{"id":1525,"date":"2016-06-03T09:56:15","date_gmt":"2016-06-03T09:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/?p=1525"},"modified":"2025-11-09T00:18:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T00:18:27","slug":"the-western-games-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/?p=1525","title":{"rendered":"The “Western Games” Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, we bring you something very, very special from Skylab\/The Movers’<\/strong> treasure chest. These two scans testify to an astonishing and unique symbiosis between 1980s’ crackers<\/abbr> and software companies. It was by no means unusual that computer kids assumed double roles as crackers and<\/em> game developers, or that suppliers<\/abbr> leaked stuff out of game dev studios. It was also not unheard of that game publishers leaked (broken) versions of games to cracking<\/abbr> groups in order to mess with them. The case here, however, is totally different: A game company shares their product with the C64<\/abbr> elite in order to pacify it and to gain some time in order to raise sales figures.<\/p>\n

The story behind the deal goes as follows:<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> One of the programmers at Magic Bytes<\/a><\/em> was a former scener<\/abbr> and a friend of the guys in Radwar<\/em>, one of the most famous C64 groups at that time. Together, they convinced the heads of Micro-Partner<\/em>, Magic Bytes’<\/em> parent company, to conduct an unusual experiment – a “legal” crack, to be spread among the C64 elite only. The bosses gave in, and soon a floppy disk reached Radwar’s closest and most trusted contacts, like The Movers<\/em> in our example, alongside with a letter. It announced a special treat for the recepients – a pre-release version of a brand new game. However, they were strictly advised not to spread, sell, or recrack it, under threat of Radwar<\/em> cutting all ties with them otherwise. Every group received a unique (or, as one would say now: watermarked) version, an additional pressure factor not to breach Radwar<\/em>‘s confidence. The contacts were presented with an enticing perspective: “If the contract will work good with ‘Western Games’ we’ll get all new MICRO PARTNER productions a long time before they’ll be released.”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n