Here in this ad there is a side note from Jim Sachs claiming that the delay in the release of his next game ‘Time Crystal’ will have to be delayed because of the rampant copying in the C64 industry.  They need this time to raise more capital and investigate more sophisticated protection techniques.

There was a demo/preview released of this game. See a screen shot below. But the final game was never released?
Why? I always had the feeling that the above was just a passive aggressive attack on software pirates. When they really need to buy time to get the game finished. OR was it just a publicity trick?

BUT what is the truth? Has Jim Sachs ever commented on this? Why not use RapidLok, V-Max, Vorpal, Fat Tracks, etc, some of these protection schemes had been out at this time. Or even the dreaded dongle?