CompuServe Messages

PMJI but I've been buying AF, AUI, AC, CU and AW for several years (lets say around eight) and AF is the most sold, but the worst quality (h/w, apps & games reviews) Lately, British mags have been competing among themselves with the most valuable commercial s/w to be given away in their coverdisks. (Remember Imagine last year.) AC was the first mag to use coverdisk as a marketing strategy. It was filled with a PD selection, somewhat like a top ten selection of most downloaded files from a bunch of BBS, really nice. AF and CU started to issue at first one "playable demo" in their coverdisks and later two. AUI followed the trend set by AC using PD selections and not commercial apps.The actual situation is that everyone is racing to offer the most valuable apps in their coverdscs. AW has never given away a coverdisk. That's the one that has got my subscription. Now I quote some paragraphs from the article "A disk too far" from AC April 94, page 16. >It is anaccepted fact of life in the Amiga Magazine world these days that if you don't give the readers some free commercial software, they will buy the competition more or less no matter what articles, features, and reviews are to be found in that issue of the magazine. During the middle of last year, when it became apparent hat the supply of good CoverDisk software was running low, we were told, informally, that at least one other major Amiga magazine would become the chance to stop using commercial software altogether. However, without the agreement of all the publishers concerned it is impossible to impose this sort of voluntary moratorium. From the industry's point of view, such a move is well overdue. For every coverdisk containing a free graphics package, one potential high street or mail order is lost, and if the freebie craze continues we can expect to see the Amiga serious software market strangled much more effectively than piracy could ever hope to affect games software. This legal distribution of high quality commercial software for next to nothing is, of course, a bonanza for the readers, but if it kills the Amiga's still very healthy productivity market by flooding it with gratis goodies we, and you, will suffer in the long run.< See what happens. Rafa <Motorola Inside> …via AutoPilot 1.72 from Berlin