Mafia dons and Triads are running retrogame bootleg operations now. Yeah. Ok. Sure. And for the shitty N64 at that? Some people watch too many movies.
Mafia dons and Triads are running retrogame bootleg operations now. Yeah. Ok. Sure. And for the shitty N64 at that? Some people watch too many movies.
Not so far fetched in all honesty. Easy money really. I know some of us are interested in getting some of these games and I'm sure they are only a few bucks in parts. Major profit to be had
You really dont see the difference between buying an authintic item for X amount of dollars and buying a shitty bootleg for 1/4 or 1/2 the price?? Really??Originally Posted by Tanooki
People arent paying 120-200$ to play these, they are worth that much because they are originals and rare items. Shitty boolegs are not originals, they are simply produced to sell to fools. You get what you pay for. At 67$ they are total ripoff. THey probably cost less than 2$ to produce.
Ali Express sells tons of fake crap. Only retards buy garbage off that site thinking they are getting good deals or even anything close to quality.
Um, no.
Not really honey. Everyone dismisses it every time they shop at Walmart, buy some Nike shoes, purchases a car...you name it. Every person including yourself would be considered callous and dismssing of human rights unless you're living some granola life style of walking or biking everywhere, making your own clothes and food, etc being totally self sustaining in your own home. Are you? I doubt it.
Aussie: I'm dismissing it because the odds are very slim. You could only begin to imagine what the chinese mafia may have their hands in on any good that says made in china/hong kong on it you find relatively anywhere these days on or off line. I'm really not going to dig into the back ground of every product as I don't feel a need to have my conscience cleared by their very existence. Show me X item is backed by such a group with proof, sure I won't buy it, but I'm not just going to assume things. Personally I'd admit as much I'd be very interested and curious since you brought it up now in this thread if some ties could be proven as it would be very interesting.
Niku -- No doubt, they're still expensive even at $67 and yes it probably costs them $5 in parts and label work a piece in bulk so sure there' making good cash if enough of them are scooped up, but the initial R&D, part orders, tooling, making molds and so on likely wasn't that cheap so it surely plays into that.
bb -- Sure I do. I know what it is entirely, but it crossed my pain threshold and I'd love to see it sabotaged entirely. Some of them are legitimately rare, others are puffed up frauds as rare to score money off chumps too as it's really both going on at this rate. Something like say Bangaioh on N64 had only 10K copies and it runs $100+ in good shape for just the game, but another like say the Konami trio of Castlevania 4, Contra 3, and TMNT4 on SNES which had multiple print runs for years now going for like $50 just for the game and fools writing RARE L@@K on them to bait chumps isn't cool. If something is legitimately rare sure I get it, but there's so much lying and scheming on half million plus run off titles it doesn't add up.
Not all bootlegs are shitty and made poorly, historically definitely, but in the last year to two the quality coming out from over there is frighteningly solid especially on the GBA stuff and these new 8bit and up boards like Little Samson and Worms 64 has too. The more I dig the more I'm seeing they're getting good quality build materials and facilities going on these which surprises me. The new stuff now uses a mix of quality boards and chips, sometimes mixed with glop tops, and one big change is that batteries are no longer used to retain save data or worse any data on the chips as they've moved into chips that retain saves on their own. The plastics have gone up in quality to match the originals, even the labels down to the artsy metallic shiny pokemon fire red/leaf green stuff is being duplicated spot on too. Like it or not that old wall of crap vs quality is being hammered down and quickly as of late which is why I find these N64 bootlegs fascinating.
If someone is just out to make money, do you seriously think they give a damn if the bootlegged item is retro or modern, or if it's on what you deem a "shitty" system? In fact, there are tons of faked antiques out there, so it's not a novel concept to bootleg an older item.
Nobody ever said that the upper echelon of organized crime is personally dealing in bootleg games. Just that there's a possibility that any pirated good may have some connection to organized crime, especially if it's a convincing bootleg and made in considerable quantities.
I swear, though, this board has fallen so low that we now have topics like this, where people are actually arguing that bootleg games are a good thing for game collectors. This would never happen here 5, 10 years ago. At least not without the whole community piling on the poor sap, having a field day of it.
Five to Ten years ago was before all those assholes showed up using the gaming community as a wallet filling punching bag too. The vultures tend to swoop in on one thing after another until they pick it to the bones and once the corpse is clean move onto the rest. Sports cards, comics, pogs, beanie babies, etc. Gaming is just the lastest victim of the vulture. This topic wouldn't exist a half decade ago because the abuses weren't happening where stuff is decided to suddenly be rare and cool to have so some random game skyrockets in price 5-10 fold over night.
I may sound bitter, good. I've run into this crap before as a kid and had two hobbies as a child stolen away from me because I was priced right out of it, or if not priced, had the copies of X item bought up locally before I could get one on my limited allowance I got doing chores. I had a really fun time of it for years until Comics and baseball cards got fucked in the same tactics offline back around 1990-92 which caused them both to implode just a few years after that point. The few honest to god true rares stayed up, and the rest of them lied about to higher values crumbled back to reality.
And what happens when the greasy resellers buy these and then sells them falsely as originals? Then you've got this garbage at overinflated prices instead of authentic carts at overinflated prices. I dunno about you but I don't see that as a good thing.
I apologize to Daria in advance if I'm overstepping my boundary here, as this was directed at her, not me, but lay off that sexist BS. Unless you're close to her, you're in no place to be calling any woman "honey", let along throwing that out in a condescending manner in an argument. If you wouldn't say it to a male user, you probably shouldn't be saying it to a female user.
I kind of have the caveat emptor approach to it. Like I said, I got this month a not advertised bootleg Alien Hominid GBA. I wasn't mad about it, I just went through the ebay process, and ultimately in the end they didn't want to accept responsibility so ebay took my money out of the sellers account and returned it and told me to keep it since it was fake. Win-win really... got a free bootleg and someone learned a lesson for not being honest about it and accepting responsibility about it. At first I felt it could have been a mistake, but them ignoring me and both US and UK ebay my compassion went out the door on that one. I find unless someone wants to open up and show the item is real, anything online game or not is a risk and you accept that since you can't inspect it in person.
Aussie: I would, but I think honey would be weird for a dude.
How much money is in it for organized crime? Seriously, if you think they're targeting a handful of nerds with rare N64 tapes, you need a dose of reality wherever your from. N64 is not even demanded, aside from those crappy rental-onlys. So yes, it would be shitty if it ain't making money.
It's called designer drugs and synthetics, this biz is booming coming straight out of China. Shit like flakka and molly, that market is on fire right now. Guess who the #1 customers are? Yep, us Americans. It's pretty much all profit and keeping the fiends coming back for more guaranteed future sales. Made cheap, sold at a high price. You really think these dudes would waste time and effort bootlegging a fucking Clay Fighter: Sculptors Cut game that only a few people give a fuck about?
For real. Y'all need to stop treating this shit like it's antiques and like it's some kinda future college fund. It's fucking N64.
So why don't you think for a moment about why it would be weird?
Never said anything of the sort. I brought up antiques as an example of items that are not available on the current market that are bootlegged, not as a value comparison. I have never once advocated treating games like an investment.
Obviously whoever is behind the N64 bootlegs doesn't feel it's profitable to deal in most N64 games. They're only dealing in the titles with the highest values on the used market. It's obviously profitable or they wouldn't be doing it. They're not doing it as a favor to collectors. And like with antiques, though again this is no comparison of value, you don't waste your time counterfeiting antiques that barely sell for anything. You go for the relatively big ticket items, and you don't flood the market with too many at a time because then, even in a best-case scenario where people don't catch on, you'll drop the value and, in turn, your profit margin when there are now more than enough copies of something that had gained its value through the virtue of being limited.
Oh boo-fucking-hoo, dont start with that shit. If you cant afford video games then dont collect. You constantly complain about resellers but have no qualms about reselling games yourself. And with the fake game you bought off ebay, yeah you filed a claim BECAUSE YOU DIDDNT WANT IT. If ebay hadnt given you your money back you would have felt ripped-off. Thats what these '1:1' bootlegs are all about, creating goods that people can scam other people with.
The reality is that an influx of chinese bootlegs will only cause prices on authentic games to go up. It will just be harder for collectors to find authentic games and thus make them more valuable. NOBODY wants fake chinese games.
The idea that shitty bootlegs are cheaper alternatives to originals is just laughable. And to suggest that at 67$ they are a better deal is downright moronic.
And yeah it was pretty disrespectful calling Daria honey. You deserve a bitchslap for that.
Bootlegs have definitely had a negative effect on the Neo Geo MVS and AES markets. They've caused many cheap titles to become harder to get due to cannibalizing parts for some, and also created a premium for authentic carts, with sellers having to display the pcbs in order to get bids, which go crazy for authentic products. Prices have increased, as has mistrust among the fan community for trading. What bootlegs have done has never been to lower cost or crash markets. They've simply created paranoia and required traders and sellers to have to open every product in order to constantly authenticate. There was a time when nobody bothered to own security bits. Now everybody has a set, because we can't trust anything.
I don't understand the logic of buying bootlegs over flash carts. You're spending 60-100 for a non authentic copy rather than buying a cart that can play all the copies of nearly everything you want which are also non-authentic.
Roms labeled with [!] are verified dumps that's a 1:1 copy of the game. Older systems generally have full sets or nearly full sets of these. Why spend 60-100 for a fake copy? Is the artwork on the fake really worth that much?
This is extremely accurate. If you're buying a pirate, it isn't for collecting, so there's literally no advantage.
Apparently a few of you are fairly thick and just like to go in circles, that's fine. Aussie, no thanks, and I think it's fair to say I'll good at standing my ground as I really don't give a flip what most people think anymore especially online as it gets you nowhere in life.
BB--whatever. I can afford, I choose not to. I'm not stupid enough to pay into a scalpers wallet. I find it for a fair price or I don't need it, or I'll buy a bootleg or use a rom and some form of emulator, or if necessary I sell something to get something. I see no reason to pay a rape fee setup to rip off fools and suckers. Whether you like it or not, history doesn't change and I was speaking of myself as a kid on a $5-7 a week allowance. Once those comics hit 1.50-2/ea I no longer could get them anymore so I was forced to quit, that's what the point of it was, and I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now seeing it done to another hobby I like so I won't play ball. It's not that hard of a concept to grasp. If you feel good paying $100-300+ for a game that intentionally got fudged up in price by shenanigans, feel free, but get outside of insane collector circles and good luck rationalizing a puffed up fake value on stuff. You're right, I do have no problem selling and reselling games, it has become a near requirement thanks to the shit that's going on, but as much as I find it distasteful sometimes you just have to go with the flow. Not that it's much on the conscience (which it isn't) but I'll on ebay price under others just to move the stuff, just I don't start them at a penny or a dollar in case some flipper gets lucky as I'm not going to help someone hose another.
And no, I filed the claim because I was lied to. Before even making the claim I wrote the seller, twice. He ignored me. I then called ebay and they opened the claim after I explained to them what it was and the circumstances of it being overseas. I said I wanted a partial refund or to let me return it. I never asked for a full refund, that was ebay UK's choice in the end. I asked through the claim a third time and got nowhere, then the US office, then finally the UK one, so they did the full refund. I was totally fine keeping it at a fair price for a bootleg as it works 100% and has good parts in it and looks 1:1 on the outside as well. I just wasn't going to pay the real going rate for a copy.
I also never suggested $67 was a deal, just lower than an original, and if you read back I think I said around $40 I think would be decent as it really depends on the cost of what goes into it in the end and the persons time counts for something too making the thing. I'd never pay $67 but if it were half that I'd be game on Worms Armageddon and Bomberman as well as they're fun. And disrespect goes both ways, you don't ever see me pull that on here normally now do you?
The only advantage to a pirate, at least a convincing one, can be to save money, or because you have no interest in a copier cart and just one a specific game or two and that's it on a system. I've had a few famiclones for instance such as Moon Crystal which I paid like $20-30 for, and it's a $120+ game. I still have one in that range, Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa which I got with a honeybee for like $10-15. Often the bootlegs cost notably less than an original, it's not just one way. I didn't buy either to collect, I bought them to enjoy and play on a real cart in a real system. I put some money into it, so it had value and made me want to get that value while a dumb rom on a copier cart or in a computer has no value so my motivation doesn't exist. That's why I don't keep a copier cart around anymore, it just sits.
Last edited by Tanooki; 10-23-2015 at 08:09 PM.
I don't buy bootlegs so obviously I wouldn't like if they started to be harder to identify from the real thing. I deal with that enough with certain anime dvds at Goodwills and flea markets. I remember when bootlegs just had a poorly printed out label that was made by a random amateur. But now some of the disc and cases look a little too professionally made for my taste.
ALL HAIL THE 1 2 P
In your post about the games, you said if they were half price you would think that's a good deal right? I'm going to round the games to $34. Since there's only 3 of them that you think are interesting, then the total comes to $102. The everdrive 64 v2.5 is $99. Even if you only wanted worms and bomberman at half price, that's still only $30 less than the flash cart. You're not saving much money. Of course, if you only buy one game EVER, then I can see your point, but the moment you get a 2nd game or a 3rd game, you've overshot the overall financial worth.
I thought about your 2nd point that it gives you value to encourage you to play the games. I would think that if you were truly interested in the actual games, the monetary value would be irrelevant and you could simply play them on an emulator. What I'm deducing is that you don't seem all that interested in playing the games, but more so in trying to punish those that caused the inflation in the first place.
The only reason I can see the argument from my standpoint is if you're trying to gather up pirate carts for the fun of collecting pirate carts. That I can see as everyone has different reasons for collecting what they collect. But the outlandish claims that it's cheaper is almost guaranteed to be false in the long run.
To be honest, I wish the seller would invest in putting rom hacks and translations on cart, making a custom label, and selling them as repros. I don't think there are common tools to do that yet, unless someone buys one of these flash carts to reverse engineer it. I'd love to own a translated Doubutsu no Mori cart that didn't require a mutilated legit cart. There's much easier justification in that than a bootleg of a domestically released game.
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