Rob Fulop's Actionauts is Ready!

[Rob Fulop]

I don't really think there is any misunderstanding about pricing, nor do I think you understand that the collector's marlket for the 2600 is often the very same as the gamer's market.

Well, what I know is that if I sell one to you for $50, you would still be unhappy ... I took down the ordering system earlier because I ran out of the first 100 and I really don't think anybody who purchased one will be unhappy .. they know what they are buying and realize it's a bargain at that price. Your values are different, again .. this is NOT something "for you" ... no different than a guy who likes red meat isn't going to feel very satisfied sitting down for dinner in a vegetarian restaurant.

Going on Atari Age and telling people that you have some expectation that you should be paid more than an assistant manager at Jack in the Box for the time you spent on the game is a slap in the face to every other programmer who has ever released a homebrew or collectible game for the 2600 and earned next to nothing for it.

Not as much as the slap in the face that I received being told that the expectation of some people in this community is that I should donate my time ... did Chuck Jones give away his animation cells? This community occurs to me as a collector community, no different than comics, or any other similar community of enthusiasts who share a passion. People from the 'old school' whose work basically laid the foundation for the whole shebang are simply NOT going to be cool being told that the community expects them to keep providing entertainment without reasonable compensation. I have a great many 'old school' colleagues who are very aware of what has happened here ... who like me, have several unfinished original works lying around their desk drawers, some dating back as far as 35 years. And given the conversations I've had with these folks over the last few days, they have not the slightest interest in going through what I went through trying to offer something of interest. They just don't want to bother ... not if their work is going to be compared to a current "homebrew" ... which often is built entirely out of code and techniques that the 'old school' pioneered in the first place. The disassembled and commented code that I personally wrote is passed around like candy from one homebrew author to another ... teaching them how to make the 2600 sing and dance. And that's really cool .. I'm delighted actually. But to be told that I should not expect compensation for the time and effort I put in here, because these homebrew authors work for free, so should I .. is like a joke, okay? A bad one.

Your attitude is the reason this community will die of neglect .. it's the reason people like me will never again bother to lift a finger doing something like this again. Sorry, it's just so. Nobody gave Chuck Jones a hard time when he put his animation cells on the market .. quite the opposite. The market set the high ticket price, not Mr. Jones. I know this because I purchased one .. and it was worth every one of the 50 $100 bills I paid. I did not decide that Cubicolor is worth $1000 .. people like you did. So please don't give me a hard time about a $79 price for a unique piece of 2600 history, ok? I guarantee that you would not be happy with the game were it offered to you at $29 ... and plenty of folks are delighted to pay $79 since they were expecting to pay a lot more. The people who harbor the ill will you speak of are NOT the people who are carrying the torch of this community forward .. quite the opposite. It's precisely those people who will insure that the decline in the interest level of this group continues to slowly spiral down, until eventually it fizzles out.