My experiences with InfiniteNESLives and Krikzz

Hi

I'm posting this on the forums after being encouraged to do so. Pretty much everything is explained in the video.

Between the two I'm currently sitting at a loss of almost $200 from simply paying retail for their products.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHdasZA7I60

Do you plan to post a transcript? Or may I?

You have my full permission to do so.

Today I would like to talk about a little issue that I have unfortunately noticed in the retro gaming community. As the community as a whole has grown, a new influx of hardware has been made to accommodate that: things like flash cards, specialty hobby electronics. Most of these are really good, especially things like the Hi-Def NES kit, the NESRGB, all these things that were made to make gamers' lives better, easier.

[0:41] Unfortunately at the same time, it seems that there has been an influx of -- I don't want to say shadiness, but it kind of comes across that way, where people are getting taken advantage of. Unfortunately I am one of them. I purchased about $200 worth of Super NES flash carts from a gentleman named Paul from Infinite NES Lives. He had a history of poor products, as demonstrated by kevtris and Jason from GameTechUS. And so I purchased because they were kind of the only alternative for someone like me at the time. I wasn't familiar with stuffing my own PCBs and soldering in all the different components. I was just learning at the time. Since then that's no longer an issue and I'll address that here in a minute.

[1:45] But I bought $200 worth of 32 megabit Super NES flash carts to load 32 megabit ROMs onto. This is very important because doing swapbin you can do only up to 16 megabits because, surprise surprise, the Super NES is actually only an 8-bit console.* So to get around that, people have developed flash carts that accept flash memory up to 32 megabits and beyond, but that's beside the point. I purchased these, $200 for flash carts plus the little Kazzo flash board that you need to write to them. It actually also works pretty well as a dumper. The software is shit though, for dumping and writing. I don't recommend it.

[2:36] Here's the thing though: it took a PayPal dispute and three weeks just for him to ship the order. What I got I was not happy with; I'm not impressed with the build quality at all. Three of the flash carts at about $20 each, it comes out to about $51 that I am now just out. I contacted Paul repeatedly on his "taking software", no response, no response, no response.

[3:20] Eventually I guess he got sick of hearing from me, and he's like "oh can you can look at this, can you try re-flashing, can you do this?

I was like "No, I did all that; it's dead."

He's like "OK, so send them back."

[3:32] So I sent them back Priority Mail tracked. I know you have them, Paul. And I'm like "Hey, can I get some money? Can I get my three boards replaced? What are you going to do about this?" Radio silence ever since then. And I've seen him update forum posts on NESdev, I know you're out there, Paul, and I know you have my boards. I would like my money, or I would like them shipped immediately to me. You know who I am.

[4:08] The thing that really pissed me off about this to actually make this video, though I had no intentions of ever doing anything in front of the camera again, was that Krikzz, the guy who makes the EverDrive, has been selling the Turbo EverDrive for about three or four revisions with knowing incompatibilities, knowing that it was a messed-up solution. So much so that version 2.4, 2.5, was just released, and he's finally saying that this is the one that works. I purchased a previous version knowing that it could have compatibility issues with my American TurboGrafx-16. But I purchased it knowing that I kind of wanted a CoreGrafx anyway, and if it didn't work and it exhibited the same symptoms that they typically do when trying to be used with an American TurboGrafx, I'd just buy a CoreGrafx and sell my TurboGrafx.

[5:14] Well lo and behold, I load it up, and whoa! Bonk's Adventure loads. Whoa! Keith Courage loads. This is a great solution. So I spent the evening playing the TurboGrafx, went back the next day and it's green screen. I was like that's odd. So I swap in an actual HuCard of Bonk's Adventure, which works perfect. I post about this on the forums and I get a private message from Krikzz telling me that I need to send my Turbo EverDrive that I had just purchased to Ukraine. I just purchased this thing. I want to play my EverDrive. I want to play my TurboGrafx. There are so many games I've been dying to play for years; I just couldn't afford them. I can't afford a TurboGrafx library. That's just the way it is; they're expensive games, it wasn't a terribly common system to be sold back in the day, so finding them in the wild is unheard of. And I'm not paying eBay prices; I'm just not. So my alternative was essentially piracy, which is what the EverDrive supports.

[6:28] Anyway, so I'm told to send it to Ukraine, and it's not to Krikzz himself; it's some repair guy that he claims that he has. I take it to get it mailed off, and for me to get it to Ukraine with tracking within two weeks was going to cost over $100. I can't afford that. So I sent it untracked. The Post Office told me that once it hits Ukraine, due to customs, it should be fairly trackable but not "trackable".

[7:05] I'm going to have to follow up on that soon because I e-mailed his "repair guy" and said "hey, this is my name, this is my information, did you receive my package? Because you were supposed to reach out to me if you had."

And his response was "Hello, need tracking."

"No, you don't need tracking. You need to tell me if you've received my package. That's how that interaction works."

Yeah, I'm a little pissed off; I'm not happy. I didn't get snippy with him; I haven't been snippy with anyone yet. This is me being snippy, just venting. So I'm sitting here, and that's where I'm at with that situation. I just wanted to touch on that.

[7:51] So these two are the two that are kind of notorious in the community. And no one speaks up; no one ever will. We deserve better than this for consumers. Am I whining a little bit? Yeah; that's my right as a consumer. I bought these things at retail prices to not have to deal with this stuff. And I'm sure from both ends, full disclosure, I make reproduction carts in my spare time. I don't really sell them; I've sold a couple Magical Pop'n. If you want to call me out and say I'm trying to trash XYZ or drive down the "value" of what they're offering: No, that's not the case at all.

[8:39] And thankfully, there are some alternatives. For example, I ordered these PCBs by [...] RetroStage. His product is amazing: you just pop in 32 megabit EPROMs, some SRAM, an ultra-CIC or one that you've taken off a donor board, and a couple of capacitors, and the rest is kind of optional unless you're doing save games. It's very easy to construct, $5 a board, about $15 in parts if you bought it just for one game, versus the $19 per board that Paul from Infinite NES Lives charges.

[9:45] That's really the majority of what I wanted to talk about. That pretty much covers it; it's just that I want people to know what to expect and where my concerns are right now with people coming up with the cheapest, easiest solution to prey on the retro gaming community and the influx of people that are interested in it.

[10:21] Honestly, I own currently an NES EverDrive that has been the topic of controversy because of its incompatibility previously with the Hi-Def NES kit which I do own. I had issues with it, and I had Krikzz outright deny that he had any issue, that it was not his problem. "Nah, my shit's perfect." And of course, he came out with a firmware upgrade to fix the non-issue.

[10:56] I don't like supporting these people. I'm officially going on record as saying that I don't support Infinite NES Lives, I don't support Krikzz, and I don't recommend that you do so either. I don't have the technical ability to reproduce what he's done with the Turbo EverDrive, and I'm not going to knock what he has done. But I'm knocking his business practices. Same for Paul at Infinite NES Lives. Good on you for coming up with Kazzo, though I'm not sure you came up with this board. Maybe he piggybacked the actual design for the flash cart, I don't know. But I don't support their business practices whatsoever.

[11:47] As an eBay seller, I know eBay has people by the balls and will force you to do refunds. This is why I'm glad that I paid Paul initially from PayPal, because he wasn't going to send my boards. I had to file a PayPal dispute just to get the boards, and three of them have issues. I understand things have issues. Hardware isn't perfect; software isn't perfect. But conduct yourself as a business, and if you do that, you'll have success.

[12:20] Anyway, this is running long, and I just wanted to at least get this out there and at least get the conversation started as to what's going on.


* Ed. note: The Super NES S-CPU has 16-bit registers and a 16-bit ALU but an 8-bit external data bus. This means it takes 8-bit memory. A lot of the larger flash memories are 16-bit, which works fine for the wider but slower data bus of the Sega Genesis.

Wow tepples, that was incredibly generous of you. I'm sorry you had to listen to me that much!

I wanted to add krikzz's response to my situation:



I am honestly without words.

Who is this Krikzz person anyway?

He created and sells the Everdrive line of products.

....

That sucks. I'm sorry to hear about the TED card too. I've been waiting for one of the newer ones, so I can release some special projects for it (it's got lots of ram on it for homebrew and hacks). Been waiting forever.

What, is he an all-star? I can list a bunch of people here, (tepples, koitsu, memblers, tokumaru, bregalad, lidnariq, rainwarrior, Dwedit, psycopathicteen, Sik, etc...) but not once have I heard that name. The closest I've heard is Kevtris, who uses the JY Company logo:

The supplier of the only current serious competitor to the PowerPak and super PowerPak is kinda famous, if only for that.

Wow. I must really be living under a rock...

We are living under Barack, at least for one more year.

I assume you're not pro Obama?

Outside the nintendo centric view, his cards are the only real option for other consoles for modern flashcard setups with a memory card interface. PCE, MD, SMS?



Or maybe a Nintendo console? Even then.. ;>_>

I'm just posting my experiences here, not as a "counterargument" but so people can conclude whatever they wish. I will not be responding to this thread past this point. I am simply providing my own experience with said people.

* Paul from INL has spent a lot of time here on the forums, and he's also the one doing the official carts/PCBs for Lizard. Verification of my statements is here. I mention this because I think it's probably unlikely a fellow would do this kind of work if he wasn't at least reputable. I am not a hardware designer or EE person so I can't judge the quality of his work, but I just think if there were concerns about it all, Brad wouldn't have gone with INL.

* Paul from INL has also sent me cartridges in the past (circa 2013) -- specifically an Action 53 cart as a way of saying "thanks!" for me donating 2011 nesdev competition prize money to the compo winners. I still have his PMs here in my inbox. His communications were slow, yes, but that never really bothered me.

* In August 2014 bought a SD2SNES from Retrogate for US$190. They're located in Cypress (think Greece) and get their stock directly via Krikzz. (They've since been "bought" or "transferred over" to Krikzz directly). The product arrived within about 4 weeks (I think?); the customs paperwork came from a fellow in Ukraine who did the actual assembly of the products as well as repairs. I haven't had any issues with mine (yes I'm aware the thread is about the TG16/PCE EverDrive), so I can't talk about what returns or repairs are like, but I don't find the operation "shady" other than there's an intermediary person in Ukraine involved (and this really doesn't surprise me). I looked up the Ukrainian fellow and found him on G+ or LinkedIn (I forget which) just because I was curious at the time who he was. He does EE + PCB work professionally, and went to university for that, so I thought nothing of it. Odds are he doesn't speak good English either, so unless you speak Ukrainian or Russian, I'd suggest talking to the seller (Krikzz) directly.



And now I'll share some history with people, because I think folks need to know how "good" they have it today when it comes to buying devices of this sort:

SNES/SFC or multi-console (e.g. the SNES/SFC + Genesis/MegaDrive copier called the Multi Game Hunter) copiers in the early 90s were generally overpriced (we're talking ~US$500 and up) and involved individuals who had to jump through hoops or who had internal/behind-the-scenes contacts at the companies who made them. These were almost always one-man operations, with most of the products being made and sold in Taiwan or Hong Kong. The companies who made them would often shut down for several different reasons, then within a year open up under a different name and sell similar products, rinse lather repeat (think how this affects repairs/returns).

Stories of repairs going "lost", with the buyers being screwed, were quite common -- just as common as getting a return/replacement that was broken, rinse-lather-repeat 3 or 4 times before you got a working unit. Sometimes this entire process took a full year (I am not kidding).

What's more important to know is this: often the manufacturers selling/making these products would not sell to a single individual unless a minimum quantity was met. Considering these things cost hundreds in USD, this was hard to accomplish. So this is usually what would happen: Random Guy Selling Copiers would send out an Email (mailing list) or post on UseNET (this was before the web was even remotely mainstream, and before we had anything like forums) stating he was doing a purchase order from Copier Company but needed a minimum of 50 orders and wanted to see if anyone was interested. Many people would be, so they'd send him their money -- say, US$500 a pop -- so that's $25,000 going to a single guy.

Random Guy would then place the order, would be approved for 50 units within 3-4 months, and then have to deal with actually getting them into the United States. Initially (super early 90s) this wasn't too bad, but then Nintendo started cracking down on copiers by insisting they were illegal devices with illegal purpose (draw your own conclusions, thanks) and started putting pressure on US Customs to stop the devices from entering the country (and they were successful). You can find evidence of this in actual SNES/SFC game manuals (talking about how "copying devices to back up your games are not needed" etc.). So Random Guy getting his products into the country was extremely difficult -- usually it involved having to get friends in Taiwan or Hong Kong to fly over to the US with copiers in their luggage (limited number), or find very shady/questionable shippers who would ship things by boat (8-12 weeks minimum). In other words: purchasing a copier this way was extremely risky for the buyer. But it was also risky for the seller, because they had no real way to guarantee what they were buying would make it into the country.

Sellers popped up and disappeared all the time, and some were recurring. Other times you'd find Amiga or console cracking/ROM release/demo groups (ex. Anthrox, Fairlight, etc.) selling copiers, which seemed to be more reliable because people generally trusted those groups over Random Dudes Selling Copiers(tm). Other times you'd just find sellers like Peter Mui who tried their best to keep a good track record (here's a reference circa 1995).

In other cases, especially during the late 90s, Random Guy Selling Copiers wasn't a seller at all -- instead they were just scam artists. They'd present themselves the same way as normal sellers, possibly enticing people by claiming they already had stock of N number of copiers, get people to buy them, and after N buyers, would literally just pick up and disappear. Yup, flat out theft. Police/etc. generally wouldn't care because finding these people was virtually impossible, and because something like $500 isn't worth their time (it's still that way today), especially if the sale was made out-of-state.

This latter problem continued to exist even into the early-to-mid 2000s. I forget where it transpired -- I think here on nesdev? -- but there was a guy who took a bulk order from lots of people for something (NES development carts? I can't remember what the product was), then simply disappeared/bailed, taking everyone's money. I think he did make or sell a few items, but after that just disappeared. It wasn't until several years later where he either reappeared or made some sort of statement admitting (I think? Going off memory here again) that he basically ran into a series of financial problems relating to college/university and chose to simply take everyone's money to pay off something (college debt?) and run, and that morally he knew what he was doing was wrong but the situation got the best of him.

So what am I blabbing on about with this story: I'm trying to convey that things used to be a lot worse. The risks were significantly higher for everyone involved then. Today, you can get a flash cart -- essentially 50-60% of what copiers did at the time (they also dumped carts) -- for something like $75. There are several sellers (websites) now. You have a lot more options. But when it comes down to it, you're still taking a risk getting something like this. I am not saying people getting ripped off or "given the run-around" is acceptable -- far from it -- but I am saying that you have to be aware that buying something of this manner, in this way, is not the same thing as, say, walking down to Walmart and buying a SD card that when you take home and find doesn't work/has bad sectors can be returned. So when I read stories of people getting ""screwed"", I just think back to how things were in the 90s and there are a lot of correlations.

There is a Latin phrase that applied then just as it does today: caveat emptor. Whenever buying something of this nature, research where it comes from first, and if it's an overseas purchase then apply the term heavily. That's my advice.

I guess I'll throw in my two cents, having worked with both RetroUSB (I realize this was not one of the two mentioned in the OP) and InfiniteNESLives. I switched from RetroUSB to InfiniteNESLives after Paul reached out to me saying he thought he could provide better service. I actually spoke with him on the phone. Paul's a really good communicator. Bunnyboy on the other hand at the time was very slow, agonizingly so. Enough to make me paranoid. Paul has also reached a point of being quite slow in responding. However, I do not fault him nor bunnyboy for having reached this state. My personal feeling is, serving a niche market like this one efficiently means running a one man show, maybe with only a couple of family members or one or two employees to help out. With all the repro activity going on out there, this must be a truly daunting task. Balance that with new hardware development on top of inventory and store management, and these poor fellows must be incredibly swamped. In the end, I am simply grateful that they exist and can help get my game on cart. This isn't about money for me, or fast responses, or business at all, it's about the nostalgia of getting my games on cart. So in my humble opinion, god bless bunnyboy, Paul, and anybody else who can do this stuff. Cause I sure can't.

I'm actually not surprised at the types of replies I'm getting from this..

Let me reply by saying.. I don't care who Paul is. His contributions to the community mean nothing to me in this regard. I made the video as a consumer for consumers. They have retail oriented websites selling to the public, not cutting deals for community people.

Let me reiterate this one final time.

I paid RETAIL prices for a FINISHED product from a COMPANY. Who they are on this site is secondary and the facts speak for themselves regarding INL.

1) I am far from the first person to express dissatisfaction regarding quality and customer service. Here you can see our very own Kevtris and and Jason from GameTechUS rip apart their piss poor quality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5zPXZ ... GameTechUS

2) I had to file a dispute to ever get my products. If it weren't for that I highly doubt I would have seen anything.

3) Krikzz similarly has documented issues that go beyond me specifically with the Everdrive debacle.

If Paul cannot operate as a retailer, he needs to shut down his website and act as a supplier and not a retailer. End of story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH9Kq8WvY1E

I have posted a reply due to the response I've gotten from the first video.

If tepples wants he can transcribe it.

In fairness, Lizard has yet to be released, so technically Paul hasn't delivered on this one yet, and neither have I. (Soon!)

On the subject of things INL has successfully done for me:

• I've made three music album projects with him: 2A03 Puritans, RNDM, and Famicompo Pico. These wouldn't have been possible without his offer to build the custom mapper needed.
• I've ordered many games from the INL catalog, and everything has come through in a reasonable timeline. Nothing was broken or malfunctioning upon receipt.
• I have a Kazzo and have used it many times to flash INL cartridges, and also to dump other NES cartridges.

On the subject of things that need improvement:

• Communication by e-mail has been very slow, though I found RetroUSB to be about the same the times I've contacted them. I don't have any needs that require an immediate answer, though, so this was not a big problem to me.
• I think kevtris and GameTechUS did an accurate review of the plastic NES shells. They have a poorer finish quality than some others I've seen, and it's true that original NES boards don't quite fit without a small modification. INL is very up front about the needed modification, though. Since I'm not using original NES boards the fit isn't an issue (INL boards fit fine), and overall I think the quality of plastic is acceptable. Not ideal, but acceptable.
• I've never had cat hair in any package from INL. kevtris is just a lucky guy.
• The Kazzo software is not very good to work with. Most of the time it works fine, but when it doesn't there isn't much recourse except to contact INL to find out what's wrong (enter: slow e-mail problem). It's based on a previous dumper design, which makes it partially compatible with Unagi/Anago. You can switch its firmware and use Unagi/Anagao to dump cartridges instead, but it seems to be incompatible with writing to INL flash carts. I think the Unagi/Anago interface is even worse than the Kazzo program, but at least you can write new dumping scripts for it. Anyhow, even with the software as crummy as it is, I find it much better to work with than the CopyNES for dumping, which was what I was previously used to. It still feels like a huge step up from that.

A repromaker had an issue. You found that video and started your tirade.

You have been here for a few weeks. Why this talk of "community" and "us" if so recent?

Meh. INL may have occasional issues but do so much for all members. An issue here or there is going to pop-up like any company. How do we know that your communications to INL were innocent and not you being an outlandish dick-hole? I mean you won't even text reply and have asked someone else to type out your most recent reply for you.

Double meh.

Nice troll account, firstly.

Secondly, I've been in the NES community for well over 10 years - I've just not been a member of the forums.

Thirdly, as I said - this wasn't made to be posted here. It was made FOR YouTube.

Just a link to the Nintendo Age thread you mentioned in case anyone else is looking for it. You posted more detailed information over there, I think: http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=7&threadid=154995

I don't know what the deal with "fyslol" is. If you can't use a real identity to participate in this discussion: get bent.

Koitsu has the right logic here.

You are paying "consumer" prices because this is a niche market being served by "mom and pop" shops whose margins are going to be lower because they aren't building huge volumes. They are often overwhelmed and have slower response times. I'm not saying you have to accept this as a "consumer" but you should be aware its going to be more likely when dealing with technology that isn't mass produced and mainstream.

You have a right to get your money back for a defective product and to be mad about the time it is taking.

However it's hard for me to come to your conclusion that no one should support them when many people have enjoyed their products without issue and due to the amount of value they have provided to the community.

Yeah there's definitely some details on the NA thread I didn't add here, and 'fyslol' had a point about me not typing it all out across every forum, but as I said in the opening message - I posted the video on YouTube and was then ASKED to post it here. Just so we're all on the same page as to why it's here.

I really find it so odd the harsh and personal tone the situation has already taken and honestly, I don't care for it all. The only goal of this was to get better service out of people who conduct retail transactions, nothing more. At the same rate, I will not tolerate any personal attacks on Krikzz OR Paul nor am I personally attacking EITHER of them.

I apologized for the unfortunately negative tone both while recording my first video, in my messages and in the second video - but this is a negative situation for me.

I am entitled to my opinion based on my interactions, and that's all I've done.

Sorry to hear you didn't have good experiences with either of them. These things happen, but definitely seems like most people have had good things to say about them. I'm also just going to quickly add my own experiences with both Paul and Krikzz:

On Paul from INL:

Have bought several SNES boards with cart shells from him and will be buying more in the future. Also probably some NES boards as well.

The Kazoo programmer works just fine, but the software does indeed suck. Not user friendly at all, but it doesn't take long to figure out how it works. Something I think he should do is improve the documentation for it. I don't know how many support emails he gets, but if I had to venture a guess, I'd guess he gets a bunch... with better docs he could probably save himself some time dealing with support issues.

I have not yet seen one of his NES cart shell yet, but the SNES cart shells are kind of "meh" if I'm being honest. I wish they were more closer to an actual SNES cart shell, but it is not a big deal to me at all. The SNES boards themselves work great though for the reproductions I've made using them. I'm very happy with them.

I contacted Paul for help with building a Star Ocean SNES repro and he responded within a few days which actually surprised me as I had read here that he takes a long time to respond. He was very helpful and even explained in detail about why the Star Ocean ROM had to be prepared in such a special way with his boards.

Overall I have been very impressed with Paul. As long as he continues producing INL boards he will have my business whenever I'm looking to make a new repro cart.

On Krikzz:

I've bought both an Everdrive N8 and Super Everdrive v2 from Krikzz. Both work perfectly and arrived within a reasonable amount of time (a little less then 2 weeks). Before buying the Everdrive N8 I emailed Krikzz to ask some questions and he responded within 24 hours. Not the best written english communicator, but not the end of the world. His responses were very helpful at any rate. He does seems fairly responsive on his own site's forums too.

Also worth noting: I bought directly from his site. I would only buy from a reseller if I had no other choice, but that's just me.

Transcript of the second video:

This acts as a follow-up video to my previous one discussing my issues with Infinite NES Lives and Krikzz, the maker of the Turbo EverDrive. I just wanted to touch on a few things.

[0:17] First off, I've got some relatively negative comments because of whom I'm addressing. Look, I get it. Paul from INL and Krikzz have done great development work. They've done things for the community. That's awesome; I gave them full credit for that in my previous video. Not applicable here: this is a situation of commerce. I purchased items from their retail establishments at full retail MSRP price, and I'm not happy with the service and product that I received. That's all that's going on here. It's not personal; I'm not attacking their contributions to the technical community. I give them full credit and I applaud their work for what it is. My NES EverDrive finally works. Thank you Krikzz; I appreciate that.

[1:19] Someone on the Krikzz forum called me "entitled". No, if I was being unrealistic, I would have complained that Air Zonk didn't work. Air Zonk does not work on the Turbo EverDrive because of a flaw in the design. I've spoken with a couple people regarding it and they think they kind of know why, but it is a technical flaw in the product. I accepted that upon my first playthrough of the Turbo EverDrive. I wasn't even going to mention it. But how am I "entitled" for being upset that a product broke after the first time?

[1:53] More to the point, it's a product that is flawed out of the box. It has known compatibility issues with multiple systems. The resale value on it is essentially zero. I posted another thread on the Krikzz forums asking if there would be an opportunity for a trade-up program for those people like me that own the previous versions to trade up to a working, fully functional unit because a lot of people don't understand that the Turbo EverDrive, unlike other models of the EverDrive, can't be updated. You're stuck with what you got, and what you got is unfortunately not what you expected when you purchased it. That's unacceptable.

[2:40] Again, this is not personal. These are issues relating to a technical matter from a purchaser from a retail establishment. Whether or not people want to admit it or acknowledge it, people outside of the community are purchasing these items. They don't give a crap about their personal contributions to a community. That's why I'm addressing it like that. I'm addressing it as a consumer and a generic purchaser who has no idea who the NESdev community is or what coding is or the time it takes to assemble these products. All companies have to deal with these situations. A big company is filled with lots of Pauls and lots of Krikzz. That's just the way it works. They're doing work, producing a product, and making a profit. It's a business, and if I were to purchase these items from any other business, I would have the exact same reaction.

[3:43] I'm annoyed that it took so much effort and work to get my product. I'm annoyed that upon receiving them, three were not working. I'm annoyed that upon sending my product back for a refund or replacement, I have not heard from Paul since September. I've included a timestamp on the NintendoAge forum indicating the last response I got from him, which was in late September.

[4:13] I apologize for the overall negative tone, but it's hard not to be negative when you are being told "tough shit", or "oh you're a bad person for blaming someone that has done so much for the community." If I had addressed this issue and not called these people Krikzz and Paul from Infinite NES Lives, and instead called them person A and person B, how would your reaction be? It would be different if you are the people who are saying "oh look at these contributions, look at how much they've done." That doesn't factor in here; this is simply the cost of doing business.

[4:57] And as I said in the first video, conduct yourself as a business and you will have success. Whenever I sell on eBay, I have to conduct myself as a business. These [vinyl] records behind me, the $200 that I spent on these products was from selling my records. And in the process of selling those records, I had a customer purchase one. He opened the record; it was a sealed record, collector's, record store, if you know anything about records. And it wasn't the color that he was looking forward to, because it was a multi-variant, you could have got one of four. He opens it and he doesn't like the color that he got, so he files a PayPal dispute and he wins. They force the money out of my account, give him the money for shipping, and I got the record back, opened, and I just had to eat that.

[5:58] I'm not saying that that's fair, but I'm saying that there are certain costs of doing business. And if you can't operate as a retail establishment, and there are not obligations that you are able to meet, then perhaps you shouldn't be in that business, you shouldn't be in that space. Someone may mention that I was kind of a jerk for expecting so much from Krikzz in an "unstable region". I don't control where he lives. How does that factor into me purchasing a Turbo EverDrive and needing it to work? It doesn't.

[6:41] This wasn't an item that I got on the cheap because I'm in the community or anything like that. I paid retail just like anyone else that would get into retro gaming and want to play their games on the cool flash carts that they heard about online. You go online and people are always talking about these flash carts: "Get an EverDrive; you can play all your old games." I understand the community, but I did the same thing that someone in that situation would do, and I ended up very unhappy in a very unfortunate situation, and I'm sharing my experience as a consumer. I'm not sharing this experience as someone in a development community.

[7:23] I just wanted to go back and clarify some of these things because it seems like a lot of people aren't understanding where I'm coming from. Someone's contributions to a development community unfortunately don't play into this, and doing so sounds like, I don't want to call it victim blaming, but when your only response to a situation like this is to discuss things in the past that they've done positively, it doesn't factor in.

[7:59] So that's my quick response to this situation. I hope it's the last. I honestly don't have any hopes of getting my $200 back. And again, I'm not saying that any one of them owes me $200; that's not the case. That's just the rough accumulation between shipping things at my cost back to Paul, the purchase of the Turbo EverDrive, the shipping of it to Ukraine, etc. It's probably a little over $200 that I'm now completely out from the situation, and I wanted to let people know that if you purchase from these people, these are situations that you can realistically find yourself in.

[8:38] I spoke with someone last night in the NESdev community who purchased these items, and even before that, when I mentioned it, he was like "Oh crap! I just bought from them." But they didn't know because no one had spoken up about these issues. So I'm simply giving my experience. These aren't isolated incidents; as I've said in the past, both parties have had similar issues like this in the past, and I'm just documenting mine. I'm sorry that people think that that's so offensive, but it is what it is.

I really am having a lot of trouble grasping the extreme degree to which this person appears to be unable to appreciate exactly what it is that Paul and other retro hardware producers do. I don't like that sometimes I don't get a response for a while either, but for heaven's sake, he's an enabler of a hobby I flat out would not be able to enjoy at the hardware level if it were not for his products and expertise. My personal belief is that if this guy would just exercise some patience (yes, I personally consider 3 weeks a very short period of time), Paul would come through for him on any reasonable requests or problems he may be encountering.

I really think some people must just come from dysfunctional families (no offense to anyone with difficult pasts who came out a kind person) and just leap at the chance to troll and attack people that they interact with, or something. I remember having some problems with a few folks when I did my Nomolos pre-order back in 2012. One guy was heaping all kinds of threats on me and then found out that he didn't even realize what he had signed up for. I swear...people just have no patience anymore. I really don't envy anybody who operates an online store, they're going to be drowning in douchebags.

If you bought something from (say) Walmart.com, would you expect a delay exceeding a month in responding to customer service inquiries?

Well of course not...but a corporation like that should have the resources to follow through efficiently. My feeling is running an online business serving the retro homebrew and repro community is likely to be very difficult, on resources which likely get spread thin. Things are bound to go wrong and get difficult at some point---that is why I feel anybody who does business with (anybody who provides retro hardware products) should be patient and kind and give them the benefit of the doubt for upwards of 6 months (my personal, admittedly arbitrary, but very reasonable limit). Boo fucking hoo, I didn't get to make my SNES repros in 3 weeks. (aimed at OP)

There's really no need to reply to this, is there?

I've already 1:1 addressed everything in your original post.

Are you implying that a video game intended for a holiday release ought to be completed by early May in order to meet a November production deadline?

The main difference IMO is that Walmart's main intention is always to make a profit, just like most companies. People who make new stuff for the niche market that retro gaming is, do it mostly out of love. They have to be hardcore fans of this stuff in order to dedicate as much time, energy and money as they do. Hopefully they can make enough money off their work to continue providing the community with products it couldn't possibly get anywhere else. These guys aren't as well structured as profit-oriented companies are, and we probably shouldn't expect the same type of customer service from them.

The customer service will be slow and amateurish sometimes, but that's because the guys behind it are mostly regular community members like you and me, not business-oriented people. They're people who have a passion for old video game consoles and the talent to create new gadgets for these consoles, and making these products available to the world is beneficial to the customers, who couldn't have such products otherwise, and beneficial to these hardware/software enthusiasts, who have a chance to make enough money off their work to continue doing what they like.

My point is that you obviously have the right to get what you paid for, nobody will argue that, but you really shouldn't treat these guys like they were big companies. You don't need to give them a hard time.

While what you say makes sense, it's not really an excuse for a supplier or manufacturer to delay things. As someone who works in exporting, manufacturering and is developing retro hardware, I'll state: If you cannot cope with supply and demand, or cannot use common sense and fix the issues that people bring up to you, then you do not deserve business, and should close your doors.

Your customers are your lifeline, and if you cannot keep them happy, then your lifeline goes flat.

PS: It's a bit immature to mock someone elses avatar. You're just instigating an argument, at this point.



Incorrect. If they are selling a product, then they are a business. Do not enter the business world, if you cannot think with a business oriented mindset.

If they were really passionate for old video games and the communities, they would have excellent customer service. There's no excuse for this. Before people start a business, they should be educated in how the business world works, and how to deal with customers. Ignorance, and being under-educated are NOT an excuse.

Successful businesses have 2 things in common (regardless of if their product based, service based, b2b, b2c, etc): Customers, and customer services.

If you don't have these, or can't even try to have these, then you're simply not doing it right.

Lyth gets it.

I think it's downright hilarious to an extent that an attempt at a conversation regarding handling yourself professionally in your business transactions so quickly reduces itself to immaturity.

As our generation is getting older, our incomes are getting more flexible and we're getting into new hobbies.. electronics.. gaming.. etc. See where I'm going? If you think this is going to get LESS common and people's expectations aren't going to INCREASE you're nuts.

Yes, but probably not because they want to be a business, but because that's the only way to share their work and get compensation for it, unfortunately.


I'm sure they want to, and they try, but there's only so much that a single individual, or a few, can do.


The majority of the customers appears to be satisfied though, so they must be doing something right. Also, no matter how big/professional a company is, there's always gonna be those who are not satisfied. There's no point in trying to please everyone, because that's never going to happen anyway, no matter how hard you try. Personally, I think that a few dissatisfied customers is a small price to pay. I'd rather see these guys trying to make their amazing creations available to everyone and failing in a couple of instances than not having these products available at all.

I see your points, it makes sense. However, the business world has no room for "people who want to share their work and get compensation". Business is buisness. If you have customers, and they give you money, then they expect you to carry yourself like a business (no matter how big or small).

It IS a problem with the business world, but it's also a trend. The little guy gets beat up, but the little guy should also prepare themselves for it and learn from it.

In my opinion, everything that has happened for you is still in a reasonable time-frame for turnaround. Everybody makes a bad batch once in a while, and it simply takes time for things to go back and forth. In both cases, the seller said they'd replace it for you if you sent it back, and you might presume in good faith that they both still intend to do this. For custom made stuff like this, there's all sorts of very practical reasons why either of them might not be able to immediately repair or replace the thing you sent back. Available stock of parts is probably the most common issue, a re-order of PCBs could take a while, for example, and there's nothing he can do but wait for something like that. Even from large companies, like the last time I sent a laptop in for repair under warranty to ASUS it took about 2 months time to get it back. I don't know what timeline you expect exactly, but so far it sounds quite normal to me, even for major companies.

In this specific case, there is a note on the INL website about his SNES boards right now (look for the text in red). The product (I think) you are looking for a replacement for isn't currently being sold, because there's some kind of supply issue, apparently.

From what I know of both these sellers, neither would be trying to scam you (why would they do that to one person out of hundreds), but both are letting you down in the communication/information department.

In Krikzz's case it's simply not tracking receipt of mail, I guess. The rest of it seems rather innocuous: you got a bad unit so you sent it back, still waiting for a replacement. How long has it really been?

In INL's case it was not responding to you in any kind of timely manner. This is a common problem people have with him. You apparently got so fed up with a delay before shipping (how long?) that you filed a paypal dispute. Now he's got a production problem with these SNES boards and can't get you a replacement quickly, apparently, but can't reply to your inquires about it within a month or more. Sure, that's bad. I don't think anybody here thinks you should be happy about that.

But, here's a brief summary of why coming here to complain probably isn't working out for you as well as you'd hoped:

• I think pretty much anybody here that has dealt with either of them believes you're going to get your stuff or a refund eventually.
• Nobody here can answer INL's e-mail for him, or visit Krikzz's Ukraine shop to take inventory for him, so there's really nobody here that can help you.
• You haven't been explicit about the timelines involved at all, but they sound relatively short to a lot of people here.
• You chose to ramble unscripted on YouTube instead of writing your thoughts down in a clear and detailed order. I don't know why you think others here should care about your minor dilemma when you expect them to work hard to understand just what it is you're complaining about. (You say that people are calling you impatient and entitled; why not think about how this is related to the way you've presented your case?)

I'd love for INL to be more responsive to communication; honestly I have no idea why he doesn't get back to people faster, but for my own needs its been acceptable. Five weeks with no response about "where's my stuff" is pretty bad. However, a 5 weeks wait for the stuff itself is probably not that bad. Sometimes I think people like Krikzz or INL don't like to communicate about it because they know they're not going to do it any faster or slower whether or not they had to answer your e-mail about it. (I don't think this is a good practice, or good for business, but I can understand the mentality at least.)

Probably a lot of both of their customers expect to wait a little while for their stuff, and wouldn't even be asking about the delay yet in the same timeline that you're already filing paypal disputes and starting an aggressive YouTube / forums campaign against them.

rainwarrior

I think we're saying the same thing you're just not understanding the time-lines.

All I've asked for is replies. It took the paypal dispute to even get a REPLY from Paul, that was my first interaction with him.

In September he asked me to return the boards for replacement. That was the last I heard from him. I've asked for replies and got none. If he had simply said "Hey, I need parts and will send ASAP" the video would not have been made.

The timeline is fine, the lack of replies/professionalism (when handling customer service/care) is not.

That does seem to be the root of the issue. If you're accepting people's money, you have a responsibility to set expectations appropriately and keep customers in the loop, even when things get exhausting and overwhelming, which is bound to happen when you have your own business. Mistakes and oversights can happen, but you need to recover from them, not compound them.

Yes hello my name is Paul...

Sorry but don't know who you are. I've verified that all tickets on my support page for the past several months have been responded to, so your clue of my radio silence didn't help me find you. I also tried some searches on my email in case you were contacting me there but I don't have much to search on. I'd happily refund you whatever you feel is fair once I know who to send the money to. I'm by no means trying to stiff you on your return.

If you are using my support ticket system, then perhaps your last message (or my response) slipped through the cracks somehow. That is my preferred method of customer support as I've tried to make clear. I prioritize tickets over email. If we talked via email then your buried with everyone else I'm just now starting to get back to for the past few months (why I created the ticket system).

Maybe the best way to give me your info so I can pull everything up is to just create a new ticket instead of replying or PMing personal info. Lame I know, but it's sure fire.

At any given time I'm operating out of 4-5 locations. So I probably had you return the boards to my buddy who at the time did my SNES board assembly, or perhaps my brother. And I didn't get the memo your return had arrived. And I didn't get your "where's my refund" message in the ticket system, nor is there a paypal dispute. So I apologize but you apparently fell through the cracks. I'll consider a public response as to why my cracks are so large as of late after resolving your order issues.

-Paul

Resolution update:

Did some more diligent digging and am pretty sure I've found the return of concern here. I've issued a refund for all returned parts including return shipping.

For anyone that's interested I finally got around to posting that public message about what's been going on in my life/business recently. Warning, in my typical fashion it's an excessive wall of text...

Thanks for explaining what's going on.

PROTIP: You can add section headings to make a wall of text a more enjoyable read. Look at how Cracked does it, for example.

My two cents if anyone cares

I understand the original poster's frustration. I've done one order with Krizz and it went off without a hitch but due to all the stuff going on in Ukraine I decided to go with Ebay resellers here in the US for the rest of his products. This has worked out well for me as I had an SD2SNES that was DOA and was able to get it replaced from the US Seller easily and I'm sure he orders them from Krizz in bulk at a discount so everyone wins. So that's just an option for those that want a potentially more safe transaction for Krizz's awesome stuff.

I've done some business with Paul and I had a few boards that weren't programmable upon arrival. He replaced most but the last batch I got last year I never heard back after an initial inquiry about getting 1 or 2 of them replaced. I eventually gave up and didn't care as 98% of what I ordered from him worked and arrived in a pretty timely fashion and I don't mess with repros anymore. But as others have said and I think he's aware of the communication seems to get lost randomly. I don't know if it's due to the trouble ticket system or that I may have started to just e-mail him directly which is tougher to track. That's my only real knock on him and I think it's likely due to him being overwhelmed. If you're ordering in bulk or need something special he's probably your best bet to get it done and at a discount. But as other said there are other options out there as well so consider those. I never got around to ordering from retrostage but have heard good things from friends. However Paul's boards require no assembly where as I believe Retrostage's still require some work.

I wanted to comment on this since I've had nothing but an absolutely amazing experience from INL and Paul. Despite me being a completely unknown noob (Until yesterday I had no account either here or on Nintendoage), Paul took a lot of time to guide me to the right mapper and combination of features some of which are semi-custom.

I have emailed back and forth with him ten or twenty times over the past ten days (during a period that was very busy for him), and it has been a really fantastic experience. He emailed back quickly every time, and was very patient and understanding with my waffling back and forth on features, PRGROM size, etc. When I was unsure how to use a feature or how something worked, he would take the time to write a long explanation about how the given feature worked. He didn't have to do that. He did that because he's just an awesome guy.

I'm not his only customer. I'm sure he spends just as much time on other customers as he has on me. Paul spends an enormous amount of time totally free of charge just answering questions and helping out in general. I cannot imagine another business spending so much time and effort on such high quality customer service.

I seriously cannot say enough good things about the experience I've had with INL and Paul. He took what could have been an extremely difficult process, and made it easy, understandable, and personable. When I release my NES game, it will largely be directly because Paul was such an awesome and helpful guy.

Beyond that, he is the only guy offering the kind of services and products that he does, and yet he goes above and beyond that to provide amazing customer service in addition to his products. He doesn't have to do any of the customer service stuff that he does. He could just sell products and leave it at that, but he doesn't. He's a really good guy, and you're missing out if you haven't worked with him.

I highly recommend INL.

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