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Re: EDD Plus Project

winston19842005 wrote:



On 1/14/08 4:47 PM, in article M7WdncNrKt4LRRbanZ2dnUVZ_sqinZ2d@comcast.com,
"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:



sicklittlemonkey wrote:


On Jan 14, 11:52 am, "Michael J. Mahon" <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:



As I've pointed out before, this software is not becoming suddenly
less readable than it was, say, last year, so there is little reason
to expect that there is any "emergency" in archiving it.



Yes, but it is becoming increasingly less affordable and obtainable.
In Japan, Apple II games are priced on Yahoo auctions at US$50 - $300.
(The upper end is for Wizardry, Ultima etc.)


I'm sorry to hear that, but I must regard it as a local anomaly.

In the US, large assortments of games are regularly given away or
sold for a pittance.  Even on eBay, I'm not aware of any systematic
rise in prices (but I haven't been paying much attention for the
last few months ;-).



Maybe you should! A TI Extended Basic compiler recently sold for $133.

It is an unfinished product, from 1995, that was released to the Public
Domain years ago.


So it was a stupid bid, unless the bidder likes "boxes".  ;-)


I can think of NO good reason someone would pay that much for something that
everybody has access to...

Ebay has been crazy the last few months.


One must be careful with statistics when assessing the market from
a small number of auctions.  Remember, the price is set by only *two*
people--the second-highest bidder and the highest bidder (who creates
the second-highest bidder).

In any process like this, there will be outliers.  And a few outliers
can even create a small round of "panic bidding", leading to a short-
lived distortion.

In the long run, the equilibrium price is set by the perceived supply
and the demand, and I haven't seen any scarcity of Apple II software.

People who don't know the market or who simply have no patience will
always be around, but they cannot be the basis for determining likely
value for average buyers--as you acknowledge by calling them "crazy".

There is a general rule that the most interesting copy protection
will be found on the most popular titles, since copy protection costs
money, and you spend more to protect a larger market.  This suggests
that, in general, games with interesting copy protection will tend to
be the ones in good supply.

-michael

NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."