only speaking for myself here but i interpret unlicensed as anything that can fit inside of an NES that doesnt have the gold seal, so that includes all the endless homebrews that are being made

I agree with this, but even with licensed there are parameters that need to be set.  Do you follow Nintendo's official list and ignore Tysons, the Tengens, and Piano?  Or use a fanmade list?  Count rereleases or not?  What about the two Punch Out games, they are a bit different, aren't they?  Then there's Stadium Events, and the world champ cart.  And the test carts.  Licensed is equally messy as unlicensed.

 

When I first started seriously collecting video games (10-12 years ago or so), the rare unlicensed NES games were the true rarities that everyone talked about. Sure, the handful of truly rare licensed titles were talked about too, but games like Myriad & Caltron, Bubble Bath Babes, Hot Slots, et cetera were considered the grails among NES collectors. Cheetahmen II was talked about a lot due to the pallet found in the late 90s.

I think the reason that licensed is so prominent today, and unlicensed seems like more of an afterthought is due to the fact that there are so many more collectors that have entered the hobby over the past five years. Newer collectors are less likely to venture into unlicensed until they have the licensed priorities out of the way. Because of the market swing that's occurred from the "collector boom" over the past 5 years, there are many rarer licensed games, which used to be attainable for for relatively inexpensive prices, that are now selling for similar prices to the truly rare unlicensed games out there. There are infinitely fewer Peek a Boo Pokers out there than Samsons or F2s, but the market has dictated that their values are approximately the same. It's a strange dynamic in the collecting world, as rarity generally dictates cost, but in the NES world, that isn't exactly the case anymore due to the greater desire for a licensed collection.

I also suspect that this is one of the major reasons that unlicensed games have been ignored as of late.

 

I think that F2 and Samson are more sought after primarily because of The Game Chasers and other Youtubers

This
 

Double Post

Well even back in the day... The only way to get RBI, Pac-Man and Micro Machines was via unlicensed.

My only pet peeve is that they did not follow the same cart design.

IF IF They would have used a standard cart shape even if it was a different color people would collect them, I think just because they look different some people dont want them on their shelf

Too ocd about my shelf looking pretty.

Hmm what do I wanna play...? Oh! Tengen!

Nah.

Mostly because of the phony lemmings that came along and entered the hobby after watching youtube. There was no such thing as "licensed collecting" back in the day, that's a new phenomenon.

I think it comes down to money, samething goes for people who do not count SE. It is more convenient for people to not count things they cant not afford/want so the can say my nes collection is complete now. If you really want a full us set then you need every game released no exceptions, otherwise it is not complete and just a near complete set.

Because homebrews and repros took over.

Either way if the goal is "attainability" Stadium Events as licensed is more costly than the standard unlicensed group of games, so you might as well go for those when you are done with licensed, unless you are one of those who feel SE a "variant." Hahahah

Ignoring my main goal of getting EVERYTHING, if I was starting now I probably wouldn't do unlicensed either. Money doesn't matter, they are insignificant compared to SE/LS/F2. Game quality doesn't matter, or I wouldn't have the other 500 crappy games. The problem is unlicensed doesn't look the same compared to everything else, and has too many variants like blue vs black. It isn't just a couple gold carts that can also be found in gray, it is everything.

I'd guess the main reasons are; theres less games to collect, and, to maintain a uniform collection.

I personally love Tengen too much to skip the unlicensed games. I line up all my Tengen carts together and they look awesome.

I think it's a question that mostly affects self-defined "completionist" collectors, whether they're going for the 677 licensed, all 768 US retail, or everything. For others, like me, who won't go for a full set, unlicensed is another interesting batch of games to choose from that will work in an NES.

I do find it funny that most homebrews, hacks and repros, which are unlicensed by definition, are mostly in licensed shells.

I was thinking of anything that was released with that little "Officially licensed for play on the Nintendo Entertainment System" on the box. Gotta be CIB and at some point available in stores. I think this is what licensed collectors generally shoot for.

So SE counts, but not test or NWC carts. Tengens would not. Don't know much about Miracle Piano but I'm guessing it would not.

I've always enjoyed collecting unlicensed games. I no longer have a complete set because some are pretty bad. However, Tagin Dragon is one of my favorites to play. I enjoy Micro Machines and Pac Mania very much as well. Those are all must have games in my opinion whether you are going for a licensed only set or not. If you enjoy old school games those 3 are very fun in my opinion.

That would depend on your definition of CIB. SMB/DH was only in the Action Set. WCTM by itself was only with the Power Pad. Miracle Piano only came with the keyboard.
 

Beats me, maybe some people are just too caught up in whether or not a game counts toward a "complete set", and lose the fact that these games have interesting history and charming gameplay.

I spend a good chunk of my "collecting discussion time" split between here and Facebook groups. You can defiantly see a difference between the two in terms of collecting. A good chunk of these Facebook groups have newer collects that are just starting or have started with in the past 2 years and a good chunk of those collectors are only going for a licensed set. I think a lot of of it has to do with the fact that its less expensive to do the 677 vs the 768 and much easier to boot. If you look at the unlicensed market as a whole it actually appears to be on a down swing in price because people are not as interested in it. I had this exact "discussion" with someone trying to sell a CIB Cheetahmen II this weekend. He'd listed it at 1600 and I commented that the unlicensed market was on a down swing. There's been several ones sell in the past year and the price has been a gradual down slope for sealed and complete:

Sealed:
http://gamevaluenow.com/nintendo-...

Complete:
http://gamevaluenow.com/nintendo-...

Its pretty much the same with a good chunk of the unlicensed stuff (myriad not included for some reason).

I collect every NES game I can find, I really don't care if it's licensed or not. I just don't collect homebrews though.

Lots of great points here, I feel like many people "start" with licensed as a lot of the classics are obviously licensed. It's a logical progression to go to unlicensed and homebrew games, however many people just like to play games so anything and everything is awesome. Most of the old codgers here have been collecting so long that they have even progressed to variants and prototypes, too. This is exactly why I love this hobby as there is something for everybody and so many different ways to go about collecting for any system.

I was actually just looking at my Tengen carts the other day and going man.........these look badass and almost better than the gray carts really.

I am sure a lot of people will want to kill me but the Tengen carts are pretty nostalgic for me and we always had a bunch when I was a kid.

Gauntlet and Alien Sydrome were actually some of the most played 2-player games in the household, I wish Alien Syndrome got a licensed release.
 

Oh yeah. I had a few Tengen games as a kid too and thought they were so cool. I really like their games, and the artwork is so bad its good. I'm working on getting a full set of the Tengen releases, got around 10 now and Shinobi in the mail