the story of the amiga | part 11 - new games for amiga

so in the previous part, thomas rattigan was fired by Irving gould and it was just because Irving gould didn't like the guy. but for now, let's move on. in this part I will talk about the new games for amiga.

ready for the 500 in particular, one game had shone the way since late 1986 world of commodore show.... defender of the crown almost defined a new genre of game. it burst open the boundaries of experience you could reap from gaming that would previously be filled with abstract concepts or frantic action. here was a game, which as its appropriately named creators had envisaged, was essentially a play-along film. for the amiga, it was an experience that tied well with the multimedia principles the hardware was designed for. underneath it's really a risk like game, dotted with a plethora of mini-games, but it was the colorful, high quality graphics that really fought the eye of gamers currently squinting at their 8-bit screens. older hardware really needed an overlay of imagination to bring it to life.

in defender of the crown, there was no need. bob Jacob, Cinemaware's founder was no stranger to game development, having worked on a number of commodore 64 titles, but having witnessed the amiga in its early days, he really got a sense of what the machine could do and built a development company to specifically take advantage of that. although even the best amiga games were selling only 25.000 copies in 1986, commodore 64 versions were selling over 100.000 more. Jacob's idea was to wow the press and consumers with the amiga game releases and then follow them up with cut down versions on the other hardware. it was a strategy which worked and really set the scene for the amiga as the games machine it was. RJ Mical was actually contracted to re-write the amiga version and it turned out to be almost 200.000 amiga's had been sold by the end of 1986, but the new 1987 machines heralded a different approach, and keen to gloss over their earlier mishaps.

commodore asked the press to refer to the new machines as the "amiga, from commodore", with new logo designs on the cases. this pushed the amiga as almost a separate entity and helped dispense confusion from commodore's continued commodore 64 and 128 lines. with the amiga 500 launched, sales began to pick up in the all important home market, but the machines were still expensive and relied on their impressive capabilities to sell. nintendo was currently dominating the home console market with NES in North America and sega was gaining traction with the master system in other regions. these consoles were cheaper than home computers in part because they relied on receiving most of their revenue from game licensing models. this meant that although the hardware was cheap, games were more expensive, and it was also harder to publish them.

one of the distinct advantages with the machines like the amiga, was their open platform. practically anyone could create their own software on disk and publish it. this quickly meant a wave of new software was created for the machines. some conversions from the atari ST, some brand new, and some were just coded by people at home and released as public domain software..... an area which would grow rapidly over the next few years. although the new systems were selling in America, it was over in Europe where things were looking much more rosy. since its launch, the atari STFM in particular had gained a foothold as the must-have computer upgrade for current Sinclair spectrum, amstrad, and commodore 64 owners. this was a region much more used to plinking a full-blown computer in the front of the living room television for both gaming, and general tinkering. it's this tinkering that grew the number of European development houses so quickly, and eager for new technology, many of these developers had moved onto the ST when it arrived.

armed with the Motorola 68000 knowledge, the amiga seemed a natural and exciting progression and although in the UK only some 50.000 500's were sold in the first year, soon games were released which really took advantage of its custom hardware. in 1988, the number of 500 systems sold increased in the same region increased to almost 150.000 and it looked like commodore UK and European based gamers, at least, were onto a winner. another key reason for this was the tactics which commodore UK employed over their American counterparts. instead of bundling the Amiga 500 with business and educational software, followed by further mundane adverts, David Pleasance, the UK sales, and marketing director set about creating entertainment based packs, which echoed earlier bundles from commodore and even Sinclair, under amstrad's rule.

One of these packages, in particular, was the batman pack, incorporating an A500, along with the new Batman game, based on Tim burton's 1989 classic, as well as the new zealand story, interceptor, and deluxe paint 2 for just £399. a similar pack was also released for the commodore 64, but the amiga was exciting, it was powerful, it was glorious.

that's all for now, part 12 can be found here