NintendoAge http://nintendoage.com/forum/ -Sqooner Pat the NES Punk on protoculture http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=35&threadid=153929 2016-03-21T20:37:40 -05.00 Wall Street Kid 100 Originally posted by: G-Type
 
Originally posted by: BilltownSparty

its no different then telling an art collector they shouldnt have rare art in their house it should be in a museum.  It sounds great but its the owners decision to do what they think is reponsible not what the masses do.
 

that's a pretty great analogy actually
 
Most major art collectors loan out their collections to museums so that people can see them. Because what is art if people can't see it? Plus museums are generally much better set up to ensure the preservation of artwork. A couple of months ago, I went to an exhibit of the works of George Rouault, and a significant portion of the paintings belonged to private collectors.

Let's be realistic though, 95% of the prototypes out there are almost indistinguisable from the commercial release. There are a handful that are of games that were not released, and most of those have been properly preserved (i.e. dumped). Although I keep close track of all SNES prototypes out there for the sake of documentation, the stories behind them are quite lacking, and are not really the works of art that some people in this thread are alluding to.

The real travesty is how little the companies that made these games have preserved. Considering we are 20 years on from the end of the SNES era of dominance, we have seen little in the way of developer interviews, conservation of old computers that made these games, few pieces of source code and original art assets, and we don't have public development tools to analyze them even if we did. Basically, for most games all we have of that are what little was done in contemporary video game magazines. Let's face it, video game journalism was not exactly high brow at that time (and really, still isn't, with a few exceptions). While we have been bickering for the past 15 years about the occasional interesting prototype that somehow made it into the hands of private collectors, we have missed the forest that is an aging group of programmers, and the demise of many of the companies that were active at the time. I remember researching Socks the Cat, for instance, and was shocked that none of the people who had worked on the game had any material left over from the making of the game, except from a few mockups of advertisements. Hell, even the people who worked at the original publisher were unaware that the game had actually been completed (something that was confirmed by the developer, plus the fact that the prototype exists).

Alas, I fear that for a lot (probably even the majority) of games, the development assets are probably lost forever. This is perhaps the consequence of an entertainment medium that was founded on the basis of making money, rather than the intrinsic value as artwork.

  ]]> Pat the NES Punk on protoculture http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=35&threadid=153929 2016-03-21T09:55:44 -05.00 Wall Street Kid 100 Originally posted by: BilltownSparty

its no different then telling an art collector they shouldnt have rare art in their house it should be in a museum.  It sounds great but its the owners decision to do what they think is reponsible not what the masses do.
 
that's a pretty great analogy actually
  ]]> Pat the NES Punk on protoculture http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=35&threadid=153929 2016-03-19T23:57:51 -05.00 Wall Street Kid 100 Originally posted by: mattbep
 
Originally posted by: Daria

The responsible thing would be to dump it, save it to an external media device and store it in a safety deposit box or safe. If it's not connected to the internet no one can "hack" into it. And taking some basic safety precautions eliminates any risk of physical theft. 

Eliminates the risk of losing the ROM, but there's still a big potential for financial loss if there were a physical theft of the cart. 
Mitigates the financial damage though. In the event of theft or destruction (fire!) you could still sell the code to recoup some of your investment. 
  ]]> Pat the NES Punk on protoculture http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=35&threadid=153929 2016-03-19T23:48:58 -05.00 Wall Street Kid 100 Originally posted by: BilltownSparty
 
Originally posted by: Daria

  You're saying if they dump it and don't release it then these bad things are a risk?

The responsible thing would be to dump it, save it to an external media device and store it in a safety deposit box or safe. If it's not connected to the internet no one can "hack" into it. And taking some basic safety precautions eliminates any risk of physical theft. 

 

there is the problem for me right there.   telling a stranger what the responsible thing to do...
  Society does it all the time with my kid.

Also I don't care if someone's things are worth 10 cents or 10 million dollars. I can dole out advice in a public forum all day long (assuming the mods or Dain don't shut me up). Just as the owner of said things can take that advice or ignore it.
  ]]> Pat the NES Punk on protoculture http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=35&threadid=153929 2016-03-19T18:28:27 -05.00 Wall Street Kid 100 Originally posted by: Jeckidy

There are only about two or three unreleased prototypes I'd want to see, and the only one I'd assume was ever playable is Dragon Hopper. Twelve Tales and Sonic 1 protos would be cool, but again, mostly unplayable and I'd get bored of them and move on.  You forgot Socks. 

  ]]> Pat the NES Punk on protoculture http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=35&threadid=153929 2016-03-19T17:57:30 -05.00 Wall Street Kid 100
From my experience, It seems that these things are mutually exclusive. ]]> Pat the NES Punk on protoculture http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=35&threadid=153929 2016-03-19T15:06:12 -05.00 Wall Street Kid 100
THANKS PAT! THANKS A LOT BUDDY. ]]> Pat the NES Punk on protoculture http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=35&threadid=153929 2016-03-19T14:22:35 -05.00 Wall Street Kid 100
If it was worth saving chances are it would have i just dont know why this is a big deal. As stated most protos are terrible


If anything kudos to the guys who got after protos early and often and are in position to command high dollar for their items or just enjoy the fsct they own one of a kind stuff. Nothing wrong with that ]]> Pat the NES Punk on protoculture http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=35&threadid=153929 2016-03-19T14:07:16 -05.00 Wall Street Kid 100 Pat the NES Punk on protoculture http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=35&threadid=153929 2016-03-19T13:59:35 -05.00 Wall Street Kid 100