Reproduction Cartridges of games you already own. [part 2]

Started by fcgamer, July 02, 2018, 03:58:50 am

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fcgamer


Sadly I was at work when the last part of the discussion took place, and I could not address the issue at hand, with my own thoughts and feelings on the matter.  From reading Retrospectives' posts, maybe he is getting me and Flying_Phoenix mixed up?  Either way, every argument in the past I hope to leave as water under the bridge, as I value the Famicom World community quite a bit, and hope for things to prosper here, for as long as I am interested in these old games.  :)

Something I've learnt over time is that everyone has their own reasons for collecting / playing / obtaining these old games; none of the viewpoints are necessarily more right than others, and the diversity is what makes it so great.

For example, I started collecting Famicom games because I grew up playing NES games, and as much as I love games from that era, I'm not a huge fan of modern games.  On the rare occassions I had heard about Japanese-exclusive Famicom games whole growing up (SMB2, for example), I was always insanely jealous, that's probably what drove me to now owning thousands of Famicom / Famiclone carts.

I don't have time or interest to dedicate more than a few hours a month to proper gaming, so that made me more of a collector, and from there I became interested in the historical standpoint of it all.  So when I look at games, I view it from historical reasons, gamer reasons, and collector reasons, generally.

I know some folks in Poland who love reverse-engineering and repairing old bootleg carts, then people like Krzy who try to use that knowledge to create new products.  While I was not wild about it at first, I can appreciate the technical love and knowledge, something which I will never possess or properly understand.  

The list can go on and on about reasons people buy this stuff.  By now the only one I feel somewhat negative about are those that are buying for the sole intent of marking up and reselling.  It may sound hypocritical of me to say that, but I always try to be fair with my prices, same with Vinnk, Sean, Flying_Phoenix, Marek, and basically everyone else where on FW that is looking to sell / trade cars.  I don't see anything wrong with reselling / trading carts to boost your collection (I remember Retrospectives said he prefers trades, by now I do too, actually), but I am talking about the folks that only are "into" the hobby for the sole reason of profiting off of collectors / gamers.  But that is my issue, many others here would see no problem with it, and that's fine too.  :)

My issue with "reproduction" cartridges as a whole is the situation regarding near 1:1 items, and likewise sellers such as the Metal Force guy, who were less than honest about what exactly they were selling.  While these types of products are okay (even sometimes beneficial) for GAMERs, they are harmful towards COLLECTORs, as well as GAMER HISTORIANS.  As I fall mostly into the latter group, it clearly shows why I am against these kinds of items.  While all is said and good for those that aren't trying to make 1:1 reproductions, there are many who are doing this, either with good intentions or poor ones, but either way, collectors will die, collections will be stolen, or traded away by angry wives / ex-girlfriends, and such carts will make it to the wild.  Then collectors and historians need to waddle through the mess and try to determine what exactly they have.  It can happen to anyone, a novice or a serious collector.  For example:

http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=5&threadid=182484

Then there is the whole situation with Super Maruo and the Thailand fakes, even if I walked into Super Potato or Mandarake with a wad of cash, I'd be afraid to buy a Super Maruo.  And to me, that is a shame, due to the historical significance that cart holds.

Then for items that are even less documented, or perhaps even unknown at the moment (yes I believe there are still unknown, undocumented Famicom items out there...), what then?  Even harder to prove it is a real or a fake, authentic or not, aside from trusting in anecdotal evidence and a trustyworthy seller...

To me, that in a nutshell is the problem with reproductions.  Like Flying_Phoenix had said, a sunfaded Whirlwind Manu cart is not likely to confuse or trick anyone, whereas this 1:1 stuff would.  


Post Merge: July 02, 2018, 03:59:08 am

Regarding old bootlegs hurting Nintendo and other companies:  I disagree with this, 100%.  Yes, Nintendo officially marketed the Famicom in Taiwan, but it did poorly.  The average person was poor, couldn't afford such luxuries.  That is why the clones did so well, once they came onto the scene.  ;)  If the Famicom would have been marketed in South America, Russia, Poland, etc, it would have been a similar story, with a similar ending...

A handful of official games were released in Taiwan, same with machines.  Same goes for NES (Samurai) in India, in South Africa, in Hong Kong, etc.  But those machines are rare, the official games aren't easy to find either.  Why is that?  They sold terrible, since all but the rich couldn't afford them.  

A few years ago I had seen some of my students playing with game cards, maybe Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon, I forget which.  The kids in my class all said they prefered the real Japanese ones, despite the fake ones being in Chinese, and the real ones being in a language they could barely understand (Japanese, the one kid had an older brother who was taking classes, would teach the younger brother the meanings, who would teach his friends).  Yet they all wanted the real ones, they saw the quality difference, even at age 10 or 11.  At this day and age the real products are much more readily available in Taiwan, and people are not nearly so poor anymore, but even so, some folks (rich folks even) just buy their kids the fakes, as Taiwanese as a whole are quite thrifty.

My point is, you can't steal millions from a company if there aren't millions to be stolen.  If all of the bootleg companies and rampant piracy never occured in Taiwan (or elsewhere around the globe), the folks in those countries would have just done without, aside from the very rich.  Period.  So no, they didn't lose millions or billions, as those folks never would have bought it.  If anything, having been exposed to Nintendo's products early in life, *might* have helped Nintendo to **gain** customers and profits via brand loyalty later in life, once the population became less poor, and could afford to purchase items such as the wii, switch, etc.  ;)  

To those who disagree with what I wrote above, check out the story with Dendy in Russia, also the fact that for numerous games, Konami official PCBs have been found inside bootleg shells.  Official pcbs and bootlegs produced in the same manufacturing plant, so just stolen pcbs and chips?  Possibly.  Or Konami just unloading extra stock to a market that can't afford the real one?  Also equally as likely, has happened time and time again with big business and the so-called fakes.

Post Merge: July 02, 2018, 03:59:26 am

Regarding modern aliexpress multicarts bootlegs being collectable:

The are not period.  Simple as that.  Ask any Polish / Russian / South American collector on here, heck as me as well, we ALL prefer old early 90s style Taiwan version cartridges.  Quality is better, for many it is nostalgia as well.  And it is historical, a period piece.  Modern stuff will never have that.  Unless there are folks playing that stuff *now* as their primary means, i.e. little children, it will not be viewed as collectible as the "original fakes" are.  I think we all know this though, deep down, whether we acknowledge it or not ;)

Finally about language:

Yes, "dude" might be a bit open to some, but "friend" - come on, I don't think it is too open.  Likewise, being too formal when addressing others, or too cold, even after years of "knowing" them, it can also be met with a negative reaction ;)  

Post Merge: July 02, 2018, 04:02:02 am

And to bring it back to making repros for personal use, to preserve originals:

Everyone can do as he or she wants.  I have pointed out the dangers to it, from *my* perspective, but everyone has his or her own ways of viewing these games.  

There is a musical in the States called "OKLAHOMA".  In it, there is a song "The Farmer and the Cowboy Can Be Friends".  I feel the same way about it, the Collector and the Repro-Maker can be friends.  But it requires collectors turning a blind eye, i.e. not puking on the repro-maker's carts, but likewise, the repro-maker / end-user not demanding 1:1 items, which would cause issues for the collectors.
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Flying_Phoenix

That's a good point about the non-loss of revenue, and it is also for a similar reason that companies like Microsoft have historically turned a blind eye to cracked software, since they know those "customers" will either get it for free/cheap or not get it at all, and look somewhere else for a clone/replacement (and therefore lose potential future revenue in the medium/long term). So they'd rather serve these customers for free than see them go away to another software/company. Nowadays with the new business model of ads and making money with your private information, it is even easier for companies to provide their software for free (think Microsoft stuff on Android for a good example).

Am I correct that a Whirlwind manu cart (for example) is not a repro? I think part of the confusion was due to what we define a repro. Merriam-Webster says:

something reproduced : copy
Examples of reproduction in a Sentence
the mass reproduction of fine art
a reproduction of the painting

So to me, we are talking about repros, it is 1:1 items whose purpose is to copy EXACTLY something else. If you copy the Mona Lisa with a moustache, it's not a repro, it may be called different things and you may not agree with it, it may be illegal or whatever, but it's not a repro. So a Whirlwind Manu cart with obviously different shell, badly cropped art etc. is not a repro. It is a pirate, fake, whatever you may call it, not a repro. This is my concept of a repro, so if you make a "repro" with a different shell color or some label details that are different, I feel this is shady and unnecessary and should not exist, but at least it's not a repro that may fool most people, especially when viewed on internet, indirectly. I think this is the main problem? This is why I am very relaxed about dealing with old pirates -- 99% of them are easily spotted. Now if granny gets fooled, that is a different story. We're all die hard games/collectors with a keen interest in the hobby, so I don't think the granny argument stands.

This being said, as you know fcgamer, there have been 1:1 copies of GB/FC games with box, cart, manual, plastic tray and even plastic bag, I've owned a few thinking they were original! When I found out I  gave them away mentioning very clearly what they were. Thinking back, I think it was a mistake and I should have destroyed them. I was shocked they had fooled me for so long, they were Batman, Gremlins 2 and a few others (Japanese GB games). Since then, I check the PCBs of all my GB carts.

So in a way there are old repros, those are exactly the kind of repro that shouldn't exist in my opinion. They are a source of endless confusion and will eventually do harm (like you say, we will all die, so the carts will end up in the wild one day... :) )

fcgamer

Quote from: Flying_Phoenix on July 02, 2018, 04:27:21 am
That's a good point about the non-loss of revenue, and it is also for a similar reason that companies like Microsoft have historically turned a blind eye to cracked software, since they know those "customers" will either get it for free/cheap or not get it at all, and look somewhere else for a clone/replacement (and therefore lose potential future revenue in the medium/long term). So they'd rather serve these customers for free than see them go away to another software/company. Nowadays with the new business model of ads and making money with your private information, it is even easier for companies to provide their software for free (think Microsoft stuff on Android for a good example).

Am I correct that a Whirlwind manu cart (for example) is not a repro? I think part of the confusion was due to what we define a repro. Merriam-Webster says:

something reproduced : copy
Examples of reproduction in a Sentence
the mass reproduction of fine art
a reproduction of the painting

So to me, we are talking about repros, it is 1:1 items whose purpose is to copy EXACTLY something else. If you copy the Mona Lisa with a moustache, it's not a repro, it may be called different things and you may not agree with it, it may be illegal or whatever, but it's not a repro. So a Whirlwind Manu cart with obviously different shell, badly cropped art etc. is not a repro. It is a pirate, fake, whatever you may call it, not a repro. This is my concept of a repro, so if you make a "repro" with a different shell color or some label details that are different, I feel this is shady and unnecessary and should not exist, but at least it's not a repro that may fool most people, especially when viewed on internet, indirectly. I think this is the main problem? This is why I am very relaxed about dealing with old pirates -- 99% of them are easily spotted. Now if granny gets fooled, that is a different story. We're all die hard games/collectors with a keen interest in the hobby, so I don't think the granny argument stands.

This being said, as you know fcgamer, there have been 1:1 copies of GB/FC games with box, cart, manual, plastic tray and even plastic bag, I've owned a few thinking they were original! When I found out I  gave them away mentioning very clearly what they were. Thinking back, I think it was a mistake and I should have destroyed them. I was shocked they had fooled me for so long, they were Batman, Gremlins 2 and a few others (Japanese GB games). Since then, I check the PCBs of all my GB carts.

So in a way there are old repros, those are exactly the kind of repro that shouldn't exist in my opinion. They are a source of endless confusion and will eventually do harm (like you say, we will all die, so the carts will end up in the wild one day... :) )


Even these probably have some detail off about them.  I recently started to collect old GB bootlegs, preferring of course CIB, have maybe 50 of them.  While some are very good, they still have something off about them.  If you get some more very cheaply, let's make a deal :D

I agree though, I take a larger stance to these or SFC (I've seen some SFC same type of situation) than original Famicom, much closer to 1:1.

I think in the end though, it boils down to this sort of thing harming collectors and historians, and those trying to collect obscure items, like Flying_Phoenix, you do, and I as well.  About period near 1:1 fakes, I'd rather have none than have tons, and have seasoned collectors getting taken over it, tbh.
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VegaVegas

Another unproductive repro/pirated topic on gaming forums that doesn't explain anything. Everyone stop being butthurt and hypocritical at the same time

fcgamer

Quote from: MaarioS on July 02, 2018, 08:20:44 am
Another unproductive repro/pirated topic on gaming forums that doesn't explain anything. Everyone stop being butthurt and hypocritical at the same time


I would love to hear some *constructive* comments from you, MaarioS.  ;)  Retrospectives started a post, I just added my input to his post / poll after he chose to end it, prematurely, imo, to offer a different perspective.

You talk of being butthurt.  You talk of being hypocritical.  How so?  Please elaborate.  You speak harsh words, please back them up with some concrete evidence, or at least some concrete arguments.  I will wait for you...

I cannot speak for Retrospectives, Flying_Phoenix, or anyone else aside from myself; however, what I can say from my own perspective is that I see no harm in casual banter and sharing / discussion of opinions, feelings, and thoughts, whether folks agree or not.  I take it though, MaarioS, you have some sort of axe to grind, am I right? 
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L___E___T

 



What is this guys?  You can't just start a new thread after the OP locked their thread.  There shouldn't need to be a part 2 to any thread, that's what multiple pages are for.

I'm locking this thread now and please urge you all to think about how this all comes across to our site owner.  This is EXACTLY the kind of unwarranted drama that nearly closed FW before.  Please genuinely think about what you are doing and the risks you are taking by doing this.  Manuel and I are now the only mods left.
My for Sale / Trade thread
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大事なのは、オチに至るまでの積み重ねなのです。