Originally posted by: OriginalPSP
Three quick notes
1). Further play of Mallrats confirms it has zero to do with the film. You are a guy in white, running around the mall and shooting green mutant rats. No sailboat in sight.
2). I will be doing a live Let's Play of both games at the Portland event, with the games shown up on the big screen. I believe they scheduled this for Saturday.
3). It crosses my mind that I have four copies of the Akira prototype, so perhaps making a deal to part with one, two or three of them would be prudent way to get the game out there as well. I'm at least open to inquiries on this. Inbox me if interested.
And a huge thank you to everyone who has messaged me with input and advice on these unexpected finds.
Hi Patrick,
As I haven't heard confirmation from you either way about my offer to dump these games for you, or been made aware of any other plans to dump the games, I feel I should warn you about how #3 here is a bad idea that goes against your own beliefs.
I understand you to be a person who cares about the preservation of video game history, so much so that you have
a page devoted to it. And that is wonderful! Good for you, we need more people like you!
As you yourself say on your website, your efforts are "used to educate current and future generations of gamers by serving as examples of where we came from." For my money, one of the best educational tools for showing where the games themselves came from is to be able to show them a game's evolution as it was in development. Having one early prototype of a game to compare to the final release often does wonders to teach us about the decisions that were made to get the product to market. Having what might be FOUR DISTINCT BUILDS of a game, like you may have with Akira, is almost unheard of in video game preservation.
Your four copies might all be identical to each other, or they might represent four distinct phases of development. Without dumping all of the ROMs and comparing them you can't be sure, so if you start selling copies without doing this due diligence first, you'll probably never know. Heck, without dumping them, you'll never even know which of your four copies is the latest, most complete version of the game on record - something I believe that you, as the sole curator of this particular piece of history, bears the responsibility of finding out. If you sell your "extra" copies blindly, even if you do end up dumping and releasing the version you keep, the "best" version of this game might be scattered to the winds and lost forever. There is no way of knowing, without being able to examine the ROMs.
It's a big responsibility, I know, but given that you believe in the importance of preserving video game history, I know you'll do the right thing here. I just wanted to give you fair warning before you do something that sabotages your own beliefs!
