I'm a gamer and all, and at first I didn't have anything against game collectors, because I trought it would just be cool to own lot of games.
However, after I grew up as a NES homebrewer, I figured out that they rise and rise the price of old games (even common ones), and pass every mid-common game are very rare, just to sell them for a higher price. Also, they base the price of games on stupid elements (like selling Zelda carts more expensive because they're gold). Finally they love to buy lot of games they'll just stack up in a room and never use, exept to show off their collection, while those games could be either played (especially if they are rare), or be given to a serious NES homebrewer to use the carts for good use, like tracing some mapper stuff, recycle the PCB, etc... Aditionally, they always want games in perfect state with boxes and manuals to stack them up and eat dust, while on the other side I think manuals are usefull only if you actually use the game (well, for the box I guess it's okay for collection purpose).
The worst of it is that they will sell their games that are scratched or in bad state to actual gamers (for a ridiculous high price) and keep their good games in good shape to eat dust.
Finally, it's not uncommon to see the most rare NES PCBs like TNROM, SXROM or SUROM being attributed only to games that unfortunately gained too much repuation like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy, and then this makes all these PCBs worth $100 instead of $3 (even trought the PCB themselves aren't so much different, just the game it belongs to).
Finally, the collectors collects undumped games and wouldn't sell them for a reasonable price or even lend them to dumpers.
EDIT : Without counting they often spead fake information about games, like they are absolutely sure and proud to know a wrong release date by heart, or they are sure that game XX was released only in japan for a particular reason wich is totally wrong, or they try to spread some knownledge about hardware stuff wich is comletely wrong (one of them once told me that the Final Fantasy games used special security circuit and that was why it wouldn't work on famiclones, wich is completely wrong, and he wouldn't trust me when I told him that the inside of FF1 or FF2 is the exact same as the inside of Zelda).
So, does everyone here share my hate for game collectors, or it is just me who went crazy ?
I agree with you 100% however I do collect some hardware :D
As for games, I buy them for playing/archival purposes (and so I legally have ROM-rights) but they generally collect dust in boxes :) Unless a game is very special to me where I want to see the manual/box I always buy loose games too which isn't much like a collector.
Yeah, creating artificial scarcity to increase prices is lame, but at least you know that these collectors will be preserving the games for a lot longer than any of us will. After paying as much as they do, they'd be idiots let the games deteriorate or get dusty.
I don't mind completionist collectors who want to own much of what was released for a system or what-have-you, but the guys who buy 20 FF1 carts and then stack them against their games wall to collect dust just piss me off.
I don't see any problem with people collecting games they actually play once in a while... What I find ridicullous is people that collect "rare" stuff just because it's worth a lot of money, to sell it in the future when it's worth even more money. What is ridiculous about it is that it becomes just a business, the games don't really matter, only their value...
So, in reality, it doesn't matter if it's a NES game, a SNES game, an old comic book or even an old action figure in it's original packaging (that's a lot of nerdy stuff! O_o), as long as it's worth a lot of money, and that's just lame. If people like to trade games just for money, that's fine, but these so called "collectors" have no appreciation for the shit they collect, and are just making business.
As for those who neither play/use or sell the stuff they collect, to me that looks like an obsessive disorder, where people feel the urge to have what others can't (or have a hard time to) get. Maybe this makes them feel superior somehow, for owning a lot of rare stuff few other people also own.
tokumaru wrote:
I don't see any problem with people collecting games they actually play once in a while... What I find ridicullous is people that collect "rare" stuff just because it's worth a lot of money, to sell it in the future when it's worth even more money. What is ridiculous about it is that it becomes just a business, the games don't really matter, only their value...
It's exactly that ! Those guys really tend me to annoy me, because they pass averagly common stuff as "rare" just for this.
Quote:
I don't mind completionist collectors who want to own much of what was released for a system or what-have-you, but the guys who buy 20 FF1 carts and then stack them against their games wall to collect dust just piss me off.
So true. It's cool to have "one" rare game you play sometimes, but what the point of stacking 20 of similar carts, especially when they stack all the ones wich are boxed with manual and in good state, and sell the damaged/scratched ones or ones with dead battery or dirty connectors for a ridiculous price ! And FF definitely seems to be one of the best candidate for this kind of crap for some reason.
I also like to get some good games either so that I can posess a part of my roms in legality (and this doesn't really matter for old games I think, since the money goes to the collectors to buy his cigarettes instead of going to Nintendo to produce new games). Also playing on the real hardware a game you liked and loved playing it only under emulation for years is something ! Finally, it's sometimes interesting to have the box and manual for the artwork inside it.
Okay, what I'm especially refering to in this topic is that a guy opened a "vido game museum" several villages ahead of mine, and I tought it would be interesting. However, the guy and his "museum" really pissed me off instead. Not only his collection is not a museum at all (there is not a single pannel explaining anyhting, just stacks and stacks of games and consoles, some boxed, some not). He had 3 wholes stacks from floor to ceilings to NES, and 2 of SNES (what's the point ?). He has something similar to the Famicom Box running (and it's the only thing you can actually play). He also has some recent consoles running to play (so this is more like a video game shop than a museum). What really pisses me off his that he's smoking cigarettes in his own "museum" (actually this is his garage re-arranged), and he sells his extra copies of games (there is lot of them) most of them in quite poor state and loose for arround $20. And the press advertise for his stupid "museum"... (the only good thing is that you don't have to pay an entrance).
The one thing that really pisses me off about collectors is the ones who get prototypes and then refuse to release a ROM to the 'net, even if they have one dumped. Like the recently-discovered and dumped SMB2 prototype-- the owner won't release the ROM no doubt so that later, people will be willing to pay a thousand bucks for it on eBay. Talk about selfish.
Epicenter wrote:
The one thing that really pisses me off about collectors is the ones who get prototypes and then refuse to release a ROM to the 'net, even if they have one dumped. Like the recently-discovered and dumped SMB2 prototype-- the owner won't release the ROM no doubt so that later, people will be willing to pay a thousand bucks for it on eBay. Talk about selfish.
Selfish? That sounds to me like you feel you're entitled to someone else's intellectual property. For most it would be perfectly moral for someone to own a game and not publicly release it without being an asshole. I know for a fact that some don't horde prototypes just for monetary gain, one really good reason is so that OTHER people don't capitalize off their charity. I think the primary reason why people horde though is vanity which arguably isn't less immoral than envy.
kyuusaku wrote:
intellectual property.
People keep using this phrase. I do not think it means what some people think it means. The different legal traditions lumped together using the blanket term "intellectual property" are more different from one another than similar to one another.
I interpret the phrase to describe intangible property without mass.
I remember when the Earthbound cart got found.. the person wanted a bunch of money just to have it dumped (and returned afterwards). Now that's having your cake and eating it too.
Pretty much every serious collector I'm aware of has been pretty cool though. They're usually aware that data on EPROMs have a limited life-span. Everything gets dumped since there's trust-worthy people who'll do it. There are some cases where a collector will get a game cart from a developer and be asked not to release copies of it.
Personally, I'm still hoping SimCity will turn up eventually. And Hard Drivin'.
Memblers wrote:
Personally, I'm still hoping SimCity will turn up eventually.
Has anyone disassembled SimCity for Super NES to see how much code with 8-bit A, X, Y registers (from the original NES version) was used with little or no change on the Super NES?
Quote:
I interpret the phrase [intellectual property] to describe intangible property without mass.
Which perfectly illustrates the absurdity of the concept. I'm going to have to save this quote.
Intellectual Property is something you have legal rights to. Your ROM dumped from the prototype cartridge does not make you the copyright holder of the game which it composes. Now, it's at your will if you want to distribute this copy you've made. It's for the good of the retro gaming community as a whole, though it might make your real PCB of the prototype sell for $700 on ebay instead of $1000 someday, I would consider that a small price to pay and getting it out to the public will give you a little fame anyway to compensate for it. I consider hoarding such a thing to be rather selfish. Again it's the other guy's choice but that's how I view it.
Now, if they got it from someone who'd be in trouble if it were released, I'd see that as a very good reason. But I doubt this is the case most of the time, since these games are often 15-20+ years old.
Most 'Game Collectors' are jealous zealot pussies.
They are not shary persons and should die in a desert island.
blargg wrote:
I'm going to have to save this quote.
IP infringement!
I'd be the first to second the opinions on game collectors. Like someone already said, stacking up x number of copies of the very same cart is a pure business model, and their "love for old games" is nothing but a lame phrase in their advertising.
And again, I'm really hoping someone will actually start making believable NWC fakes as was discussed earlier on this board. Preferably so identical to the real ones that you'd need a chemist's lab to dismiss it as a fake. Then at least the collector species would have to get somewhat educated in NES hardware.
Intellectual property, as I understand it, refers to something that is your creation - a character, a piece of music, or a game, for example. This is a good thing to have protected because it means that cheapie imitators can't just blatantly use your work for their own profit without your permission and any strings attached to that permission (royalties, etc.) This doesn't always stop them, but it does give the creator legal recourse in the event of naked rip-offs. Because IP is protected, artists/musicians/programmers have an incentive to put real effort into their work, knowing that it will remain theirs and theirs alone. So, no, blargg, I don't find the concept absurd at all.
Now I will agree that intellectual property/copyright laws are in need of reform.
commodorejohn wrote:
Intellectual property, as I understand it, refers to something that is your creation - a character, a piece of music, or a game, for example.
Then why can't people just say "copyright" or "patent" or "trademark" or "trade secret" as the case demands instead of confusing people with the vague term "intellectual property"?
The price hike is just the way of the world after all take diamonds for example they are not rare they are only valuable because people are willing to pay a lot for them and the market is so closely controlled the same principles are applied with carts
peppers wrote:
after all take diamonds for example they are not rare they are only valuable because people are willing to pay a lot for them and the market is so closely controlled
Except for diamonds, there is an end in sight: the patents on
cultured diamond production methods will expire in the 2020s. Unfortunately, Sonny Bono and friends screwed up that line of thinking for carts. This is another reason why people should avoid using the vague term "intellectual property" to refer to both 20-year and 95-year grants of exclusive rights.
tepples wrote:
commodorejohn wrote:
Intellectual property, as I understand it, refers to something that is your creation - a character, a piece of music, or a game, for example.
Then why can't people just say "copyright" or "patent" or "trademark" or "trade secret" as the case demands instead of confusing people with the vague term "intellectual property"?
'Cause that's how legalese works ;)
Bananmos wrote:
Like someone already said, stacking up x number of copies of the very same cart is a pure business model, and their "love for old games" is nothing but a lame phrase in their advertising.
That is so true ! As a gamer, I love games, regardless if they were released in 2007 or in 1983. The main reason old systems interestes me it's because it's a lot easier to understand technically, so I prefer knowing a lot of things about a console released in 1983 than knowing fake suff for a console released recently. And they know a lot of fake stuff for both old and new machines. And they say the love old games by rasing their price ridiculously and make them eat dust.
And about the intellectual propriety : This remember me that page by Nintendo against emulation, they didn't stop to say "this is a horrid intellectual propriety infrigement to Nintendo", etc, etc... This just have few meaning, the actual meaning of this is that they want to sell a lot of NES games on Wii's virtual console instead of having them downloaded for free.
I dont share your hate for game collectors.
Cause I consider myself to be one.
I consider myself a game collector first, a homebrewer second, and a game player third, based on how much time and effort I put into them.
Homebrewing is where I would like to spend more time though.
Al
Heheh.... I play myself too much to put homebrew first. I'd like to homebrew more I play, but unfortunately I happen to be lazy at times (especially when a problem comes up when I'm homebrewing I'm then too lazy to solve it so I try to forgot in playing games). I only have one single game for collection purposes - Just Breed. I already finished the game in emulation and the game is hardly playable in japanese (at least for me).
When I get sick of NES homebrew, I try DS homebrew. Right now I'm working on a save viewer for Animal Crossing: Wild World, a game that has a different sort of "collecting" vibe about it.
ultimate plan:
step 1: collect all the Gyromite cartridges
step 2: destroy all but 1 or two
step 3: sell it for $2.01 (the penny is added due to it now being rare).
bwahahahaha
WhoaMan wrote:
ultimate plan:
step 1: collect all the Gyromite cartridges
step 2: destroy all but 1 or two
step 3: sell it for $2.01 (the penny is added due to it now being rare).
bwahahahaha
Well you can have mine when you pry it from my cold dead fingers ... seriously I had that and DH for 11 months before i got a new game I played the crap out of that game ... just wish my ROB hadnt broken.
As a Gamer ... I cant stand the people that collect to make money ... the collector that collects for the love of the games or the memories that the collection brings back is fine by me.
As a collector ... if i had a really rare cart I would not charge for it to be dumped per se but unless I knew the person doing the dumping IRL then I would want collataral to make sure the person did not run off with my cart.
In reguards to IP ... I have my own rules for that that does not adhear to the law
1) is the company who owns the IP actively using it to make money if so are they charging a fair price ... if yes to both ... I buy it.
IMO copyright and patent term lengths are redicously long. And any company not actively making said product avaliable to the public than too bad soo sad you loose your rights to it.
(and no i cannot spell
)
Quote:
Just Breed. I already finished the game in emulation and the game is hardly playable in japanese (at least for me).
I hacked up an Uncharted Waters and put the translated version of Just Breed on there. I also tapped one of pins of the MMC5 (pin 1,2 or 3, I can't remember), to get the extra sound channels.
I'm not sure what other MMC5 carts have battery backup. Or I suppose you could hack up a real Just Breed cart.
Uncharted Waters have 16kB SRAM while Just Breed uses only 8kB, but it will still work fine with 16kB. To have extra sound, you'd just have to add resistors and capacitors on the free slots on the PCB and then mix the sound inside the NES by modifing it somehow (I also did this, but with pin 18 instead of pin 54 wich is "officially" used by NES board).
Without buying the japanese Just Breed cart, I could never have figured this stuff out.