That Tobias f--k went after Xak III and SO II as pressed CD-ROM releases!

[Necromancer]

I don't see a warning message doing anything, as everyone that buys these things knows exactly what they're getting and its history.  It'd be like the annoying FBI and Interpol messages on DVDs.

[Medic_wheat]

The thing is that the repro scene is FULL of this shit. This isn't the first time someone's translation was taken and sold without consent and you can damn well bet it won't be the last. Any of you who have ever been to any kind of game convention knows this. I'm not justifying it, I'm just saying that this guy isn't the only problem here.

It is one of those situations where. Honestly?

Someone is always going to try and capitalize on readidly available free shit


Do you think all of those people who spent time ripping roms from video games and arcades are pissed that someone goes out and makes cartd that allow you to play entire back log of games on old systems?

Or that Retron5 used coding from various people like you to run their clone system.

Yes people made a shint but you don't see the Retron5 decreasing in sales or availability.

You need to make your own choice. Even if that choice is to do nothing other then voice your concerns or displeasure.

You are under no obligation to tell anyone if you should accept rembursment for your work or what have you.


But to me. Making it known that your work was used without prior notification or consent to the person making the money was a good move. Maybe better if it was worded more professionally instead of with such heated emotion.

The pro they guy contacted you and is willing to come to some form of terms because you made yourself known


All that is left is to decide if you accept counter with your own terms or say no.


Say what you will but a good faith effort was made on the part of this Tobias guy. Sure it is to save face but at lest the effort was made.


For all he knew he was unable to find the people involved in this patch so he went on his marry way. Played the dumb card until it was point out other wise.

[esteban]

The thing is that the repro scene is FULL of this shit. This isn't the first time someone's translation was taken and sold without consent and you can damn well bet it won't be the last. Any of you who have ever been to any kind of game convention knows this. I'm not justifying it, I'm just saying that this guy isn't the only problem here.

It is one of those situations where. Honestly?

Someone is always going to try and capitalize on readidly available free shit


Do you think all of those people who spent time ripping roms from video games and arcades are pissed that someone goes out and makes cartd that allow you to play entire back log of games on old systems?

Or that Retron5 used coding from various people like you to run their clone system.

Yes people made a shint but you don't see the Retron5 decreasing in sales or availability.

You need to make your own choice. Even if that choice is to do nothing other then voice your concerns or displeasure.

You are under no obligation to tell anyone if you should accept rembursment for your work or what have you.


But to me. Making it known that your work was used without prior notification or consent to the person making the money was a good move. Maybe better if it was worded more professionally instead of with such heated emotion.

The pro they guy contacted you and is willing to come to some form of terms because you made yourself known


All that is left is to decide if you accept counter with your own terms or say no.


Say what you will but a good faith effort was made on the part of this Tobias guy. Sure it is to save face but at lest the effort was made.


For all he knew he was unable to find the people involved in this patch so he went on his marry way. Played the dumb card until it was point out other wise.

Please don't post unless you read this thread. Or the other threads related to this. Thank you.

[geise]

The thing is that the repro scene is FULL of this shit. This isn't the first time someone's translation was taken and sold without consent and you can damn well bet it won't be the last. Any of you who have ever been to any kind of game convention knows this. I'm not justifying it, I'm just saying that this guy isn't the only problem here.

Why would you want Nightwolv to associate himself with a douchebag that will probably lie and give him pennies.  Once that money is taken Nightwolv has already associated himself.  Nightwolv I know the money can be tempting but he is going to short change you anyways and pocket most of it.  I will not judge if this is what you do, but I hope you tell him to just go be the main event at a donkey show.

[BigusSchmuck]

The thing is that the repro scene is FULL of this shit. This isn't the first time someone's translation was taken and sold without consent and you can damn well bet it won't be the last. Any of you who have ever been to any kind of game convention knows this. I'm not justifying it, I'm just saying that this guy isn't the only problem here.

Yeah look at the Dragon Quest 6 repro for one. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dragon-Quest-Warrior-VI-6-Game-Cartridge-SNES-Super-Nintendo-ENGLISH-Version-/291385767171?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43d7f1f503
I'm sure there are countless others but I'm sure the guys who created the english patch for it aren't amused.

[Joe Redifer]

First of all I don't think we should presume what decision Nightwolve should or should not make. That's 100% up to him and nobody else's bidness.

Secondly, it's easy to spew hatred for this kind of thing in the safety of an online forum. But do any of you and I mean ANY OF YOU go up to the countless dealers selling repros at game conventions and give them any sort of shit at all about selling stuff that doesn't belong to them? Do you ask them if they procured permission to use the particular English patch they're using? Why not? When I was at Retropalooza I was blown away by the sheer amount of repros for sale. It almost made wandering around the dealer floor less exciting so I generally just stayed put at my booth.

[SignOfZeta]

I don't see a warning message doing anything, as everyone that buys these things knows exactly what they're getting and its history.  It'd be like the annoying FBI and Interpol messages on DVDs.

I don't know who buys these things, honestly, I really don't. However I don't think every single person who buys them realizes that this is a game you can buy off YAJ for $1 and patch yourself for free, and that Tobias is taking freely available files that cost him nothing, applying a patch some hippie coder spent five years on, and then pocketing $0.95 of every dollar. I really don't think EVERYONE knows EXACTLY that, but then I have to admit I don't know WTF goes through the minds of these idiots.

And the FBI warning reference is completely off base. For starters, pirate copies of things usually have that warning removed. Only paying customers see that shit most of the time, which is why those warnings are counterproductive. (Additionally, threatening your customers with jail time is rarely a smart move). Also, ever since the DVD era those warnings have been mostly unskipable, which isn't something I'm talking about. I'm just suggesting that the title screen, which is probably going to be edited anyway, could have a statement like the one I described. Back in the days of VHS anime fansubs these techniques certainly did work. "If you paid money for this you got ripped off." is actually a pretty powerful message for a person who did in fact just go through that transaction. Some kid would buy the tape at a show for whatever price, sees the thing, and then learns he can get the shit for free or the price of a tape. Those comic convention bootleggers probably drove more people to the actual fansub scene than anyone.

The one thing that has no analog to the 90s fansub scene is the fact that people are making and paying real money for extra special deluxe editions of pirate material. I'm pretty sure that's a new thing.

[esteban]

First of all I don't think we should presume what decision Nightwolve should or should not make. That's 100% up to him and nobody else's bidness.

Secondly, it's easy to spew hatred for this kind of thing in the safety of an online forum. But do any of you and I mean ANY OF YOU go up to the countless dealers selling repros at game conventions and give them any sort of shit at all about selling stuff that doesn't belong to them? Do you ask them if they procured permission to use the particular English patch they're using? Why not? When I was at Retropalooza I was blown away by the sheer amount of repros for sale. It almost made wandering around the dealer floor less exciting so I generally just stayed put at my booth.

?

We have a small TG-16/PCE community (I like to think we have a lot of the "DIY ethic" that characterized punk movement, see anecdote in next post). Tobias is a known entity who has a history with us.

We already have 2+ other threads explaining how profiteering, from Tobias, has negatively affected the folks who actually create indie/homebrew/hack/dub/sub/translation/etc. projects.

Our specific situation with Tobias is just that—our specific situation with Tobias.

Thank you.

[esteban]

I don't see a warning message doing anything, as everyone that buys these things knows exactly what they're getting and its history.  It'd be like the annoying FBI and Interpol messages on DVDs.

I don't know who buys these things, honestly, I really don't. However I don't think every single person who buys them realizes that this is a game you can buy off YAJ for $1 and patch yourself for free, and that Tobias is taking freely available files that cost him nothing, applying a patch some hippie coder spent five years on, and then pocketing $0.95 of every dollar. I really don't think EVERYONE knows EXACTLY that, but then I have to admit I don't know WTF goes through the minds of these idiots.

And the FBI warning reference is completely off base. For starters, pirate copies of things usually have that warning removed. Only paying customers see that shit most of the time, which is why those warnings are counterproductive. (Additionally, threatening your customers with jail time is rarely a smart move). Also, ever since the DVD era those warnings have been mostly unskipable, which isn't something I'm talking about. I'm just suggesting that the title screen, which is probably going to be edited anyway, could have a statement like the one I described. Back in the days of VHS anime fansubs these techniques certainly did work. "If you paid money for this you got ripped off." is actually a pretty powerful message for a person who did in fact just go through that transaction. Some kid would buy the tape at a show for whatever price, sees the thing, and then learns he can get the shit for free or the price of a tape. Those comic convention bootleggers probably drove more people to the actual fansub scene than anyone.

The one thing that has no analog to the 90s fansub scene is the fact that people are making and paying real money for extra special deluxe editions of pirate material. I'm pretty sure that's a new thing.

I agree that a notice on the title screen is actually a good idea for actually *educating* folks.


Let me share a history lesson with everyone here:

Back in the day, lots of DIY punk bands wanted to get their music into as many hands as possible for a fair price. So they charged a fair price via mail order and trusted independent distributors. HOWEVER, lots of greedy bastards (record shops) sold the records at "regular" price, which allowed the record shop to make more profit from ignorant customers.

SO, the bands would put disclaimers on the actual record art "This EP IS AVAILABLE FOR $3.00 from" or "Pay no more than $3.00 for this EP"

This seemingly futile disclaimer actually worked for *some* customers. Many customers are ignorant and remain ignorant. Other customers don't care. But, I guarantee, at least a handful of customers *did care*, and *educated themselves* and stopped filling the pockets of the profiteers.

I was one of those ignorant customers.

Not for long, Thankfully.

Because of a stupid disclaimer.

I started buying records from honest folks instead of price-gougers.

[SamIAm]

Another option might be to make a disclaimer warning screen that says "don't buy this blah blah blah", but make it very easy to hack out....

...then have the game check to see if it's been hacked out halfway through a play, and freeze up if it is. If we're really diabolical, we could even have it jack up the difficulty, then delete the save file 3/4 through.

This is actually what Earthbound did to prevent people from using copiers BITD. That game is the most heavily protected I have ever seen. Even today, I fear playing it via any means other than a real cart.

[Black Tiger]

Another option might be to make a disclaimer warning screen that says "don't buy this blah blah blah", but make it very easy to hack out....

...then have the game check to see if it's been hacked out halfway through a play, and freeze up if it is. If we're really diabolical, we could even have it jack up the difficulty, then delete the save file 3/4 through.

This is actually what Earthbound did to prevent people from using copiers BITD. That game is the most heavily protected I have ever seen. Even today, I fear playing it via any means other than a real cart.

That would require collectards to take their extremely Limited Edition Collector's Sets off their shelves, being carefully not to drop the Limited Edition PC Engine coin, tear open their sealed TurboDuo and actually play through the games.

[SamIAm]

Even the worst collector isn't so stupid as to want a game that doesn't work. If word got out that this guy shipped hundreds of discs that can't actually be played, sales of that particular game would essentially stop, and his reputation would take a big hit.

[technozombie]

First of all I don't think we should presume what decision Nightwolve should or should not make. That's 100% up to him and nobody else's bidness.

Secondly, it's easy to spew hatred for this kind of thing in the safety of an online forum. But do any of you and I mean ANY OF YOU go up to the countless dealers selling repros at game conventions and give them any sort of shit at all about selling stuff that doesn't belong to them? Do you ask them if they procured permission to use the particular English patch they're using? Why not? When I was at Retropalooza I was blown away by the sheer amount of repros for sale. It almost made wandering around the dealer floor less exciting so I generally just stayed put at my booth.

I was also surprised by how prevalent the repros were at Retropalooza. Oddly enough there were no flash carts anywhere. It was really eye opening as to how this hobby has become more about showing off than playing games. If you were interested in playing games you'd get an everdrive, if you want to show off on Facebook and to your friends you buy a repro.

[Joe Redifer]

Man I LOVE stuff like the Everdrive. I really wish there were options for CD based systems that didn't require you to gut out or otherwise molest the system. That said I'd be happy to buy a secondary Dreamcast with a non-working drive once that SD card thingy is ready to go (not the one that attaches on the serial port). But I don't want to lose the ability to play real CDs. That mans I'd have to find an extra Turbo CD and lots of other systems if solutions to those were found.

[Medic_wheat]

Man I LOVE stuff like the Everdrive. I really wish there were options for CD based systems that didn't require you to gut out or otherwise molest the system. That said I'd be happy to buy a secondary Dreamcast with a non-working drive once that SD card thingy is ready to go (not the one that attaches on the serial port). But I don't want to lose the ability to play real CDs. That mans I'd have to find an extra Turbo CD and lots of other systems if solutions to those were found.

Must imagine if you will a Frankienstiens Monster Cd system.


The mangled body of a Sega Saturn/DC with RGB port drilled into one end. And the guts stuffed with a SD card reader.