ARE WE BEING CONNED? (4)

                  A reply by Steve Provost

"Are we being conned?", asked Peter Clark in the last issue.  Yes,
I think we most definitely are! But I also think that the software
companies are shooting themselves in the foot. What percentage of
the game-buying public have actually got the computer power to be
able to install, let alone run, these disk-hungry,
memory-grabbing monoliths. A lot less than they think, I
suspect.

OK, there are the die-hards who'll always rush out and buy the
latest cutting-edge machine with megahertz upon megahertz of
processing power, the fastest Voodoo Blaster 3D card they can lay
their hands on, a 30-odd gig hard disk drive and super sub-woofer
surround-sound just so they can get their fix of the next
generation of no-content hype. Yes, it all looks and sounds very
impressive but it's also *very* expensive.

How many times have you toddled off down to your local computer
store mouth watering, hands trembling, eager to purchase that
latest adventure game you've heard so much about only to find
that, when you read the box, it won't run on anything less than a
200Mhz Pentium with fast 3D graphics, at least not satisfactorily
anyway. You can't afford to upgrade, so what do you do? You don't
buy it. Your money stays in your pocket, the game stays on the
shelf, the store doesn't order any more copies from the
distributor and so the software company loses out. Wouldn't it be
far better for them to lag behind the technology just a little in
order to maximise sales?

I, for one, am not prepared to chase the technology - I can't
afford to. At the moment I'm content to sit back and wait until it
all levels off a bit. And if that means playing text and less-
demanding graphics adventures for a little while longer, then so
be it.


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