games were superior to the PC versions, both graphically and sound wise.
What killed the Amiga was not lack of support from the market or developers, it was the ineptitude of Commodore management; decreasing the budget of research and development, whilst increasing that of marketing, but especially the draining of funds by Mehdi Ali.

That was maybe so in the mid- and late 80s but it started to really change in 1990-1991 when games started to get bigger and bigger, and started to require HDs, and PC got ahead of Amiga. I remember those times very well, amiga was seen as computer with arcade-y games and PC was for rpgs and strategy-games. Couple horrible ports, such as Ultima 6 for Amiga, and couple high-profile games having 11 discs, like Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis and Monkey Island 2 killed Amiga as a serious platform, also PC getting Ultima 7 and Ultima Underworld in 1992 was nail in the coffin. Amiga was effectively dead and buried by 1992 when looking back with hindsight, although there were couple games which showed what Amiga could do, such as Hired Guns and Liberation: Captive 2, but those were too little too late.

Amiga 1200 could've saved Commodore and Amiga if it'd been released in 1991, and C= would've done real push to make developers move to it from Amiga 500. I've seen some claims that C= pushed the release of Amiga 1200 by about 1,5 years because they had too many Amiga 500s on warehouses. Can't wait for the book Commodore: The Amiga Years, should be good (bad) read on how utterly fucked up C='s management was.

I saw a lot of similarities when Apple came out with their iPhone and how Nokia utterly lost their marketshare, and that was partly because Nokia's image had become so fucking stale and old, and this is what happened to C=/Amiga. Once the PC started to get games with VGA-graphics, it changed the whole thing, and Amiga started to look ancient and unfashionable; "Why get Amiga when you can have awesome PC?" was the thing I heard and saw a LOT. It wasn't just that, many old developers have said that piracy was one of the reasons what killed Amiga, for example Hired Guns was very popular game, but it sold like shit because everyone had it pirated, same with games like Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies.

Yes dead in 1992. The AAA chipset began development in 1989, in 1990 it was decided to cut back expenses on research and development and so development on AAA was severely slowed, in 1993 it was completely cancelled, and management decided to replace it with 'hombre' that was still in development, it was intended to be Windows NT compatible. In 1994 by the time of Commodores bankruptcy it was still in "development". Prototypes of AAA exists today.
Had the relationship with the engineering department of Commodore and management been better, ie had they not cut expenses. There might have been something to keep it relevant.
I don't agree that Monkey Island 2 and Indiana Jones: The Fate of Atlantis, killed the Amiga. I played them both back then and enjoyed them. They were both HDD installable.

 

[octavius]

[ It wasn't just that, many old developers have said that piracy was one of the reasons what killed Amiga, for example Hired Guns was very popular game, but it sold like shit because everyone had it pirated, same with games like Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies.

In my town computer shops stopped selling Amiga games, and when asking them the guys working there made it clear that it was due to the rampant piracy.

 

[Jarpie]

Yes dead in 1992. The AAA chipset began development in 1989, in 1990 it was decided to cut back expenses on research and development and so development on AAA was severely slowed, in 1993 it was completely cancelled, and management decided to replace it with 'hombre' that was still in development, it was intended to be Windows NT compatible. In 1994 by the time of Commodores bankruptcy it was still in "development". Prototypes of AAA exists today.
Had the relationship with the engineering department of Commodore and management been better, ie had they not cut expenses. There might have been something to keep it relevant.
I don't agree that Monkey Island 2 and Indiana Jones: The Fate of Atlantis, killed the Amiga. I played them both back then and enjoyed them. They were both HDD installable.

But very few amiga owners had HDs, and switching 11 disks was a killer. Yeah, it's a big shame that C='s management was so utterly retarded to kill any decent advancements, but I don't think AAA would've been that succesful, if nothing, it would've just pissed off amiga-users IMO, they had just gotten AGA out in late 1992, and bringing out new models just couple years later would've caused IMO a lot of butthurt, and I doubt C= would've had anykind of upgrade kit or offer.

One of the big problems was that Motorola's CPUs were fucking expensive compared to how powerful they were, when A1200 finally rolled out, 020 was already underpowered compared to 386 or even 486. If you wanted to play best games, you got PC, something like Ultima Underworld could've ran on 68030-060 but people didn't have those. The popularity of Amiga 500 was one of their biggest curses, owners didn't buy A1200 because there weren't enough games for it, and the best games were for PC anyway, so not enough games were made for A1200 because there weren't enough owners... I think potential successors for Amiga 1200 and 4000 were not gonna have 680x0 processors, I think they were planning on RISCs.

Amiga had so fucking horrible marketing people it's fucking unreal, they should've been trying to hash out deals with the game developers to make game for Amiga 1200, but there was practically nothing when it was launched. If there are any two better examples how to fuck up fucking succesful tech-companies, you can't find better examples than Commodore and Nokia, given on how high they were at their height and how badly they both failed.