Are you going to add pirate nes games to the database in the future ? Or are there so many pirate's that it's impossible ?

I talked to Dain yesterday about that very question Kenny. We are going to have a section for pirates, we just haven't done it yet. Dain said he can code it pretty quick to. I am pretty excited about a pirate section too, I think they are pretty cool and I like to pick them up from time to time. But it will happen......just keep watching for it.
~~NGD

What I would suggest is make a different category for unlicensed and pirate. Most Brazil games Dain added are in fact pirate stuff but the database calls them unlicensed. Same for HKGC carts. Will it only be single pirate games or multicarts also?

Yeah, I think jbholio is right... I'd really like opinions on this topic, as it's critical for maintaining data in a normalized way.

I think we need to segregate games into additional sub-categories:

1. Licensed
- Standard, licensed games
- Demo/Sample/Prototypes
- Test Carts
- Promotional (NWC 1990, etc)
- ...What else goes here?

2. Unlicensed
- Original work, unlicensed releases (games that were not stolen, yet still unlicensed, such as Tengen, etc)
- Clones (single-game pirate carts, such as HKGCC, many Brazil releases, etc)
- Multicarts (mult-game pirate carts, such as Supervision, etc)
- Homebrew (such as Membler's Garage Cart)
- ...what else goes here?

I think I'll code this ASAP, once we can all agree on the categories, etc. I'll re-tool the search engine to include/exclude various types by default, so a ton of pirates don't show up unless you ask them to. Granted, keywords searches will always yield all relative results.

-Dain

I wish I could think clearer right now but I think your little list there contains the main stuff. If anything comes to mind later I will add on. But I like the idea of having it like this. Will make it easier when searching and all that. Keeps it organized in a nice fashioned manor. I need to get off here and go to bed now....

Pirates could maybe be broken down into a few catergories. You have the straight out clone, which you listed. Closely related would be clones with some hacked/changed graphics. Then there are pirate "conversions", where it's an original game, but stealing code from another game. I believe a lot of the fighting game pirates used TMNT:TF's engine. Then there are completely original games, but they use copyrighted material without permission.

Maybe multicarts should be 2 categories as well, legit ones like Caltron, and then pirate ones, which of course is the vast majority.

I would go for 3 sub-categories:

1. licensed
2. unlicensed
3. Pirate

The homebrews and reproductions would go in the unlicensed categorie
The clones and the multicarts in the pirate one
The rest would be like yours.

Maybe we can also add the country's where the pirate games are found ? It would be nice to see in which area's the company's distrubuted there games.

We're definitely going to specify where they're from, as that's a critical aspect of the pirate markets (ie, Brazil, Spain, etc).

Keep the ideas/feedback coming everyone -- I really want everyone's opinion on this one.

-Dain

The problem is that most pirate games are imports. For exemple, here in Canada, there were some distributors of pirate (single and multis) games but most of the games were imported from Taiwan. The same pirate game that I purchased here can also be found in Europe and elsewhere. Usually, the generic pirate games found in Brazil (the ones that are not currently in the database) come from Taiwan also.

Another random thought. Some pirates have names, like Supervision's games for instance. Are we going to name all the pirates even if they don't have a actually name? Or are we just going to list them as "?? in 1" We could just assign them a number for none named games, start at 1 and go on seemingly forever with them until we run out of known carts.

I know lots of Brazil stuff are just pirates, but when I think of pirates I mainly think of multicarts. This may end up being a pain in the ass to catalog. Well worth it though.
~~NGD

First of all, what do you guys want to do with reproductions? I personally think it is best to not include reproductions of unreleased protos in the database. The best way to take care of those is by adding potential label designs used by reproduction websites to the extra media section of the respective prototypes that are being reproduced (so that when potential repro buyers can check here to see if the item for sale is a repro or not). Reproductions of hacks, originals, or fan-translations, could be added under Homebrew, and also with added images of potential label layouts in the extra media section of the gamepages.

One problem I see with bootlegs, is that not many are dumped (I assume), and thus taking screenshots won't be easy. It's also complicated to document them, since some multis with the same label will have entirely different contents, and some labels are not accurate of the game's contents (so if someone finds a picture of a 260-in-1 multicart on the internet, I don't think a page should necessarily be made with a 260-in-1 title, as the game may already be in the database under a different title, i.e. 210-in-1, due to actually having less "games" than on the label). Then again, the database can always be checked and refined at a later stage to remove such game(page)s.

EDIT:

One more thing, do you guys think pirate games should be linked to the official releases of the same game? With the intense amount of pirates out there, this might really clutter up some of the gamepages (and confuse people checking the gamepages). I think that it could be best to allow unlicensed and licensed versions of games (i.e. both versions of those three Tengen games) to be linked together, but pirate games should be completely excluded and have their own section, similar to what KennyB said.

With SuperVision and other such (i.e. Video Deon) releases, I think the company should be added as the publisher (so that one can search for all SuperVisions, etc), and then the title of the game (as written on the small label strip on the top of the label and box) as the game title, and when not available, write the game on the cartridge in parenthesis.

This is already getting messy, lol.

I agree about the reproductions. Just put a pic of the label from the repro sites under additional images. And/or have the word repro listed so people will know they can have it made. But of course don't plug either site so that doesn't cause problems.

I do like the idea of giving the more well known pirates a publisher (aka Supervision) but that will make the site now quite as uniform. Dain's call on that one. I think I need to talk this one out with Dain on the phone, and not in the forum, to many ideas to type it all back and forth. I am curious to see how Grand NES-Master Dain can work his magic on this one, hehe.
~~NGD

Some of the rarest generally-accepted 2600 collection carts are pirates (Xante carts for instance, and most notoriously "Air Raid"). It's not like that library NEEDED more to round it out, it was huge just at the commercial releases. But they just kind of fell into the accepted master list, prolly because Atariage added them to the database and most people use it as a guide. I've got the feeling it's a can'o'worms...we're essentially talking about changing "the list" for NES...

I don't know if you can use them , but is scanned al my pirates that I have. I found them all in belgium and the batman 2 is actually Super Mario Family.

SCANS

Absolutely -- thanks for the scans!

I'll try to get them posted sometime today.

-Dain

Hey KennyB,

I've got those games entered into the site under Clone (Pirate) and Multicart (Pirate), but I have a question about your Video Deon cart -- what's on that one? Is it a multicart or single game?

Thanks,
-Dain

It's a multicart with 110 games on it. I wrote down the games a while back.

Flipull
shoting block
Tetris
tetris2
Banana
Flappy 240
Black white chess
five pieces chess
Runner 1
Runner 2
Mahjong 2
Mahjong 4
Arithmetic
Lunar ball
Golf
Soccer
Baseball
Tennis
Balloon Fight
Pinball
Islander
Grading
Maze song
634 sword
The new human
A S O
Star soldier
The goonies
Legendry
Argus
Arkanoid
Mighty Bomb jack
Mario Bors 2
Twin Bee
B wings
1942
Spartan
ASCII
Ninja 3
Magmax
Gyrodine
Wrecking Crew
Elevator
Xevious
Ninja
City connection
Mach rider
Thunder Bike
Execite Bike
F1 Race
Road Fighter
Zippy race
Bomber Man
Front Line
Macross
Star Force
exerion
Galaga
Galaxian
Pacman
Battle city
Kung Fu
Karateka
Ninja 1
Pipeline
King Kong 1
King Kong 2
King Kong 3
Mappy
Popeye
Ice climber
Wrestle
Nuts and milk
Sky destroyer
Formation Z
Pooyan
Circus
Devil world
Urban Champ
Clu clu land
Chackn pop
din dun
combat
helicopter
ninja fight
arabian
Antartic adventure
spider andpenguin
space frog
gotcha
hogan's alley
wild gunman
duck hunt
super galaxian
super pacman
super F16
super bombman
super star soldier
super king kong
super tank 1
super tank 2
super pooyan
super grading
fast mario
super man 1
super argus
super xevious
super man 2
super man 3
super man 4

Cool, I'll add it as a 110 in 1 cart, and post the games to the info section.

-Dain

actually the begal brothers and xante carts are just regular games that were put on carts with the begal brother or xante labels......i would consider them more reproduction games....that said I really dont agree with atariage listing the xante carts individually as rarity 10s...I always thought there should of been one entry for the begal brothers and xante carts as rarity 10s ...was there any nes companies that just made reproductions but on their own style carts and label