Do homebrew games count?

[stevec1636]

Ok here's a question for ya. Do homebrew games count as part of the collection for a certain system. I know DP lists them seperately in there book, but do you count them as a released game and therefor a must to collect?

In my collection of 4,000 games i think i have only one homebrew and thats Bug blaster for Sega CD from Good Deal Games. As for myself i don't count them as a regular released title and don't really bother looking or collecting them. let me know what you think.

[it290]

Well, Bug Blasters isn't really a homebrew -- it was never 'officially' released, but it is an officially developed game. I would count it. I would also count stuff like Feet of Fury for DC, which actually is a homebrew. Same thing with doujin or shareware PC releases.

But homebrews that you just burned on to a disc or whatever -- nah, I wouldn't count those.

[tholly]

while they are nice to have, they are not part of a systems collection

for ex....the homebrews for the odyssey 2 on packrat games....i will probably pick them up this summer, but to me, the us odyssey 2 collection only consists of 49 games....no more, no less

[video_game_addict]

Defining a 'complete' collection is a subjective matter.

Complete including utility carts, diagnostic carts, educational programs (like the lightspan titles)

Complete as in everything complete in the box

Complete loose

Complete including all NTSC & PAL, or NTSC only

Complete with all homebrews or Repos (which are different from homebrews)

Complete including all variants of games, be they minor label/package variations, retitled games. Reissued games, etc.

Lots of ways to look at!


It should be a personal choice, what you want to let enter into your collection.

I would say yes to homebrews! I collect Atari games & do have a warm spot for the homebrews that have come out. I try to pick up all that are available within reason. I figure on most, I can pass if the money is being spent on some ebay lot, and the homebrew will be available for purchase long after the auction. So I don't have to jump on every release first day.

But as far as laying claim to complete collection, I could always state complete minus the homebrews, or complete loose except for these games, etc. I don't think it matters what others think, it should be up to you what you want to own in the first place.

Why would you bother to buy all the other games, if you do not want to buy the homebrews? If you are collecting to play, & enjoy playing, then why not buy new games created just for that specific system?


I think it's obvious original games were created, marketed, mostly carried in retail stores. Most were mass produced, and easily found down the road. Where as with homebrews the number of games made will likely be in the hundreds or less, mostly hand-made. Not carried in any real retail, since most are being sold after the platform has ceased. It's a different product to be sure, easy to differentiate between, and to draw lines in your collection as to what you call complete, and what you write off as not needed to lay claim to that complete collection, but unless you own EVERY game under the sun that has came out for your system of choice, you will not own the most 'complete' collection. It'll only be a complete collection*

Where * equates to all missing games from the possible sea of gaming goodness. ;)

[DTJAAAAMJSLM]

Though they are nice to own, I don't consider them part of a system's library.

[Aswald]

Good one.

Homebrew games are technically "second-party" games, and Atari did have such a thing for their computers- I think one such game was Phobos. So I guess it would count, unless you mean "while the system was officially alive."

[goatdan]

First off, I think you have to define what 'complete' is. In my mind, complete is any region where you get every game that came out from a publisher in nice packaging and was on store shelves during the lifespan of the console. Now, what that is can be a little bit of a floating point. In my mind, it is a combinations of how they are packaged, when they are made, and how they are made.

The Jaguar is the perfect example -- there were a bunch of past death releases:

ICD - Aircars
Telegames - a bunch of releases
Songbird Productions - 5 releases
4Play / Scatologic - BattleSphere
B&C - Various

ICD is an official release that needs to be added to a complete collection. It came out shortly after the Jaguar died, but duringt the same period as the Telegames releases. The Telegames releases, while having cheaper packaging, were sold at EB and had ads in gaming mags for them. They definitely qualify as full releases.

The Songbird releases all qualify as official releases too because of their packaging. They were published after the Jag was dead and after Telegames stopped releasing games, but they came in nearly identical boxes and for all practical purposes were "approved" by Atari (since the Jaguar became public domain at the time.) And perhaps the most importantly, the developers are getting paid for their work.

BattleSphere is definitely part of a real collection. Not just does it qualify with everything that Songbird does, but it also was released by a company who was programming it during the official lifespan.

The games by B&C do not. The games that they have released were found as protos, not given full packaging and the developers are not being paid. Technically, B&C does not have the rights to release them, they just bought the protos where these were found.

Another few examples -- the 2600 games that have come out recently I don't think need to be part of a full collection. As cool as they are, they are either prototype releases or are individual ones. Some of these games are very professional, having full boxes and manuals and stuff, but none were released within a time where the 2600 was close to being the most popular system. Had they been released in the '80's, I would feel differently about them. That having been said, I love the new stuff and probably have about 10 2600 homebrews so far.

The Good Deal Games Sega CD releases are not to me because they aren't on pressed CDs and they aren't packaged in the same style packaging that the other Sega CD releases were. That having been said, I own or have owned all of these releases at one point or another, and they are all excellent and I actually like the new release cases (blue DVD cases) more than the actual Sega CD ones.

I'm a biased source for the Dreamcast games of course, but I've been told by people that work at "real" development companies that they treat them as real games, and I tend to think of them as that too. Our biggest market is Asia, which is the place where there are still Dreamcast games being released. The games are pressed, and they are packaged in a way that is identical to how the official game releases looked, only with different logos to make them so they didn't intrude on anything they shouldn't be.

So anyway -- it all depends on what you call a "homebrew" game. I'll say this much about any post-mortem release: they are one of the neatest things going on today in gaming, and it is interesting to see them all regardless of where they come from. Regardless of if they "count" or not, anyone with a 2600, 5200, Colecovision, Odyssey2, Sega CD, Jaguar, CDi or Dreamcast owe it to themselves to at least check out a release or two. There is some truly stellar, unique stuff there.

[rbudrick]

As long as a game isn't just a hack, I would say so...

-Rob

[Stark]

A Homebrew is something usually released after the system went "dead" so while it would not be considered part of the original release list it could still be considered part of the systems collection. Regardless it would still be part of your total game collection.

[Kid Ice]

If someone told me they had a complete 2600 collection, and I checked it out and they had every original US release, I don't think I would say "Hey, where's Thrust and This Planet Sucks?"

So in my mind, homebrews are in the same gray area as imports. I'd consider any collection containing all the original, official (except in some cases where you would have to include unlicensed games) US releases complete.

[swlovinist]

I personally dont count them as part of any offical set, but I love to buy them!