I've got a question:
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How come people get away with these?
Who creates those games and why aren't they clearly marked as reproductions?
Why do they even use the Nintendo Seal of Quality?
I smell trademark infringement at the very least. Consider reporting thei' @$$es to Nintendo and Konami, owners of the brands being misused.
For this to be done, I'd need to know who produced those.
I don't mind reproduction cartridges of games that don't exist as western versions, like the above two Famicom- and FDS-only games.
I would even say that it's kind-of o.k. to do reproductions of ultra expensive games like "Little Samson".
But if those reproductions attempt to look like genuine official releases, then that's the end of my tolerance.
Especially since people on eBay seem to think that they have some ultra rare prototype or limited release game on their hands.
With how much retro games have gone up in price in the last 5 years or whatever due to it being trendy, I honestly get kinda paranoid whenever I buy anything used that’s a well-known title and under $50. I know a lot of the time they do cleary state that it’s a repro if it is, and it’s not super hard to tell (when you’ve already bought it, that is), but is it actually common for people to sell blatant repros as the real thing? Maybe I’ve just been living under a rock.
Also, even though people may clearly be selling a repro (as in not trying to pass it off as legit), they still don’t always say. I’ve noticed this a lot on sites like Etsy (which comes up often if you go to the “shopping” tab on google), and that also kinda bothers me because it seems it’d be easy to still fool someone who isn’t knowledgeable.
Really the only time I’d be okay with buying a repro is for something like Nintendo World Championships (since I can’t think of anything less cliché), or for games that are still like >$200 used (like Earthbound or Megaman 7 for instance.)
Looks like these games are from NintendoAge. So, not some random Chinese seller who's going for a few quick bucks, but a community that is really into NES games and who really takes a huge effort to create high quality boxes and manuals.
So, why do they do this? Why do they create reproductions that can be clearly considered fraud by making them look like legitimate releases?
Using the original artwork is fine. After all, it is a 1:1 copy of this very game, so it can just as well have a copy of the artwork.
But why do they include the Nintendo Seal of Quality and why don't they put a big, fat "Reproduction cartridge, created by NintendoAge" on the front? Are these people fucking nuts?
This is the fandom? A community who has no problems creating authentic-looking, but non-authentic NES games that regular people then confuse for rare releases?
these two have no proper NES release and there's no attempt to pass them off as such. it's more like fan art than anything else. people generally don't mind those and a basic search would tell someone what they are. if someone gets fooled by that it's kind of their own fault at that point. they're a world apart from someone pumping out straight counterfeits.
i don't have any issue with creating something new in established styles. again neither of these has real world NES release artwork. although the guy that did the f1 race has done a bunch of black box style runs like that and I do find the whole thing pretty tasteless. low effort and it just seems like a cash grab.
the seals are clearly misuse but so is everything else about this legally speaking. again nobody should be fooled into thinking these are legit releases because it has a seal on it.
FrankWDoom wrote:
these two have no proper NES release
And you think every person knows the list of all the 700+ official US releases by heart?
FrankWDoom wrote:
and there's no attempt to pass them off as such.
Yes, there is. That's the whole point of this discussion: Those games are designed to look
exactly like a legitimate release.
FrankWDoom wrote:
it's more like fan art than anything else.
If you want to do fan art, do it and upload it to DeviantArt or whatever. But don't use it for actually selling reproductions. And if you do, mark the boxes and cartridges with a big, fat "Reproduction" note.
FrankWDoom wrote:
people generally don't mind those and a basic search would tell someone what they are.
This assumes that people get the idea that those games might be fake in the first place. Some non-hardcore NES gamer stumbling over "Miracle of Almana" might not suspect anything to begin with.
FrankWDoom wrote:
if someone gets fooled by that it's kind of their own fault at that point.
No, it's not. Not everybody has deep inside knowledge into everything Nintendo-related. Not everybody is an expert. You cannot treat a random Joe Anybody the same way as you treat people on this forum. If somebody knows "Castlevania" and "Contra", he might not get the idea that this box of "Miracle of Almana" is
not an authentic release.
FrankWDoom wrote:
they're a world apart from someone pumping out straight counterfeits.
According to this logic, printing an authetic-looking 300 dollar bill is not producing counterfeit money becaus a 300 dollar bill doesn't exist in reality.
FrankWDoom wrote:
the seals are clearly misuse
Not only the seal. Also the note "Licensed by Nintendo for play on the Nintendo Entertainment System" and "Made in Japan" are clearly lies. And using the Nintendo and Konami logos is dubious as well. As is the complete omitting of the real source of creation.
I've heard from both collectors and resellers that the large amount of fakes are taking the fun out of finding stuff. Not stuff like F1 Race, but usually late-release and rare stuff like Panic Restaurant, Little Samson, etc. Wouldn't be surprised if there are fake copies of stuff like Contra out there too, even though it's extremely common it still sells for more than it costs bootleg makers to make it. If you're selling something rare these days, you pretty much need to open up the cart and take pictures or people won't take it seriously. And there has been a fake Stadium Events board found that look nearly identical to a real one, fake maskROMs and everything.
Even some homebrew stuff is getting a little confusing-looking. Check out the box for Dead Tomb:
https://twitter.com/CollectorVision/status/987494513902931968Says Nintendo Entertainment System, no trademark/endorsement disclaimer? Has Acclaim logo, I guess they bought the rights to it, but I think most people who grew up playing NES consider that a warning label, haha. Not the same as what's being discussed here, but I thought it was interesting.
Collectorvision actually have the rights to brands like Activision and even LJN.
tepples wrote:
I smell trademark infringement at the very least. Consider reporting thei' @$$es to Nintendo and Konami, owners of the brands being misused.
The problem is that they most likely wouldn't care. There's a ton of that stuff going on, and it's very easy to find.
It's sad to me that people get away with this kind of obvious plagiarism.
Nintendo are the kind of company that go after pornstars because they listed LOZ as one of their favorite games. The big N love their C&Ds, Konami probably won't give two hoots, but putting a Nintendo seal of Quality on it is probably enough to make Nintendo go after it.
People want to live the dream, people love the box more than the game, so people make the box to sell the dream.So you can have a nice neat box of your favorite game siting on the shelf. Then as soon as there is coin their is people making a scam.Then people who own the rights and then make proper new releases get yelled at because they are scamming the community and that others do the work for free and release it for free
Sumez wrote:
Collectorvision actually have the rights to brands like Activision and even LJN.
I hope you meant Acclaim and not Activison, otherwise Activision Blizzard would be coming down like the force of 1000 suns.
Oziphantom wrote:
Nintendo are the kind of company that go after pornstars because they listed LOZ as one of their favorite games.
Is that something that happened?
The closest I can think of is them buying the rights to Super Hornio Brothers.
I thought it had something to do with the Suicide Girls incident from 2004. (
"Nintendo sues porn user for listing Zelda as an interest" by Wil Harris) Nintendo later apologized for this incident. (
"Nintendo Warms to Fans' Online Speech" by Wendy Seltzer)
But the fact remains that many entertainment publishers are not interested in collaborating with fans.
I assume reporting this to Nintendo wouldn't really be of any use here anyway. Because those games are not from some online shop that actively sells this stuff. But it looks like NintendoAge created a limited amount of these games some time ago and that's it.
I'm really asking myself whether I should post this at the NintendoAge forum and ask them what their justification for this is. Would you advise to do this?
Sure, do it if you feel like spending hundreds of hours arguing with people on an Internet web board. I should add that's entirely separate from whether or not there would be any outcome/change as a result. Nobody can decide for you if you feel the time would be well-spent or not.
I guess the outcome is at least that the intentions of the people who did this or approved this become public, and both communities can evaluate how to proceed thenceforth.
rainwarrior wrote:
Oziphantom wrote:
Nintendo are the kind of company that go after pornstars because they listed LOZ as one of their favorite games.
Is that something that happened?
As tepples has already pointed out, but I though I would link the PA comic,
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004 ... oochie-man
That's already happened there multiple times. They're ok with repros.
calima wrote:
That's already happened there multiple times. They're ok with repros.
Who is o.k. with it? Nintendo or NintendoAge.com?
calima wrote:
That's already happened there multiple times. They're ok with repros.
They're not OK with people downloading ROMs, but you pretend they'd be OK with repros (made with downloaded ROMs) ? How does that makes any sense ?
Ah, I meant NA of course.
calima wrote:
Ah, I meant NA of course.
Well, yeah, this is a pretty obvious statement then, isn't it? NintendoAge produces reproductions, so NintendoAge is o.k. with reproductions.
But my gripe is not with reproductions per se. I don't have a moral objection to recreating games that were never published outside of Japan or reproductions of very expensive games etc.
Legally, it's still not allowed, but it's not my job to fight against copyright infringement. If somebody wants to get a cheap $5 copy of "Little Samson" because the real one is unaffordable, I don't mind.
But where I
do have a moral objection is the situation where the reproduction looks like a legitimate release.
And in this case, it doesn't matter to me that the reproduction is a game that never existed as a real US NES game.
As I said, not everybody is an expert like us. Not everybody knows that "F-1 Race" was
not part of the black box series. Not everybody knows that "Miracle of Almana" doesn't belong to the same line of games as "Castlevania", "Contra" and "Gradius".
And I'd like to know what these people at NintendoAge think when they create those kinds of games.
If they created a package where the box, manual and cartridge all have a disclaimer "This game is a reproduction created by NintendoAge.com", I wouldn't mind.
But creating a game and
lying about it ("Miracle of Almana"
never actually had the Nintendo Seal of Quality, so putting it on the box is a lie) and trying to make it look like an actual release, that's just shitty.
I'm curious what people who approve of this would say about it. How would they defend themselves? Not regarding the creation of reproductions, but about making reproductions that look like actual genuine game releases from the 80s, complete with Nintendo and Konami logos, as if this box came from Nintendo and Konami, and the very seal that was created specifically to distinguish the licensed from the unlicensed products.
The reasoning might end up being as simple as "the fun is in pretending these releases did happen, and an ugly reproduction disclaimer destroys that illusion". I don't like it either, but it is what it is.
DRW wrote:
nonsense
you asked and i gave straightforward answers are now you're making up strawmen to argue. no point in continuing the discussion if you're gonna pull that shit.
FrankWDoom wrote:
You know what? Fuck you!
FrankWDoom wrote:
you asked and i gave straightforward answers are now you're making up strawmen to argue.
So, you are allowed to answer my arguments, but I'm not allowed to answer yours.
Again: Fuck you!
You do realize that you're pretty much the only one here who defends this kind of counterfeit shit, right?
P.S.: I just noticed: 147 posts on this forum, 5661 on NintendoAge. Now I know where you're coming from.
I have seen people pop up at swap meets with those new-style Chinese bootlegs (that are of obvious shit quality and can be bought by the case) being sold as "reproductions" at prices that would have bought you a genuine cart ~10 years ago.
You could argue that that could be predatory, but it's honestly a pretty pathetic attempt as these boots are almost as easy to get as a fucking hand spinner if you spend less than 25 seconds on your phone. Many people don't even give a shit that these boots use the wrong translation, or don't save; to them they might as well be trading cards. It literally does not matter how official they look or feel.
The bootlegs and reproductions are basically the only defense we have against massive speculation and price driving that has moved prices on every single piece of "retrogaming memorabilia" be it arcade, console, or computer over not just but one but sometimes two decimal points. It is a bubble and it is pricing people out of the hobby and it needs to pop yesterday.
In fact, if I learned that a Shenzhen factory decided that it's mission was to turn out the videogame equivalent of the North Korean Supernote and belt out (among other things) perfect Earthbounds - we're talking perfect strategy guide, perfect box, perfect scratch n' sniff cards, perfect cartridge with genuine shells and CICs sourced from a lonely pallet of Maddens here - I would happily wire them every dollar I've got just to make people like the OP angrier.
papa_november wrote:
price driving that has moved prices on every single piece of "retrogaming memorabilia" be it arcade, console, or computer over not just but one but sometimes two decimal points.
Tell me about it.
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With these prices, get the impression that people are actually using this stuff as a form of investment rather than entertainment... I really want one of these, but not if I have to fork over my life savings...
@papa_november:
Your stance is contradictory.
On the one hand, you say:
papa_november wrote:
I have seen people pop up at swap meets with those new-style Chinese bootlegs (that are of obvious shit quality and can be bought by the case) being sold as "reproductions" at prices that would have bought you a genuine cart ~10 years ago.
So, you obviously despise the fact that cheap reproductions make a ton of money.
But on the other hand, you say:
papa_november wrote:
The bootlegs and reproductions are basically the only defense we have against massive speculation and price driving that has moved prices on every single piece of "retrogaming memorabilia" be it arcade, console, or computer over not just but one but sometimes two decimal points.
Now reproductions are suddenly a good thing against outrageous prices for original cartridges, even though you just criticized that even those reproductions are sold for horrendous sums.
Then you say:
papa_november wrote:
In fact, if I learned that a Shenzhen factory decided that it's mission was to turn out the videogame equivalent of the North Korean Supernote and belt out (among other things) perfect Earthbounds - we're talking perfect strategy guide, perfect box, perfect scratch n' sniff cards, perfect cartridge with genuine shells and CICs sourced from a lonely pallet of Maddens here - I would happily wire them every dollar I've got just to make people like the OP angrier.
So, on the one hand, you hate it when people pay large amounts of money for crappy reproductions. But on the other hand, you are in favor of
good reproductions, i.e. products that are still worthless, but that are done in a way to fool the customers even more, making them still pay high sums for products that aren't genuine.
Now, what
is your stance on this subject actually? Your whole post makes zero sense and jumps from one view to another:
"People are so stupid to pay money for cheap Chinese bootlegs.
Those bootlegs are the only thing that helps us against high prices.
So, let's produce bootlegs that look genuine (so people are fooled even more into paying a lot of money for unauthentic bootlegs)."
Sorry, but from your statements, I cannot deduce what you actually like and what you dislike.
I'm going to guess what they meant was that if the market were flooded with a ton of highly convincing repros, it would drive down the price of even the legitimate copies, because nobody would be willing to pay the current outrageous prices for what could be a "fake". I'm not sure it would actually work like that, but hey.
As i view it, the statements are not as much contradictory as they are competing statements. It’s dialectics, and can be used to describe multifaceted, complex phenomena with nuances. Opposing or seemingly contradictory facts create tension, and if you study that tension you get something than if you simply take a stance and ignore/debate competing facts/statements. It’s usually useful in sociology and economics, which this subject is neighboring.
tldr; it’s not either/or. it’s and.
DRW wrote:
I'm really asking myself whether I should post this at the NintendoAge forum and ask them what their justification for this is. Would you advise to do this?
The topic has come up on the NintendoAge forum somewhat frequently over the years, though I don't know of a specific thread link you to. Would more likely be in the collectors section than the homebrew one. I bet I could predict most of what what would happen in the thread, the justification is because somebody wanted it, there will be a wide range of views about what is fake/repro/bootleg, there will be general consensus that fakes are annoying and repros should be marked as such, someone will say
everyone who collects knows F-1 Race etc. didn't come out in the US, someone will say they like to buy the fakes for their collection because they can't afford the real ones, then everyone will agree that it hardly matters since most of the fakes/bootlegs are sold on AliExpress and eBay and not the NA forum, and many people file reports to eBay on fake carts and absolutely nothing ever happens (there are many threads about this too), eBay doesn't care since they're too busy removing fake purses etc. because the market is just flooded with this kind of stuff.
The point I'm kinda making is that NintendoAge isn't a monolithic entity. The only people in a position to change anything would be the owner of the site, and the people who make/sell the stuff. I just seriously doubt that further discussion will change anything.
Repros can have 3 effects.
If the price is going up because it is the only way to play the game, then repros will drop the price. See C:SOTN appearing on XBLA and the dip in disc price. SOTN was being inflated due to high demand for the game, once a cheaper source appeared, people used the cheaper source. Vis-a-vis they just wanted to play the game.
The next problem is, if its a box, and it holds the game and it has the stickers, manual etc 100% from a factory in China, maybe not the original factory in China, is it a fake? Is a Winfield a fake Lotus 7? (probably as its a clone) Is a Caterham a fake Lotus 7?(well its a kind of a clone, but they bough the rights...) either way a "Real" Lotus 7 is worth more. We have solid fakes, decent fakes, hell you can even argue the some fakes are better, but this adds to the prestige of having "the original" and thus the fakes can push the original price higher.
Anybody can buy a copy of the Mona Lisa for $5 the original is still worth a few million. The price is because you have The Mona Lisa, regardless of how many fakes there are.
I don't think these repro are as bad as the Fake US SMS Sonic (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vxce5VB-eo ) for example, one tends to also get trapped into a local minimum, I.e NA makes them for NA everybody on NA is hardcore, they all know they are fake, no harm down... until it gets out of the circle and then its a problem. Or somebody calls it a "factory error" and pushes the price up...
Then you get , fix the labels to make them look better
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QJChsouvTI does this improve their value, lower it, are they now a fake?
Resealing is another fun topic...
I thinks RazorFists prophecy has become a reality, we are now in a speculators market. Commodore 64s are worth $10 at best, being the most common computer of all time, people have 10 of the things, but nope you want a working on ( or even working but black screen ) one, you're looking at $150 a pop, with a box $300+(
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Commodore-6 ... fresh=true), Silver Label up and up Then you get to something like a SuperCPU 128 to which you are looking at $000s, and to be honest they are mostly useless. The rant is here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EigoqZoibDg WARNING HE CALLS HIMSELF RAZORFIST for a reason, if you are easily offended don't watch it.
Dwedit wrote:
I hope you meant Acclaim and not Activison, otherwise Activision Blizzard would be coming down like the force of 1000 suns.
I literally always mess up the two
They represent the same thing in my mindset.
I think there's basically 2 groups of retrogamers: the collectors and the gamers.
The collectors will want nothing more than originals, in excellent or perfect condition.
They usually don't mind paying big bucks for something.
Usually it's difficult to trick a collector.
Most (if not all) will study and know a lot of things by heart.
The gamers are people who just want to play the games, usually recurring to emulation or any other kind of cheaper way to play.
Some of the gamers like to play the games on the real console, but even this subgroup doesn't have or want to pay much money on a single game copy.
A gamer don't care much if the thing is real or not, as long as he can play it and it fits on his pocket.
There are, of course scumbags who get things targeted to gamers and up the price targeting to collectos, wich I think is just pure greed and lack of honestity.
I don't agree with that segregation. A majority of people who are into "retro games" will fit both groups to some extent.
In recent years I have seen a lot of pure "collectors" that I wouldn't classify as "gamers" in the sense that sure they still play games, but they also buy tons of games that they know they would never play, simply for the sake of "completion". But while those people of course have always existed, I have never seen them as commonly as they have started popping up over the past five or so years.
The pure "gamer" of course has always been around. They want to play the game, but they don't necessarily want to pay the price, and they definitely don't care if their game is legit. This is why video game piracy has been a part of the games industry since its infancy.
Not having any kind of moral code in this context is of course a much more complex subject - ie. you can easily argue that buying used SNES games on eBay doesn't support the copyright holders any more than pirating the games, etc. but the gist of it is that buying the games legit comes down to a lot more than both legal terms and collector mentality.
Most people that I know who's into this stuff will go out of their way and buy rare and expensive games just to play them. They will pay top dollar for a boxed copy of Earthbound, even though they could spend a couple of bucks on the Wii U Virtual Console. That's a collector mentality for sure, but the reason they buy the game is that they really care about the game, not about the collection aspect of owning it. Some people wouldn't ever pay for getting boxed copies, while others refuse to buy games without it. Personally I have an upper treshold depending on the cost and how much I care for the game in question. There's a collection aspect to it, that cannot be denied, but it's entirely my gamer approach that motivates me.
And at the heart of it all, where do you place people who buy nicely produced bootlegs like these "repros"? They want to play the game, but don't want to pay the full price, so are they just "gamers" and not "collectors"? In that case, why do they want a nicely produced box and cartridge in the first place? Couldn't they just load up the game on their everdrives?
Armuana No Kiseki is a super weird example, as I'm sure these super nice looking bootlegs are most likely selling for a lot more than the FDS disk would cost you. I bought the (original) game just last year, and it didn't cost me much.
The only logical conclusion here is that the target audience is collectors who don't necessarily care about authenticity.
Personally I don't really care. If I were to buy some game I really wanted to get original, I would seek up a legitimate source. I also know how to tell a fake from an original. For some things I really want a nice "original looking" box, even if one were never produced. I have some for my MVS games for example. These of course never existed to begin with, but they sure look original.
People in the retro video game scene seem to be extra upset about this. Fakes are in every collector scene, have always been, will always be. Get used to it, learn how to tell fakes from real ones if you care.
Unfortunately, fakes do get harder and harder to tell from legitimate copies. I thought I was able to see it easily until I recently saw people sharing PCB pictures of fake Stadium Events and Magical Pop'n which I never would have guessed were fake. It's only a matter of time before they iron out the couple of kinks that still do give away those two examples, such as the labeling of mask ROM chips.
Of course, that's a different issue of people actually trying to pass off fakes as original. I bet if you opened up the carts in the OP here, the PCBs would look nothing like an original Nintendo PCB.
EDIT:
Bootleg Stadium Events (
real deal)
Bootleg Magical Pop'n (
real deal (my own cart - sorry for the poor image quality))
Sumez wrote:
Most people that I know who's into this stuff will go out of their way and buy rare and expensive games just to play them. They will pay top dollar for a boxed copy of Earthbound, even though they could spend a couple of bucks on the Wii U Virtual Console.
But will they pay top dollar for a Wii U itself to play
EarthBound and
EarthBound Beginnings?
Sumez wrote:
Couldn't they just load up the game on their everdrives?
Provided its mapper is supported and the ROM is small enough.
Nioreh wrote:
For some things I really want a nice "original looking" box, even if one were never produced. I have some for my MVS games for example. These of course never existed to begin with, but they sure look original.
Would it be worth it to design BitBox inserts for NES homebrew games using
VGBoxArt's template?
Sumez wrote:
Of course, that's a different issue of people actually trying to pass off fakes as original.
I think that's the core of the disagreement here. Instead of the Nintendo Seal, there needs to be a disclosure that this is a repro. Otherwise, it smacks of passing off.
tepples wrote:
But will they pay top dollar for a Wii U itself to play EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings?
It was a hypothetical example. Pretend that they do.
Quote:
Provided its mapper is supported and the ROM is small enough.
It was a hypothetical example. Pretend that it is.
Quote:
I think that's the core of the disagreement here. Instead of the Nintendo Seal, there needs to be a disclosure that this is a repro. Otherwise, it smacks of passing off.
I think there's a big difference between making something that looks original, and something a dishonest person is actually trying to disguise as an original.
I really dislike both, but only the latter is a serious issue for collectors of legit games.
Espozo wrote:
I'm going to guess what they meant was that if the market were flooded with a ton of highly convincing repros, it would drive down the price of even the legitimate copies, because nobody would be willing to pay the current outrageous prices for what could be a "fake". I'm not sure it would actually work like that, but hey.
It wouldn't work. It would increase the prices for original products even more because they would be even more special.
Having one original game against 100 cheap bootlegs means you can say your product is genuine.
But having one original game against 100 high quality bootlegs means you can
emphasize that your product is really the original genuine one, giving you more reason to increase the price because finding a real one among many high quality copies is harder than finding a real one among many cheap copies.
Nioreh wrote:
For some things I really want a nice "original looking" box, even if one were never produced.
But why do you want a box that lies to you? Why does a collector want to play make-believe instead of having every product in his collection represent what it really is?
Having a nice-looking box for a collection is fine. But if I was a collector, I would want a collection that really shows what it actually is:
"These are my genuine US versions of the "Super Mario Bros." trilogy.
This is my Famicom version of "Over Horizon".
And here I have a rare high quality reproduction of "Miracle of Almana" which was created by NintendoAge. It looks like the game would have looked if it had actually come out as an NES cartridge, but since it's a reproduction, the NintendoAge logo is displayed on it. The NintendoAge logo is proof that I didn't order this from some cheap manufacturer, but that this reproduction was a passion project and part of a specific limited run."
What's this whole crap about playing make-believe? If you want a high quality box and a manual, fine.
But why do you want to
pretend that this was a licensed release when it's really a reproduction. Aren't unlicensed games, reproductions, homebrews and hacks part of your collection anyway, so not every game looks genuine in the first place?
You wouldn't want to pretend this with actual unlicensed games from the 80s and 90s, would you?
If you buy an "Action 52" cartridge, I bet you wouldn't want a Nintendo Seal of Quality on it. You would want the real box and that strange cartridge that looks different from regular cartridges because it really was unlicensed and you want the real deal.
So, why does your "F-1 Race" box have to pretend to come from an alternate reality where Nintendo actually released this game in the US instead of putting it into your collection as part of a specific reproduction line?
Having a high quality reproduction made by passionate fans has worth in its own right and I would want the fans who created this to put their label on it.
But why does this specific piece of collectable have to pretend to be made by Nintendo while you don't want a "Battle Kid" cartridge that masks itself as a licensed release?
DRW wrote:
Nioreh wrote:
For some things I really want a nice "original looking" box, even if one were never produced.
But why do you want a box that lies to you? Why does a collector want to play make-believe instead of having every product in his collection represent what it really is?
Because they look nice. I have fake art on my wall because I like the look of them. I have fake boxes on my shelf because I like the look of them. MVS carts are pretty ugly by themselves.
Sumez wrote:
I don't agree with that segregation.
Basically I was not trying to segregate people, I was trying to classify their behaviour into 2 distinct (but not totally closed) groups.
There's no hard line telling who is from wich group, and most of the time we'll have people acting as one group or another according to the game in question.
More or less how much success the game had and/or how passionated the people have became for that specific game.
As an example I have a friend who always bought pirate stuff, but them he fell in love with the Diablo series and bought only originals from that series.
Of course, this is my tiny point of view, and probably is a little (if not very or totally!) mistaken.
Looks like the one thing we agree is that people with bad ethics and big greed are who takes the fun out of the party.
Nioreh wrote:
Because they look nice. I have fake art on my wall because I like the look of them. I have fake boxes on my shelf because I like the look of them. MVS carts are pretty ugly by themselves.
I didn't ask why you put a box of the game on your shelf, but why the box needs to have a label that tells a lie about its origin.
So, the same box without the Seal of Quality, but with a NintendoAge logo would not look nice, or what?
Also, the art comparison is not really equivalent here. Do you have a print of a picture of some random artist and the picture is signed with "Leonardo DaVinci"?
DRW wrote:
why the box needs to have a label that tells a lie about its origin.
Another point about honesty.
If the product was not made, endorsed or sponsored by someone, why put it's logo on the box?
Just because other similar products have one?
Other than restoration of originals, I don't see a valid reason do do a 1:1 label copy.
But well, it's like a totally gray area...
Yup, I can only back up that sentiment. I don't mind fake boxes that look awesome (I got a few shockboxes too, but only because I got them with the carts, I have no idea where you get new ones), but putting fake logos and stuff on it is really dumb.
And it's not really a grey area. Putting Nintendos logo on something they didn't endorse isn't just against their policy, it's illegal. Not that I care, but it's pretty black on white
DRW wrote:
Nioreh wrote:
Because they look nice. I have fake art on my wall because I like the look of them. I have fake boxes on my shelf because I like the look of them. MVS carts are pretty ugly by themselves.
I didn't ask why you put a box of the game on your shelf, but why the box needs to have a label that tells a lie about its origin.
So, the same box without the Seal of Quality, but with a NintendoAge logo would not look nice, or what?
I quoted the part I answered, and I stand by that statement. I put Neo-Geo logos on those fake boxes, and I don't really care if people on the internet disagree with that. In that sense I can fully understand why someone would like a similar box for a Nintendo game that never had one. I of course do not agree with anyone selling a fake copy of something and try to pass it off as the real deal to try and trick someone. But this isn't that.
Well, I cannot understand it.
Collectors collect all kinds of NES games:
Licensed western games have a Seal of Quality.
Famicom games don't have a Seal of Quality.
Unlicensed games don't have a Seal of Quality.
Homebrews don't have a Seal of Quality.
So, the collection of an NES collector is a wild mix of different kinds of games in different boxes and cartridge shapes.
But the one category Reproductions of Famicom-only games that are put on an NES cartridge suddenly need a fake Seal of Quality because "it looks nice" and because "it's fun to pretend"?
What the fuck?
And about the tricking of people: Maybe NintendoAge didn't intend to fool people. But there are enough idiots on the internet who get their hands on these reproductions and who sell it as some rare prototype or small batch release of a legitimate game. (The same idiots who list a cart-only "Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt" as "ultra rare".)
And clueless people might fall for it, just because NintendoAge wasn't honest and didn't put their logo on it, but created a counterfeit game with a fake Seal of Quality, fake company logos, fake copyright notes and a fake barcode.
DRW wrote:
And clueless people might fall for it, just because NintendoAge wasn't honest and didn't put their logo on it, but created a counterfeit game with a fake Seal of Quality, fake company logos, fake copyright notes and a fake barcode.
I'm curious, what makes you say "NintendoAge" made these repros? It sounds about the same as saying "NESDev" is making whatever repros are being discussed at the Reproduction forum here.
tokumaru wrote:
The reasoning might end up being as simple as "the fun is in pretending these releases did happen, and an ugly reproduction disclaimer destroys that illusion". I don't like it either, but it is what it is.
This was the answer to the question as asked (though it looks more like a complaint than a real question). The Nintendo Seal etc. are a fun and welcome detail for many people.
I don't think most of the people here would want a fraudulent seal on their game boxes, but it's just a familiar and nostalgic symbol for tons of people. Not everybody cares about what it was supposed to mean, they just like the look of it.
The idea that it's illegal is completely unimportant. Everything about it is already illegal.
Calling "repros" for what they really are (bootlegs) would have solved much of the issues presented here, but no, you gotta romanticize it.
This will ruin retrogaming (and even legitimate homebrewers) completely someday.
We've already have this argument countless times here, and my opinion on the matter
- Until the arrival of flash cards I was rather pro-reproduction (but that was a long time ago)
- Since the arrival of flashcards that costs only slightly more than $100 there is NO reason whatsoever to sabotage original cartridges. It's possible to play romhacks and translations on real hardware, so any reproduction/bootleg is unneeded technically.
- If a reproduction/bootleg uses new hardware it's less of an issue, but it's still an economical scam
- Reproduction cartridges have very low value as basically anyone can make them for cheap
- People selling other people's work for profit are assholes
Bregalad wrote:
[*] People selling other people's work for profit are assholes[/list]
I think this needs repeating a few times. I see why it's fun to make your own reproductions and fancy boxes etc. Hell, I made a port of Donkey Kong myself, which isn't exactly my copyright, but it was super interesting for me to do.
But taking stuff other people made, and reproducing it on your own to sell it for profit ? That's a special kind of terrible morals.
I think that as long as you do repro/bootlegs for yourself there's not a big problem.
One thing that had come to my mind right now is a tought about the future...
I've done some very nice repros and enjoy playing them, but unfortunatelly, I'll not live forever.
What will happen when I pass away? Will my repros be sold as originals or they'll be sold as the cheap knockoffs they really are?
I think it's time to print some "reproduction copy" labels and put on all the repros I have.
About the copyright infringiments, if the copyright holder don't care about this kind of misuse, the biggest thing I can do is to warn people that the thing isn't legit.
Also, there's that old problem of the (mis)use of 3v parts.
This kind of care should've taken by the people who produced it.
But even them if people agree to buy knowing it's not legit (and in some cases it can damage the console) because it has a fair price, so let it be! They've been warned.
thefox wrote:
I'm curious, what makes you say "NintendoAge" made these repros?
This:
http://nintendoage.com/forum/messagevie ... adid=67379rainwarrior wrote:
Not everybody cares about what it was supposed to mean, they just like the look of it.
Yeah, the random Joe Anybody probably doesn't care. (But the random Joe Anybody doesn't care about an authentic-looking reproduction either.)
But those people over there are experts. They know exactly what it means.
And putting such a seal on the box, even though NES games don't
automatically have the seal anyway (unlicensed games, homebrews, Famicom games), that's just a dick move:
Why are the people content with "Alien Syndrome" not having a Seal of Quality and why don't they insist to play make-believe by pretending that "Battle Kid" was a 1989 game by Capcom, but a reproduction of a never-released-in-the-west game
has to have that seal for "authenticity's sake"?
Why is it alright to take "Alien Syndrome" and "Battle Kid" as they are (an unlicensed Tengen game and a homebrew), but with "F-1 Race", we
have to pretend that it was a black box release?
A game without the seal doesn't look out of place in a collection. But a game with a seal, even though it belongs to the sub-collection of non-licensed games,
this is the oddball in a collection.
Fisher wrote:
Will my repros be sold as originals or they'll be sold as the cheap knockoffs they really are?
This already happens today:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/272650711893Not a single word about this being a reproduction. This guy makes it sound like this was some production that got produced, but never released, and now you have an item of "high value".
This would have never worked if the box had said:
"Game contents and artwork copyright Konami.
This is a reproduction.
Manufacturing, manual and box texts made by NintendoAge/coinheaven."
DRW wrote:
thefox wrote:
I'm curious, what makes you say "NintendoAge" made these repros?
This:
http://nintendoage.com/forum/messagevie ... adid=67379That's a post by user "coinheaven". I'm unfamiliar with who is and isn't staff on NintendoAge. Is coinheaven on NA's staff?
DRW wrote:
Why are the people content with "Alien Syndrome" not having a Seal of Quality and why don't they insist to play make-believe by pretending that "Battle Kid" was a 1989 game by Capcom, but a reproduction of a never-released-in-the-west game has to have that seal for "authenticity's sake"?
Just a guess, but perhaps the intent was to match similar-era games from the
same publisher.
Battle Kid box art thus would not look like that of Capcom games because it wasn't published by Capcom, and
Alien Syndrome would look like any other Tengen game. But NROM-era Nintendo games had the "black box" look, and Konami's early output had its own distinctive border. Only starting around 1990 (e.g.
Dr. Mario) did Nintendo start to standardize the borders of licensed games, adding the red bar across the top.
DRW wrote:
thefox wrote:
I'm curious, what makes you say "NintendoAge" made these repros?
This:
http://nintendoage.com/forum/messagevie ... adid=67379As far as I can tell that person isn't even affiliated with NintendoAge? At least it is not a moderator on the forum or anything.
I agree as far as it's detestable that NintendoAge openly allows stuff like this, but don't pin the production itself on them.
Also, describing Arumana no Kiseki as a "neat platformer" is doing a disservice to the customers.
I did enjoy the game, but it's probably the closest to kusoge I have ever seen from Konami, it's so absurdly glitchy and unintuitive it's almost funny.
tepples wrote:
That's a post by user "coinheaven". I'm unfamiliar with who is and isn't staff on NintendoAge. Is coinheaven on NA's staff?
Is this of any actual relevance to the topic at hand? Does the meaning of any of my posts change if you replace "NintendoAge" with "coinheaven"?
Code:
foreach (var post in DRW.Posts)
post.Text = post.Text.Replace("NintendoAge", "coinheaven");
Do my arguments change their meaning now? Do they become less correct or do logical errors in them suddenly disappear?
I used NintendoAge as a shortcut because that's the site from where this game was originally sold, they sanction the sales of these kinds of reproductions and NintendoAge is known as the forum where many of these kinds of reproductions get sold from.
So, do you have an actual objection where the fact that it wasn't NintendoAge staff, but a single user, somehow invalidates my arguments about counterfeits etc.? Or is it just nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking?
tepples wrote:
Just a guess, but perhaps the intent was to match similar-era games from the same publisher.
Alright, so a "Metroid" nude hack is justified in being called "Licensed by Nintendo".
The point is: In my collection, everything says what it actually is: Licensed games are licensed, homebrew games are not.
My game "City Trouble" is consciously modeled after first generation NES games and I even invented a fake backstory for my "company". But I didn't actually put a "Copyright 1985" into the game. And after telling the fake backstory in the manual, I continued with: "At least this is what it might have looked like if we had actually been game developers 30 years ago" and then I write how the game really came to be.
And when I ordered a reproduction of "Tower of Radia", I created a label with the official artwork and company logo (the game's ROM is a 1:1 copy after all, so the code is still by Tecmo and the artwork belongs to the game that you play on screen, so you can just as well put this on the label), but with a clear text: "Reproduction" and the website from where I got this reproduction.
When I got to the conclusion that the game's fighting mechanics are too boring for me and I gave the game away, I can be sure that there's no way this ends up at eBay with the statement: "Never released prototype cartridge from 1992. Ultra rare and highly valuable. $200."
If it gets on eBay, everybody sees the URL and can easily find out that it was home-made and can be ordered for $10 and a donor cart.
(Ironically, the guy who makes the reproductions does the same dick move of putting the Nintendo Seal of Quality on his works. I got a different label because I explicitly said that I
don't want this and sent him my own label.)
So, unless you want to make a movie and use this as a prop, there's absolutely no reason to apply make-believe and "what if" to the real world. An NES collection is not a work of fiction. It's part of the real world. "I'm an NES collector and these are my games." That's real. That's not part of an act. So, there's no point in
pretending: "And this is my copy of "F-1 Race" which was part of the initial run of NES games in 1985."
DRW wrote:
So, do you have an actual objection where the fact that it wasn't NintendoAge staff, but a single user, somehow invalidates my arguments about counterfeits etc.? Or is it just nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking?
I was heading toward trying to distinguish "NA
encourages coinheaven's behavior" from merely "NA
tolerates coinheaven's behavior".
DRW wrote:
The point is: In my collection, everything says what it actually is: Licensed games are licensed, homebrew games are not.
I agree with you that these repros shouldn't be passed off as licensed. I was just trying to guess what was going through their heads.
I think there's definitely a moral difference between not taking action against every/most case/s of questionable trades taking place on a site because of its users, and if the site itself (or the people behind it) did it. Like, if NA had a curated shop for counterfeit goods. This is not a defense, just pointing out these are two different things.
In all likelyhood, most offenses against the community rules established on facebook go unmoderated, too. Would one then say facebook, as an entity and in itself, is e-bullying (and what not) because some users on facebook e-bully?
tepples wrote:
I was heading toward trying to distinguish "NA encourages coinheaven's behavior" from merely "NA tolerates coinheaven's behavior".
Again, what difference does this make?
I'm arguing against those kinds of reproductions in general.
Everyboy who inserts a Seal of Quality to unlicensed games is doing a dick move. The NintendoAge forum is merely an
example.
So, it really doesn't matter that my
example might not stand a test in a court. Because I'm not trying to sue someone. I'm just discussing moral obligations when creating reproductions, taking stuff that I saw at NintendoAge as an
example.
FrankenGraphics wrote:
In all likelyhood, most offenses against the community rules established on facebook go unmoderated, too. Would one then say facebook, as an entity and in itself, is e-bullying (and what not) because some users on facebook e-bully?
Facebook is a website for basically everything. So, no, you cannot connect the behavior of certain users to Facebook itself.
However, NintendoAge is a community that's pretty unified.
With the number of different reproductions that are always sold in the same manner ("I created 50 copies of a reproduction. Please tell me if you want one"), I'm pretty sure that the NintendoAge forum staff is not against those activities. In the contrary, I assume they would take pride in the statement that this or that reproduction was done by their community members and distributed through their forum threads.
I mean, it's not like we can say: "You're really doing NintendoAge wrong. They hate those reproductions as well. Some of those sales probably simply slipped through the moderators' radar."
Again, not that this would have any relevance for the topic at hand.
Well, you might notice that this forum we're on permits discussion and help with repros too:
https://forums.nesdev.com/viewforum.php?f=28The main difference between what's permitted here and NintendoAge is that this forum is for makers/builders, and that forum is for collectors. A big part of NA is letting its users buy sell and trade things from each other, and repros are not a banned category.
DRW wrote:
However, NintendoAge is a community that's pretty unified.
It really isn't. Quite a few users here have said that they want all reproduction talk banned from this place, but clearly the administrators have decided to allow it. The repro subforum's existence is not a reflection of every member's viewpoint, and it's not even remotely representative of consensus. It exists because of an executive decision, and there are a subset of users (myself included) who think it's an acceptable topic for discussion. It's pretty much the same situation at NA, and I think they have a larger variety of users than this forum too. (Users who don't like the repro forum generally just don't participate, they don't jump into repro discussions and interrogate those involved.)
You've drawn a lot of conclusions like "if a person cares about X, then they can't possibly want Y", and it's really not reflective of what people are actually doing here. Maybe you're confused about why people want these things, but all I can say is that there's more factors than you're permitting in your mental model of people here, and many of them are weighted decisions rather than black and white. Not every issue is critical.
Someone who doesn't like the fake Nintendo seal might still want the repro anyway because the fake seal isn't an ultimatum issue for them. Not every purchase is an endorsement of the complete package. There are certainly people that only want 100% original authentic things, but there's tons of people who just want a box and cart that look and feel nice that will play in their machine.
Context always matters too, words that are literally a lie aren't necessarily a lie in practice. If nobody's being deceived, it's not really a very good lie, but it might still be a good joke, or otherwise fun to say.
rainwarrior wrote:
The main difference between what's permitted here and NintendoAge is that this forum is for makers/builders, and that forum is for collectors.
That's what baffles me the most: Wouldn't a collector want a product that represents exactly what it really is?
I.e. if I'm a collector and I buy a product from NintendoAge, I would want it to be labeled with "NintendoAge", to distinguish it from any other random reproduction of the same game. Why are collectors suddenly interested in purchasing products that pretend to be something else?
rainwarrior wrote:
A big part of NA is letting its users buy sell and trade things from each other, and repros are not a banned category.
I don't mind reproductions per se, I just hate reproductions that try to pass as legitimate releases.
rainwarrior wrote:
Context always matters too, words that are literally a lie aren't necessarily a lie in practice. If nobody's being deceived, it's not really a very good lie, but it might still be a good joke, or otherwise fun to say.
Just have a look at this:
www.ebay.com/itm/272650711893This guy seriously seems to think that this game is from a rare prototype run. Not a single word about a reproduction. That's where this little "joke" leads to.
Just a little text at the bottom of the box, manual and cartridge label: "Reproduction by coinheaven". If they don't even do this, they're assholes, plain and simple.
I'm not defending it, I'm just saying that not everybody wants what you want, and nobody cares what you think they should want. To a lot of people this stuff is perfectly benign.
I think the fake seal is dumb. I wouldn't make this repro. I didn't make this repro. I didn't buy this repro. I can still see why people might want it, though, and it's pretty clear that a bunch of people actually do want it.
This is a bit off-topic, so I'll use a smaller font. This is mainly in reply to
rainwarrior's post but not so much a reply *to* him as much as a general history lesson...
One of the reasons (historically) why repro discussions never came up here was due to the forum being hosted on Parodius. We maintained a very strict no-money/no-financial-transactions policy -- hosted users (which included users/visitors of those hosted sites) couldn't participate in any kind of advertising or transaction that involved money (i.e. homebrew games could not be sold/advertised, same with used parts, or anything else). There were several reasons for this which I'd rather not go into in this thread (start a separate thread or just ask me if you want details), but we operated this way from day 1 until closure in August 2012.
This policy put a kibosh on most repro discussions, since most (but not all) were from people who wanted instructions on how to wire up/build (or troubleshoot failed) repros in attempt to Get Rich Quick(tm). Occasionally someone with chutzpah would post about repro help and insist it was for their own personal project, not for financial gain, and they'd get some help. The number of repro posts gradually began to grow from around 2008 onward. If you look at the link rainwarrior posted, you'll see that there tends to be a pretty large increase in the post counts starting around 2011 or so, and definitely after 2012.
When Parodius closed down and the site moved to be hosted by WhoaMan, that no-finance limitation was lifted. This gave way to larger and large numbers of posts solely about repros, regardless of driving force. Given the gradually-increasing quantity of posts about the subject, eventually there was a public discussion about the matter: should topics about repros be permitted? It was a heated discussion mainly due to everyone having different opinions on the matter, but in the end it was decided that there should be a separate board/section (Reproductions) made, since those who were against them could have a semi-easy way to filter them out/ignore them. Older posts (pre-Reproductions-section-creation) were moved into Reproductions by admins.
Because of the earlier days, I think NintendoAge became the defunct place to go to for repro help. IIRC, the NA forum tends to be filled with mostly non-technical folk, while nesdev tends to be the opposite. But it didn't take long for repro-folk to realise that the hardware-focused "electro wizards" resided here. Thus, we now have a substantial number of regular posts about repros (most being, summarised, "I tried to do one and it failed. Why?").
rainwarrior wrote:
I'm not defending it, I'm just saying that not everybody wants what you want, and nobody cares what you think they should want. To a lot of people this stuff is perfectly benign.
We can turn your logic around as well: Just because people don't care about
my opinion doesn't mean that I'm wrong. Just like these people don't care about my opinion, I don't care about their opinion.
--> To a lot of people this stuff is perfectly a fraud.
That's what arguments are for: They stand for themselves, independent from the person who says them (so it doesn't matter that people don't care what I think). And the arguments are either good or bad.
My opinion doesn't matter, but their opinion doesn't matter either. What matters are arguments.
DRW wrote:
Just because people don't care about my opinion doesn't mean that I'm wrong.
I don't understand what you're saying here. What exactly are you saying is "right" or "wrong"?
DRW wrote:
To a lot of people this stuff is perfectly a fraud.
You started this thread asking why people make these things, and why people buy these things, so I addressed that question. To tell you why it's a fraud is to answer a question you didn't ask and clearly already know the answer to. Not a single person here has debated whether these things are fraudulent.
rainwarrior wrote:
DRW wrote:
Just because people don't care about my opinion doesn't mean that I'm wrong.
I don't understand what you're saying here. What exactly are you saying is "right" or "wrong"?
I merely wanted to point out that the statement "Other people don't care about
your opinion" is basically a non-statement: Yes, I know that these people don't care about my opinion. And I don't care about theirs. So, why even bring up the fact that person A might not care for the opinion of person B?
DRW wrote:
So, why even bring up the fact that person A might not care for the opinion of person B?
Because you decided to jump into a NA thread and harass people who were otherwise having a good time, and nobody was being effectively lied to or taken advantage of (except Konami, maybe, though I don't think they'd really care).
Like, if your question is really "why do these people like this thing that I don't like", I think several people have already tried to answer that, but judging by your responses I don't think that's actually what you want. What I think you're really doing is telling them to stop doing it. My comment about whether people care about your opinion is directed at that.
DRW wrote:
I know that these people don't care about my opinion. And I don't care about theirs.
This is a pretty clear admission that your entire action there is in bad faith.
Tulpa's reponse to you in that thread is maybe more direct/clear than what I am saying. People are willing to have a discussion about these things, but that's not really what you're doing.
rainwarrior wrote:
and nobody was being effectively lied to or taken advantage of
Except whoever buys this cartridge from eBay, thinking it's a rare release (including the seller who offers it as some rare release). But I've already mentioned this.
rainwarrior wrote:
DRW wrote:
I know that these people don't care about my opinion. And I don't care about theirs.
This is a pretty clear admission that your entire action there is in bad faith.
Again: I care about arguments, not opinions in the vein of "it's fun, duh".
People who defend this shit should tell me exactly: Why is this still justified? Why is it impossible that these games are considered legitimate releases by less experienced buyers? Why is it a good thing that the reproduction does
not name the actual author?
Why is this not exactly the same as faking a Rolex watch or a Gucci bag and actually putting the Rolex or Gucci brand on it instead of writing "Made in China" in the place where the logo would be?
Because the game didn't come out in the US? Bullshit! So, if I fake a watch that's not in Rolex' lineup, I would be justified to put the Rolex name on it again because "nobody can be fooled since this specific watch doesn't exist as a legitimate Rolex watch"?
That's what I wanted to hear from these people: Actual arguments, if they even have them.
"We like to play make-believe" and "Because it's fun" is
not an argument, it's a bunch of bullshit.
I think another aspect is the power of OCD. They want a collection and the boxes all need to be the right size and the same shape and the text all lined up. Oh wait there is this silly yellow disk stuck on the end... hazah somebody has made a Box for said game and now its just like the others and its all neat and ordered and lines up and their OCD is satisfied. If you put some text on it that says "This is fake" that then ticks the OCD again..
I agree with pretty much everything rainwarrior is saying, but I'll give DRW one point in this debate - NintendoAge (and that's NA, not the individual user who is selling these bootlegs) should make rules about what's allowed in a "repro" in order to peddle it on their forum, and imitating legit releases should be a big no-go, including putting a "seal of quality" logo on something that never received the seal of quality.
Personally I'm not happy with either NA or NesDev's choices to support obviously illegal reproductions, but I understand that it's going to happen no matter if I like it or not, and I think if you are going to allow it anyway, you should use the opportunity to keep it under control. Like... legalizing marijuana but making rules about who can sell it and where you can smoke it.
That's just my point of view though, and discussing it here is not going to change anything.
koitsu wrote:
but in the end it was decided that there should be a separate board/section (Reproductions) made, since those who were against them could have a semi-easy way to filter them out/ignore them.
Wait, how do I filter out the reproduction forum? I can't find anything in my settings or on the active topics list.
I never understood the need for subforums at all on a phpBB forum, but if there's actually a way to filter them out, it would make sense, and make life a lot easier for me...
sumez wrote:
Personally I'm not happy with either NA or NesDev's choices to support obviously illegal reproductions, but I understand that it's going to happen no matter if I like it or not, and I think if you are going to allow it anyway, you should use the opportunity to keep it under control. Like... legalizing marijuana but making rules about who can sell it and where you can smoke it.
I thought of this as well. Without NA, there'd either be a new collected platform for repros/bootlegs, or all you'd have is ebay + various standalone shops. Why would that be bad? Well, on NA you have a community, people are not as anonymous, there's a sense of social accountability among peers, you can communicate, and there are means to close down problematic traders. Again correlating to drugs (which is me exaggering things considering the gap in tragic effects): Most advocates for clean syringe handouts recognize that injecting drugs is bad in a multitude of ways. It's just a worse outcome if there's *no* pragmatic approach at all, so the question then becomes if you prioritize moral symbolism (arguing it has a preventing effect on its own) or concrete damage prevention. In the the world of repros/bootlegs, you have pcb:s which may damage consoles, destruction of original cartridges, and risk of fraudulent agendas on top of the bootlegging. All these risks would be higher if Ebay + standalone eshops were the sole outlet for bootlegs.
---
As for the bootleg itself:
Personally i admire the artistry involved in making something looking authentic even though it isn't, or even when something playfully dance around a trademark or some such. I don't think i'd be interested in buying it, but can understand the reasons why someone would just like to watch a shelf of things that look neat together.
A few cultural side notes:
In chinese, there's a word that translates to "fake" or "counterfeit" but lacks the negative connotations that fake has in the occident. Rather, it implies a sort of cunning ingenuity and justified act of rebellion you have bragging rights to. Sometimes the art lies in making it indistinguishly close to the original, or sometimes it is in blatantly and playfully gets things wrong, like a sport sweater saying "adodas" or harry potter fan fiction posed as an official release but mysteriously lacking the authors' name. Quoting a
wikipedia article:
"Historically, "shanzhai" is sometimes used as a metaphor to describe bandits who oppose and evade the corrupted authority to perform deeds they see as justified. One example of such bandits is the story of Water Margin[2]
The use of "Shanzhai" to refer to imitation products comes from Cantonese slang, in which "shanzhai factory" means an ill-equipped, low-end and family-based factory. "
and
"Shanzhaiism (山寨主義) is a philosophical term denoting a Chinese style of innovation with a peasant mind-set.
Shanzhaiism has an equivalent English term: tinker".
I think we could call small-scale repro/bootleg artists tinkerers in this sense.
In christian western culture (accentuated during the 18th century by philosophers, writers and artists and perpetually reinvigorated), there has been a sort of myth building around the lone, creating genious and authorship. I think this ideal is bound to crumble or at least change in an ever-rationalizing industrial/information society where we are more and more confronted with situations where creation is non-personal or communal in varying degrees. This has always been the case to some degree but i feel as if it is becoming more accentuated now. Yet there is a psychological need to identify with what you create, or at least to mirror/define yourself in what you create. I wonder how that will play out. Please note i'm not making an attempt at delegitimizing authorship. Just saying that the features of authorship are changing in culture and over time.
Oziphantom wrote:
I think another aspect is the power of OCD. They want a collection and the boxes all need to be the right size and the same shape and the text all lined up. Oh wait there is this silly yellow disk stuck on the end... hazah somebody has made a Box for said game and now its just like the others and its all neat and ordered and lines up and their OCD is satisfied. If you put some text on it that says "This is fake" that then ticks the OCD again..
Funny thing: My own OCD would be the exact opposite:
All licensed releases need to be the right shape and size, sure.
But a specific unlicensed release
has to look differently. I would
want the out-of-shape box because that's what's historically correct. That's the box that was actually sold, so it's the only one that fits into my collection.
And when I have a "Battle Kid" in my collection, it
has to be transparent green instead of opaque gray, without any kind of box because that's how the manufacturer made it in reality. A gray "Battle Kid" would trigger my OCD, just like a gray PRG0 revision of "The Legend of Zelda".
And then there is an official looking "F-1 Race"...Wait. That's not right.
My OCD tells me that this shouldn't go into my list because that's not what "F-1 Race" looked like. It contradicts every NES game list.
My OCD tells me that I either have to get a Famicom cartridge or a reproduction that's labeled "Reproduction" to satisfy the OCD of historical correctness.
An unlicensed game (or a non-US game in a US shell) with a Seal of Quality on it: To me,
that's what triggers my OCD because it doesn't "fit" in the sense that it contradicts my knowledge of history.
Your OCD would hate Famicom releases.
Hell, my storage solution hates Famicom releases.
Sumez wrote:
Your OCD would hate Famicom releases.
Huh? Why?
Different cartridge shapes, sizes and colors. Different box sizes and even materials, with no unified design across multiple publishers. There's a standard for the box size that a lot of games do use, but there's probably at least as many that just decided to use their own.
Sumez wrote:
Different cartridge shapes, sizes and colors. Different box sizes and even materials, with no unified design across multiple publishers. There's a standard for the box size that a lot of games do use, but there's probably at least as many that just decided to use their own.
For my "OCD" this doesn't matter because historical correctness always trumps geometrical shapes. The desire to have the games as they really were produced is always more important than the desire to have them neatly ordered.
If it's just some totally subjective thing, then I try to do it in a unified way.
For example, the order of my games and DVDs in my shelf are always ordered alphabetically.
If it's something that I have actual influence over, then I also try to have it in a unified way.
For example, if I had found out that the artwork for my game shows Amy with a blue top and white pants, I would have immediately ordered a stop of the production of the materials. Because, as you can see in my avatar, Amy clearly has a white top and blue pants. I wouldn't have allowed the mixed-up artwork to be released.
However, when it comes to stuff that's not my own, then historical reality always trumps general unity:
In "Super Mario Bros. 2" (USA), Mario has red pants and a blue shirt on the cover. But inside the game, he already has the new design of blue pants and a red shirt.
Hence, the cover is definitely incorrect.
But if somebody offered me a reproduction of the cartridge label where the colors are switched around, I wouldn't want it. The official cover might be canonically incorrect, but it is the cover with which the game was released, so that's the one that I want to have.
Same with Famicom games: Different shapes and shell colors in licensed releases are simply a reality. So, my OCD would dictate me that my collection consists of different shapes and colors.