I think the elephant in the room here is that someone could always dump the rom and free distribute it leaving Sivac out of a lot of money. There really isn't anything to stop this from happening. I think a digital download option would at least give honest people a way to compensate Sivac for his work should the rom leak.

I also agree with miguel, those who want a hard copy will buy a hard copy weather a download is available or not. As it stands, many people who would buy the game are left out in the cold because the demand cannot be met.

terrible? totally relevant.
record player vs nes
mp3 vs rom

im with br81zad
i WANT to be honest
i WANT to pay for this game

i dont necessarily need another game cart

For every honest person there's two dishonest people.

I understand there are those who will buy the game digitally but I'm very confident if the rom would become available one of the first five people would distribute the rom online. Once that happens you'll have people making there own repro carts for cheaper then what retroUSB has them for and now both parties are at a loss. I'm sure Sivak and RetroUSB thought about doing a rom release but they don't do it because there are more negatives than positives.

you don't have metrics for how many dishonest people there are. however, we have metrics and studies for piracy vs music sales (http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC79605...) (WHICH IS COMPLETELY RELEVANT TO THIS ARGUMENT). I, for one, have no idea how to make a repro cart, nor do i have the time or energy to learn how to make one, buy the hardware, and blah de blah whatever. I want the game, it's unavailable. It COULD be available.

BOOM ROASTED

"THE ROM IS NOT FOR SALE"

FWIW, I wrote Sivak back in January in regards to this issue.

i'll quote him and say "not at this time"

Dude, Sivak is not necessarily against releasing a rom, he does however have a contract with retrousb that forbids him from doing so. It says as much on his website hosted here at NA. There really is no mystery as to why it's not released as a rom. You can count on it hitting the internet at some point so my suggestion to you is to either wait until that day or buy a cart the next time they go up.

Vinyl sounds much much better than any digital format with a proper system. That is the difference.

i didnt know this was common knowledge, but this is what Sivak told me in january. i didn't want to put it all on retrousb's shoulders.

i mean, its like, cmon nintendo, just put all the old games on eshop, amirite?

tell this to a 14 year old whose parents dont own a LP player

That's rough... Gotta be a little disheartening for Sivak to see people clamoring for this game and be restricted in sales solely by the supplier. Good business savy by Bunnyboy tho (assuming he had a hand in drawing up the contract).

And I don't want anybody to take that comment the wrong way. That wasn't meant to shun Bunnyboy or Retrousb. The partnership has done great as far as promoting the game and building the following that it has now. Who knows if it would have blown up like it has without RetroUSB and NA? Hard to tell that, looking back now. I was simply saying that it's unfortunate that the demand has outgrown the supplier and there is nothing the creator can do about it.

I don't think it's rough at all. I think both parties are making out just fine.

"I have a production contract and it forbids me from distributing, even if you want to pay for the file. No exceptions. Anything relating to that matter will not be answered period. "
http://sivak.nintendoage.com/Contact.html

To be fair BK2 runs off of UOROM-512 which is an entirely new standard made by RetroZone not replicatable on run-of-the-mill donor boards, but hey. Laissez-faire.

I had a feeling you were gonna reply with something along these lines, lol
I was editing my post at the same time you were typing this

ATT: future developers
RE: contracts with no electronic sales terms
MSG: don't do this

I would say Sivak anticipated the sales to be throttled because bunny would be overwhelmed in shipping alone, even if there were 1,000's of carts on standby. I'm not sure how many he makes available at a time but it's bound to be a PITA processing the orders on top of building the carts.

The demand isn't going away so they will both continue drawing revenue. Being patient on a top quality game, on the best quality carts in the biz, was perfectly ok with me.

<quote="gibbyva">The demand isn't going away</quote>
the problem is, it will. think tickle-me-elmo. and this is, even more so, a niche item in a niche market.


edit:i cant computer

Honestly there's no point in arguing that it should be digital Miguel. It's not, yes the supply is very low and I'm yet to snag a copy myself so I'm just as disappointed as the next guy but complaining on these forums and being somewhat rude does more harm than good.

I don't think he was trying to be rude at all. But you're absolutely right, the point is moot, seeing as there is an existing contract forbidding digital downloads.

Gibby do you already have a copy of BK2?

I just got mine the other day, yes.

I wouldn't have been pissed if I had missed the window though. I'd already been waiting since Dec.

Well, here's my Battle Kid 2 story. It was available last Thursday evening for roughly an hour. I quickly grabbed one and was immediately a happy camper. It shipped out on Friday and arrived at my post office on Monday morning. I checked the tracking and it showed that it was out for delivery. Mail time came, I'm always here when it comes...several packages, but no BK2. I checked the tracking that evening and it showed up as delivered. I thought maybe it had arrived at the post office after the mailman had left for his route, scanned it, and it would show up yesterday. No such luck. I stopped by the post office this morning...they're going to have him check his jeep and possibly along his route to see if he can find it. Nice guy, known him for about 10 years, never had a problem with him before, but he can be a little scatterbrained and has been known to sometimes drop off packages at the wrong destination. This is a pretty small country town and I highly doubt anyone else has a reason to hold onto it...so I'd like to think that whoever it was delivered to will scamper down to the post office, Battle Kid in hand, and say it was misdelivered. Hoping for the best but probably gonna have to stalk the Retrousb site until it's back up again.

*update* Battle Kid 2 was found alive and well in the back of his jeep. It had fallen down between the seat and the door. Definite sigh of relief. Whew.

I'm slightly disgruntled with all the "One hour only! Get it while you can" deals, because I've been refreshing the page multiple times a day because I missed it the one day it was up despite checking multiple times.

Why not open up some sort of pre-order type thing with a notification that there's no ship date confirmed, or just some sort of demand gauging count, so stocking can be made easier for games that are sold out but being restocked just so they know how many to make. I've been following (like most of us who have and have not gotten the game yet) this game since it's announcement after having gotten Battle Kid Fortress of Peril.

Based on the screens and the demo I know it'll be worth it though, I just hope I can be part of the next flash sale, whenever that is...

That's what I figured. I don't think anyone here is pissed, I know I'm not. But I am annoyed, and hearing "You just need to be patient." from people who already have the game does not help what-so-ever.


Phillip, I'm glad he found it for you, man! That would have been a huge bummer if it had gotten lost for good.