Games with low production runs, like Air Raid

[Sylentwulf]

OK, so it's thought that there are around 5 copies of air raid out there (obviously, it could be 1,000 if there is a stockpile of them in the back of a warehouse, but whatever)

How exactly does a game get a production run of FIVE?
Were they made by hand? Did the machine break? Was there a fire somewhere? Did the delivery truck get abducted by aliens?

[chadtower]

OK, so it's thought that there are around 5 copies of air raid out there (obviously, it could be 1,000 if there is a stockpile of them in the back of a warehouse, but whatever)

How exactly does a game get a production run of FIVE?
Were they made by hand? Did the machine break? Was there a fire somewhere? Did the delivery truck get abducted by aliens?

Likely story: a thousand gets produced. The market is dead at this point. 50 sell at clearance price, the rest get destroyed when they never sell. Of those 50, 40 of them eventually get thrown away/broken. That leaves you with 10. 5 are known. The other 5 could be in basements, closets, in the hands of people who aren't on the scene.

[Mr. Smashy]

What about games like the AES Euro Kizuna Encounter?

[SoulBlazer]

If I recall correctly -- and I'm sure someone some of our Neo Geo fans can respond if I'm wrong -- most of the Neo Geo carts were either hand made or made on a small printing run in a minor factory for most of the system's life.

[ianoid]

There are certainly more than 5 copies of Air Raid out there. There are probably another 5 in 'collectors' hands, minimum. That is, 5 other folks who have awareness of having games and could enter those games into circulation (whether or not they realize that those are $2000 Air Raid carts or not.)

A production run of 1000 is still tiny, and could account for the 5 Air Raids that we've come up with. With a price of $2500-3300 on file on eBay, more will come up in the following months/years.

Notice that carts with far higher presumed production runs still remain seemingly quite tough to find. We could guess that many thousand Quadruns are out there, and tens of thousands of Track and Fields, and yet we see few of those anywhere, given their relative occurances.

I think we underestimate the production runs as collectors because of our consideration of AVAILABILITY which is not always proportionate to production number or rarity.

[Starcade]

Yeah, I would imagine their is some huge stock-pile of Air-raids sitting in a warehouse, someday, when someone finds them and makes $20,000 off selling a few of them on Ebay, the price will keep dropping untill it's around the $100-$200 dollar range, most likely. Damn supply and demand!

I think it would be neat to actually hunt a game that only had 20 or so copies worldwide.

[JLukas]

If I recall correctly -- and I'm sure someone some of our Neo Geo fans can respond if I'm wrong -- most of the Neo Geo carts were either hand made or made on a small printing run in a minor factory for most of the system's life.

Kizuna Encounter had a "normal" Japanese release. Since the data on Neo Geo carts is identical between regions, all they had to do was print up a few cart labels, manuals and inserts to make a Euro release. I would guess they did it to clear out leftover inventory they couldn't sell in Japan. SNK did this with other games, some they just put a US/Euro label right over the Japanese one.

[rbudrick]

Kizuna Encounter had a "normal" Japanese release. Since the data on Neo Geo carts is identical between regions, all they had to do was print up a few cart labels, manuals and inserts to make a Euro release. I would guess they did it to clear out leftover inventory they couldn't sell in Japan. SNK did this with other games, some they just put a US/Euro label right over the Japanese one.

Yeah, that's probably it....although it was such a small amount of extra stock, I'm not sure why they'd bother. Bah...its a secret to everyone...

-Rob

[GaijinPunch]

Yeah, I would imagine their is some huge stock-pile of Air-raids sitting in a warehouse, someday, when someone finds them and makes $20,000 off selling a few of them on Ebay,

Hopefully not. For those that don't keep up with Japanese games, several complete copies of Circus Lido for the PC-Engine were selling for 300,000 - 350,000 yen on Yahoo Japan. Then, all of a sudden, hundreds of them were available from amazon.co.jp, for their retail price of 3800 yen. Did someone get rich? Well, Amazon Japan made a lot of money selling probably 1000 or so copies of a game, and a few people here and there sold a few around the $500 mark (even to some overpriced shops in Akihabara me thinks) but for the most part, the value of the game went down about 1000-fold.

[Griking]

But that's the chance you take when you pay 1000s of dollars for something that was probably sold for a few dollars new.

I have to agree that I believe there's a lot more copied of these really rare games out there somewhere. They may be in collecter's hands who just don't want to be known or they may be locked up in a warehouse with tons of Cabbage Patch Kid dolls that have been forgotten about and haven't been looked at sinse the 80s.

[ianoid]

Yeah, I would imagine their is some huge stock-pile of Air-raids sitting in a warehouse, someday, when someone finds them and makes $20,000 off selling a few of them on Ebay, the price .

Reality check: there are probably no people in the market for a 2600 cart, no matter how rare, for more than $5,000. That being said, I would expect a complete in box Air Raid to fetch $3k-$5k. Sometimes these incredibly rare games just don't get the hugest premium with the box- they are so rare in any state that market forces and personal circumstances of the active collector milieu have more import. The high end market contains maybe 10 people willing to regularly throw down over $1000 for their last few carts, and maybe 10 off/on types. This is in the whole world. Small inconsistent market.

[qbertandernie]

i would bet there are many more air raid(or other carts) in existence. i think most people that have old systems just dont care to know what they are worth, so they throw them in the garage and forget about them... the question is whether they surface to a collector or whether some college kid buys them at a garage sale, spills beer on them and throws them out.

[goatdan]

I don't understand why games like Air Raid are even considered full releases that cost so much. If there was a production run of 500 of them, how does that make them any different than certain homebrews?

Realistically, I don't think it would be fun to hunt a game that has a production run less than 1000 because it would cost so much money and the chances of you finding it in the wild are much, much lower. To me at least, the thrill of the hunt just wouldn't be there if there was only one copy of the game known to exist in every two and a half states.

[kingpong]

I don't understand why games like Air Raid are even considered full releases that cost so much. If there was a production run of 500 of them, how does that make them any different than certain homebrews?

Games like Air Raid are commercial products, produced by business enterprises seeking to make a profit from the sales of the game during a time when that sort of product was a viable one to bring to market. Homebrews are produced by hobbyists and enthusiasts who are more interested in the process of making the game than selling it, with sales being only a secondary or tertiary concern - the money is a nice bonus, making you feel like you got something out of all that time spent on the game, but not terribly important. Sure, there have been a few homebrew endeavors that have been more sales focused than most, but they still aren't the same.

If there's not a difference between games like Air Raid and homebrews, then the rarest and most valuable baseball card must not be a T206 Honus Wagner card, but rather my Little League baseball picture from 20 years ago with my name and batting average written on the back, since I only know of one of those.

[Duncan]

Mild subject change, but what about something like Chavez II for SNES? (I just found one this weekend, so I'm biased. )

That one's listed as an R8 -- is it simply for accessibility reasons (like you find with certain Japanese imports), or was it specifically known to have a low production run?

[Griking]

I don't understand why games like Air Raid are even considered full releases that cost so much. If there was a production run of 500 of them, how does that make them any different than certain homebrews?.

Weren't all Atari 2600 by companies other than Atari technically homebrews since there wasn't any sort of licensing agreement required to make games for the console at the time?

Games like Air Raid are commercial products, produced by business enterprises seeking to make a profit from the sales of the game during a time when that sort of product was a viable one to bring to market.

How can we really call Men-A-Vision a "business enterprise"? What do we really know about the company. It honestly could have been a few smart teenagers making them in their garages for all we know. There were more than a few companies like this making games for the 2600.

[Duncan]

I don't understand why games like Air Raid are even considered full releases that cost so much. If there was a production run of 500 of them, how does that make them any different than certain homebrews?.

Weren't all Atari 2600 by companies other than Atari technically homebrews since there wasn't any sort of licensing agreement required to make games for the console at the time?

I wouldn't call them homebrews -- they were intended for mass sale at the time, even if many of them never came close.

If you're referring to the kind of licensing arrangement that puts a "Nintendo Seal of Quality" or similar on every game, then no, they didn't have that. But many unlicensed games for the NES (like the Color Dreams or AGC titles) exist, and they aren't considered homebrews either.

It's hard to draw lines as to what is and isn't considered "official" -- that's why it's easier to simply include everything that was released during the system's lifespan.

[goatdan]

I don't understand why games like Air Raid are even considered full releases that cost so much. If there was a production run of 500 of them, how does that make them any different than certain homebrews?.

Weren't all Atari 2600 by companies other than Atari technically homebrews since there wasn't any sort of licensing agreement required to make games for the console at the time?

I wouldn't call them homebrews -- they were intended for mass sale at the time, even if many of them never came close.

If you're referring to the kind of licensing arrangement that puts a "Nintendo Seal of Quality" or similar on every game, then no, they didn't have that. But many unlicensed games for the NES (like the Color Dreams or AGC titles) exist, and they aren't considered homebrews either.

It's hard to draw lines as to what is and isn't considered "official" -- that's why it's easier to simply include everything that was released during the system's lifespan.

Well, yes... This is at least part of what I'm saying.

I helped to release Feet of Fury for the Dreamcast which will have a final production run of 5000 copies when they sell out. We have agreed with Cryptic Allusion, LLC to not produce any more beyond that point.

Duncan, as a counterpoint Feet of Fury came out during when the Dreamcast was still a viable one (games were still being made in Japan) and it was completed to seek a profit from the sales of it ultimately, although the main goal of it was to continue the legacy of the Dreamcast. I really don't see how it is any different than Air Raid, yet I don't think that it will be worth $2000 per copy in twenty years. I find it odd that a 2600 game with much of the same legacy is worth this much... and as Griking pointed out -- how much do we know about Men-A-Vision? It isn't a game like Activision or anything else.

We know for a fact that a company like Color Dreams or even Panesian existed and we know some of their history. We also know that there were cartridges for the NES produced that claimed to have 50 in 1 and contained pirated versions and some new versions of other games. These are much rarer, but for the most part people won't pay $500 + for them.

I guess I just find it odd that the 2600 has a few games that are SO expensive, yet it seems to only be the 2600. Not that I'm complaining -- I'm not searching to find an Air Raid cartridge -- but it just is interesting to me.

[leorange]

BS or not BS? You be the judge.

[goatdan]

BS or not BS? You be the judge.

BS. Thrifts don't charge $0.99 cents for their carts anymore! That had to cost him at least $18.00!

...Oh, and seriously... BS because of how much crappier the cart scans appeared compared to the fabric behind them.