Buying copyrights to cancelled games...

[GaijinPunch]

Anyone ever given this much thought to this? I'm in the midst of updating Japanese gaming. Part of it is updating the list of unreleased games (it will span across more systems, and be a bit more complete). I see a lot of games on there that I'd love to take a look at. There are quite a few pamphlets and whatnot of some of them, and I just can't help but think that the sources are sitting somewhere collecting dust.

Now, before you jump on the "Yeah, let's buy the rights to Propeller Arena!" let's try to keep it a bit realistic.

Dreamcast: Nobody's going to sell the rights to these (cheaply) b/c the game, in theory, could easily be ported to another system and sold for profits. (Case in point - Innocent Tears for the DC, which later came out on the X-box). Of course, they might sell it, but the costs would be high. The flip side to this, if you actually bought the rights, you could (technically, but not legally) release the game without it being licensed by Sega. Just make it self-booting and viola! Dodgy, yes, but they probably won't give a shit in 5 years time. Development kits aren't that hard to come by these days, so you could essentially fix up any lose ends in the game.

N64: There's a lot of games, but I think the cartridge thing would be the deterent here if you were looking into sell the game. Also a lot of the unreleased games are Nintendo stuff, and you know they're not going to let it go.

Saturn: There are quite a few of these, and unfortunately, these would yield you virtually zero dollars. Dev kits are hard to come by (and hard to use if you don't know how already). Very little English documentation doesn't help. The only way anyone could play the game well is on a modded Saturn (which are pretty rare when compared to modded PSXs). The other option is emulation, but Saturn emulation at the moment is not really good. This is sad, because I assume if someone had the connections, some of the no-name franchises might be acquirable (with the software as well) for a reasonable price (under $10,000 -- maybe I'm dreaming).

Megadrive, Mark III, Super Famicom, Famicom
These might be hard. The rights would presumably be cheap, but you have to work with Eeproms and whatnot. Basically, you'd be buying it as a collector, b/c you couldn't make much dough selling a ROM, at least as far as I know. Dev kits would probably be cheap if you could find them, and the programming is probably not that hard these days if you had to finish something up.

PC-Engine / Turbo Duo
Turbo Duo stuff would be easy to "sell". I doubt NEC would care if you released an unlicensed game at this point (other people seem to be doing it) and the system has absolutely no piracy check on it. PC-Engine -- you're in the shitter with the eeproms again.

Any thoughts?

[geelw]

hmmmmmm.... i personally think it's a great idea, especially in terms of duo stuff. too bad tzd is pretty quiet these days, although it would be nice to see a bunch of cash flow into a company that would put out a few unreleased or low production run games (maybe in english, too!). i see something like a cross between early working designs (without the valleyspek translations, lol) and what good deal games is doing with those new sega cd games...

[GaijinPunch]

I guess it all depends on how much they can get the license for. Look on the net- - there's translation gigs going on everywhere. They can at least sell SOMETHING.

[Ed Oscuro]

Who's to say that the Famicom/Mark 3/PC-Engine era stuff wouldn't be on floppies somewhere? I'd take source over EEPROMs if the game needed any amount of work to be done...ROM hacking only accomplishes so much.

Interesting idea for sure. Let's go buy the rights to Arkhound from Konami! :D

(When we find out it's just Contra Force, we'll have to create our own game instead)

[Captain Wrong]

This is one of the most interesting topics I've seen here in a while.

Isn't this kind of what the Good Deal Games guys have done with Sega-CD and 3DO games?

I think you're on the money about the DC games. I think good amount of time has to pass before you could get anyone to come off those games for the reasons you mentioned. Then you get into the element of what's the market for games for "dead" systems. A company is only going to sell those things if they think the profit potential is zero. I wonder how the Good Deal guys have done with what they put out.

I think at the end of the day, it'd be more of a labour of love than anything that could be seen as anything that would "make sence" to do.

[chadtower]

You've missed a gigantic bit of semantics here. you want to buy the rights to these unfinished games? I bet most companies would be like "here give me some twinkies and wash my car" and you could have them. What would that get you? Pretty much only the rights to make commercials about them since the game isn't finished.

What you're talking about isn't just the rights. You're talking about purchasing the SOURCE CODE to these unfinished games. Now THERE is a giant item that no company would sell off without really gaining something from it. A license is only the right to use the images in your own material such as pamphlets or commercials, maybe it includes selling the game with your label on it. What are you going to do with an unfinished game? Not much. You would have to buy the source code, the intellectual property, and that is a giant leap from what you've talked about so far.

[Bratwurst]

I could see it happening with underdog companies that have since gotten out of the business. With a back catalogue of software that would likely never see the light of day otherwise I'm sure someone would jump at the chance to give distribution rights, if say, they were given a cut of the profits for each copy sold. That's a situation that could very easily work in the developer's favor.

Disc based systems seem to be the only viable means of publishing though, Sega CD, TG-16 CD, Jag CD maybe even 3DO. And those sort of platforms don't even warrant the game's potential for being released as a budget PC package or PDA / Cellphone filler, so they'd be limited to targeting hardcore collector audiences for what they are/could have been. Another piece in that specific library, that is.

[bensenvill]

this is a very interesting topic, personally, I'd be much more interested in very old PC games.

there was a very interesting story I remember from ID when they went to remake Wolfenstein 3D. They went to hunt down the copyright for the game. Found out the company sold it out to someother company, went bankrupt... went through about 12 more hands before they found the holder of the copyright. He was selling disks in ziplock bags out of the trunk of his car.

I'd love it if someone knows how to track down the sales of these types of copyrights.

~Tj

[MarioAllStar2600]

If I am not mistaking Joe and Sean (?) own the rights to Commavid. I could be wrong, but I am almost positive I am right. I am pretty sure this has lead to some problems. But man, I wish I could own a Video Game Company. Even if it is broke. Hey Joe you plan on selling anytime soon? :P

[GaijinPunch]

When I said "license" I mean basically the whole kit and kaboodle. It's a games only thing, so I'm referring to basically games that aren't part of a series, that were mostly developed, and never released. PC Cocoron for the Turbo Duo would be the ultimate example if the Famicom predessor didn't exist. There was a 98-100% completed copy developed, but never released (there are even ads for it).

The problem comes in that a lot of these companies have written this stuff off. If it was a large company, then they've probably got the source sitting on disk in a vault somewhere, and aren't worried about it. The would laught at the $10,000 or so someone would offer to pick up the project, as it's just a pimple on their ass.

For yucks, I actually wrote to a company like this not long ago. It was one of the bigger ones, although they don't do games so much. They were polite, and responded incredibly quickly (same day) but basically said that they couldn't help me on any of my points (the distribution rights/source was only one of a few questions). I'll post the email on Japanese Gaming soon... likely on the weekend when I finally get that update out of the way.

EDIT:
This topic gets me thinking. Ray Force (Startling Odyssey I, II, Star Breaker, Miraculum) has an office (their only office) almost within pissing distance from my work. They've not done anything since remaking Startling Odyssey 1 for the Playstation some years ago. They were still answering emails 3 or so years ago (I got stuck in Startling Odyssey and asked if they ever had someone publish a guide. They didn't.). I couldn't imagine these guys turning down a nice bid for one of their RPGs.

[SegaAges]

all I gotta say is this: if one of you buys out a super small company, I'll buy an unreleased game from you for like 10.00

[Kejoriv]

thats a really good idea. Research it alot more and keep us updated.

[GaijinPunch]

all I gotta say is this: if one of you buys out a super small company, I'll buy an unreleased game from you for like 10.00

I think that's the business attitude you'd have to keep going in. You could probably sell the game for $10 or so. If it's an RPG (and in Japanese) you'd have to translate it. Not hard if you have the source (and a way to compile it). LOTS easier than finishing up code. Either way, it would take time and money. I figure Saturn/PSX games you might get $20-$30 for.

[DogP]

Yeah, I think that's what they do over at http://www.gooddealgames.com/ . You should email that guy and see how much he usually has to pay for that kinda thing, and what ones actually go through, and which ones are refused.

I've personally thought about tracking down some cancelled Virtual Boy developers, since there were LOTS of unfinished games over in Japan (look at the list over at www.virtual-boy.net , and there's actually screenshots, so they must have been started), and I think a lot of them aren't game makers any more, and instead of asking the company to buy it, maybe track down one of the actual programmers that would know where the source would be, and make that individual an offer.

DogP

[GaijinPunch]

Yeah, there's about 15-20 or so Virtual Boy games at my last count, there at least mentioned at one point, and never fabricated.

Doesn't gooddealgames mostly do western developed games? The main ones I'm looking into are Japanse, and unfortunately, leaks in Japan are almost unheard of.