Retro forum taboos: Why roms and not reproductions and pirate carts?

[squirrel_king]

Yeah, in which case I'd consider them bootlegs. Unless the cost of parts is that wildly different between the two carts, but I doubt it.

I could possibly give them the benefit of the doubt since DK is a simple game running on a standard mapper, but Campus Challenge is a custom affair with dip switches and stuff, but I'm not sure there's $57 worth of difference in there.

[Duke.Togo]

Without profit, there would be no motivation to provide this service. This isn't video game communism. If Nintendo would start producing the carts, I'd happily buy from them. Until then, I have to work with the suppliers at hand and expect them to compensated, or learn to do it myself.

[squirrel_king]

Believe it or not, people do things for reasons other than profit. I'm not saying they should *lose* money on the venture, just charge enough to cover their own costs and time.

Look at ROM dumpers, fan translators, fansubbers, magazine scanners and so on. I'd put all that stuff into the same category as repro makers (providing they're doing what they're doing on old, out of print stuff rather than pirating current material) - hobbyists doing something for free to provide a service to a community, all violating copyright law in one way or another, but all morally justified IMO because they all provide things in a way the legit rights holder never would.

But once they start chasing profit, they become a business, and they have a responsibility to follow all the laws and regulations that businesses have to abide by. Otherwise they're just bootleggers profiting off someone else's work, no different to any of the companies in China putting out 999,999,999 in 1 Famicom carts (with four real games on).

(Nintendo themselves will probably never do it for precisely that reason - as a legitimate business that has to jump through all the various legal hoops involved, its just not worth their while. the majority of reproduced games are third-party titles which means Nintendo would have to cut an individual licensing deal with each company, and the market for these things is so small that they would almost certainly lose money. if there was any money in NES carts they never would have stopped making them)

[Gameguy]

If it's in Japanese, I play it in Japanese. I use an FAQ for some help if its available and I need to, or I figure it out on my own. Very few games absolutely require knowing a language. Even RPGs are typically easy enough to figure out. Talk to everyone in a town, trigger whatever events you need to, explore a dungeon, fight battles. Simple as that. If the actual gameplay is engaging, I don't care if I'm missing out on some of the story (a lot of a video game's story is told visually, anyway). Most of the time in an RPG is usually spent in dungeons. You don't need language to run around exploring, and figuring out the commands of a battle system typically wouldn't take more than a couple minutes of trial and error. And so much is number-based, which is universal (unless you're playing a super Japanese-y game that uses kanji to represent the numbers).

I'm assuming for most people that stumbling through a story oriented game without knowing what's going on just seems like a waste of time. It's like claiming that you successfully read a book in Japanese by flipping through each page and looking over every character of text while not knowing what the characters represent or mean in any usable context. You can get through the book just as you can get through a game by triggering certain events just by talking to everybody until something happens, but it's pretty meaningless. It doesn't really matter for action type games or ones with an almost non-existing plot but for story heavy games like RPGs I can see people wanting translations to fully experience the game as much as possible.

Without profit, there would be no motivation to provide this service.

How many fan translation patches have been released for free? Those usually take years to finish, yet it doesn't take years to make a repro cart. It's more like a few hours of work per cart. It's true though that most people making these carts are just in it to make money.

IMO the distinction between repro/bootleg just comes down to the intentions of the makers. If they're out to turn a profit, it's a bootleg. If they only charge for parts and labour, because they want to provide a service to people who want to play otherwise inaccessible games on real hardware, I'd consider that a repro.

Believe it or not, people do things for reasons other than profit. I'm not saying they should *lose* money on the venture, just charge enough to cover their own costs and time.

Why don't you think charging for labour or time is considered making a profit? I hear this all the time when people talk about repros and how they're not making a profit, but they really are. Most of the people defending repros act like they're just doing this to help other collectors out, almost like a type of hero.

"I like my auto mechanic, when I get the bill I'm just charged for parts and labour. There's no 'Profit Fee' added anywhere, I like how he installed my parts for free. He's a really nice guy just helping people out."

That's just as stupid. I wouldn't care if they're honest about making a profit, but the whole "I'm just helping the community and nothing else" fake attitude just annoys me.

[squirrel_king]

Why don't you think charging for labour or time is considered making a profit? I hear this all the time when people talk about repros and how they're not making a profit, but they really are. Most of the people defending repros act like they're just doing this to help other collectors out, almost like a type of hero.

"I like my auto mechanic, when I get the bill I'm just charged for parts and labour. There's no 'Profit Fee' added anywhere, I like how he installed my parts for free. He's a really nice guy just helping people out."

That's just as stupid. I wouldn't care if they're honest about making a profit, but the whole "I'm just helping the community and nothing else" fake attitude just annoys me.

I'm certainly not out to defend anyone, I've never bought a repro in my life and I couldn't particularly give a crap if everyone stopped making them overnight - I'm personally perfectly happy to play rare/unreleased/translated/hacked stuff through emulation. The only reason I'm posting in this thread at all is that I'm personally interested in pirate carts and the like, and it always bugs me when people act like all repros are morally superior to Asian bootlegs seemingly for no reason other than they're not Asian.

I only made the distinction between profit-making and non-profit making on the presupposition that there are probably some repro makers doing it for the right reasons, but I have absolutely no idea how many of them are. Of course any who actually are doing it for profit will pretend they aren't anyway, there's no way to tell, and it's entirely up for debate if charging for "labour" counts as profit or not (I suppose it depends how much you value your own time). But like I said, I don't buy them, I'm not out to defend them. It's up to people that do buy them to decide what is or isn't acceptable to them - I mean, I buy tons of undebatably bootleg bootlegs, I'm in no position to judge.

[Tokimemofan]

I personally don't have much of a problem with it in general. Where I do have a problem is when people start plucking out chips that are uncommon or convenient. Many of the SNES enhancement chips are in more desirable carts and are limited to very few titles. Also there are some that are just asking for a lawsuit, this one made my blood boil: http://www.ebay.com/csc/ocdgamers/m....mplete=1&rt=nc
Whoever bought those NES earthbound repros is an idiot, the Final Fantasy II repros are even worse.

[M.Buster2184]

I believe playing Sweet Home on a toploader Nintendo Entertainment with a bonafide NES controller in hand, literally impossible 20 years ago, is like living a dream come true. Emulators, I tried....not the same thing. Yeah, sure, you can buy an aftermarket NES adaptor for your laptop but, imho, there's no experience like plugging a cart, turnin' on the analog tv, poppin' a can of cold soda, and go bonanza like it's 1992. And if developers want a cut? Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade, PSN, Steam....so many options have at it, Hoss. If one fan in his basement can translate a rom by himself a decade ago, what stopping a multi-national video game company and its hundreds of employees now?

Heck I think they should've unloaded their vaults this gen, start an aggressive ad campaign to introduce these classics to both old n' new generations, called them "Lost Retro Classics", and encourage consumers to buy Nintendo VC, PSN, XBox Point Cards in every Walgreen, Walmart, Gamestop, and Best Buy out there.

Well stated. Everyone has different opinions, but I agree that it is not the same to play a game on an emulator. If someone took the time and know how to put together a repro cart and give people the opportunity to play a game they never originally had the chance to, I welcome it. The only repro cart I own is Star Fox 2 and I love it. I love being able to plug it into my SNES, controller in hand, and play it on my tv. As a side note, I hope a good game wasn't ruined to donate the FX chip for my Star Fox 2 copy, but I don't recall offhand what games utilized the FX chip.

[Jack7]

this one made my blood boil: http://www.ebay.com/csc/ocdgamers/m....mplete=1&rt=nc
Whoever bought those NES earthbound repros is an idiot, the Final Fantasy II repros are even worse.

dammnnnnn 76 dollars? for a repro with bad box art no less. i went the gamereproductions.com route got the better looking red label for 30. wow, now i remember why i stopped dealing with ebay