I can't even. I've been involved with a discussion with an old schooler who only knows about Atari stuff but someone in his mind thinks even with as long as I have been doing this (and doesn't even know who I am after telling me I should talk to some "ubercollectors" about protos) that unreleased protos increase in valuoe even after being dumped. It's a few posts in when it starts but oh my goodness. It's a shame no one on KLOV knows much about this but you guys might get a kick out of the naiviety of someone not realizing. 

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/s...

"I know Jose is strictly into VCS/2600. So am I. No, I don't know who you are, nor do I care what you find funny or not. I do know that I spent far too much time bantering back-and-forth with you on the subject "

Wow, what a fucking tool. Oh I don't care that you are pretty much the fucking authority on protos, I know WAYYYY MOREEE THAN YOU DREAM!!!! And his whole logic that post was a joke at best. "Oh you need to spend an hour giving me exact data and figures or you're full of shit"
Just...Wow. Lol.


edit: read more:
"And Jose knows who I am. I discovered and released over 30 previously-unavailable games and demos. I even sold some to Jose. I was also on the CGE staff for years, so you should know who *I* am. "
Oh shit, shots fired, 30 unreleased games, he's catching up to you Dream! WATCH OUT!!!


I have never dealt with you in my time on NA, but I ahve been in your threads and maybe chatted a bit in one or two, even I know who the fuck you are lmao.


Good lol read at least, the Intenet, and collecting in general, has become a giant dick size contest :/ Too bad it's the internet and we all ahve 10ft dicks and are swole as shit!

I think there are very good authorities on protos. Historical, preservational, and market share. I think that is the big discrepancy here. I am purely talking financial status after the fact because I have had to purchase these and sell them numerous times, (as have Mr Mark & Beaglepuss) and the problem is that the guy is on the preservationalist side and thinks he knows value across all platforms. Just because you are a general practitioner does not mean you have the experience at the moment in being a brain surgeon and that is essentially what is going on here. 

The 30 unreleased game comment is pretty funny. I am pretty sure I had more than that at once time just for NES alone. 

"You have your opinion and I have mine!" heh
One of them is not an opinion.

Haha yeah, his logic is kind of bonkers overall.

 

I love when these threads pop up. When it comes to video games, for some reason people just feel entitled to other people's property. It's hilarious when they try to justify it with flawed logic.

Self entitlement like this makes me sick

He's still going. It's going to be another Michael Thomassen train wreck.

Literally the worst person to pick a fight with on the subject of protos.

Hmm good read, so does the amount of a prototype really not affect the value? I would assume the rarer prototypes would demand a higher value, but i guess its not always the case in other areas of collecting either.

It really depends on the name of the game. I think if it was an unreleased "major" title like a Mario or Zelda it would not be affected so much but we never see anything like that. Closest I can recall is something like Sonic Crackers but that was still part of a released game essentially.

I found out precisely who that person was, and he's had some issues in the collecting community before. Oh boy.

On the topic of "undumped" protos are worth more or less...

Dump the fugger before you resell it and tell no one. If your buyer sits on it, wait a year or two and release the dump anonomously. You get your money and the community get the romz...

Yeah but the buyer wouldn't like that, lol...I have ROMS of games still not released that I am not doing that for that were sold to others.

I don't even get how people can think a dumped proto is worth as much as an undumped one. The logic they use is beyond me.

Well, when you somehow think you have big boy britches on still from 25-30 years ago I guess people just can't do their due diligence to keep up with the world post Atari 2600. 
 

I'm going to go lecture Warren Buffett on investing. He clearly has no idea what he's doing.

Wow I really wanna buy a prototype now. Anyone have Journey to Silius proto for sale? Lol

I used to until recently. = P
 

Scratch that, I actually still have a Journey to Silius prototype, derp.

Is the list of prototypes you didn't own shorter than the ones you did/do own?

 

lol, for NES yes, at one time I had 60% of the games in prototype format.

Someone doesn't know who you are? I didn't before I joined NA, but if you're part of a game collecting forum and have been for any substantial amount of time (especially since 2008 like coinopper), you should know or have at least heard about DreamTR.

While I was reading that, all I kept saying was "oh my God, really???" I don't own prototypes and even I know that they lose value after they've been dumped. You can only lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

I really think the bizarre thing is that he truly believes he is the "go to guy" about this sort of thing when the Nolans and Red Eye have been doing this stuff for a long time, and the odds are he has no clue who they are either. Just stuck in the past and stuck in Atari only. Honestly even "who he is" is a blip on the radar to me, I don't see anything that would be for cause for him to be an expert in anything. HIs bio on Atari2600Connection is about finding a bunch of unreleased protos 25 years ago, and contribution to online stuff mostly and Digital PRess. Not saying that wasn't difficult to get those protos, I am sure it was back in the 80s and 90s when stuff was getting thrown away and what not and you had to have the foresight to keep it but there are many many delusional collectors out there in the community still. I compare it to old school operators who don't even know what a pinball machine after 1995 looks like. 

I think prototypes of released games that people care about will never lose value from being dumped. From the behavior I've seen, people don't really care what data's on the cartridge for these games, they tend to see them as "variants." See: the EarthBound "prototypes" that literally have retail boards inside. I suspect this is also true for games that people don't necessarily like, but are rare in their retail format. I think a byte-for-byte identical dumped prototype of Stadium Events would be worth a lot of money.

I then think that prototypes of released games that people don't necessarily care about might lose some immediate value if dumped, but I think the amount is minor (and possibly random), and is offset by a combination of people forgetting the history of the cartridge and by average prototype prices continuing to increase as years go on. Time heals all wounds, including price deflation.

Unreleased games when dumped will lose their value forever once dumped, and undumped values have skyrocketed since it became easy to sell bootlegs. I am no longer competing with collectors, I am now competing with investment opportunists, so the days of people like me figuring out how to front the cash to dump these for free by working with the other collectors to make sure we're not getting in a bidding war for no reason are over. I'd say a dumped, unreleased proto is, for whatever reason, about the same price as your average released game proto.

Tell that to Scott Stilphen. He is the one that started this whole mess. He sure wanted to make it be known about his CGE alumni status and game knowledge to me. He just will not agree.