185 NOS PCE games trade proposal - should I go for it ?

[pongstory]

Hello,

I'm new to this forum and therefore do not know if this post is at the right place. If not, I hope the admins can move it to the right place.

I run the Pong-Story site about early videogames but had some trouble with somebody to who I sold an unreleased PCE prototype. We agreed the price and the buyer sent monthly payments until he stopped paying (he owes me 25% of the agreed price which I will keep confidential).

In order to finish the deal, he's proposing 185 NOS PCE games which I'm free to sell even if I get more than what he owes me. As I'm not familiar with PCE games I wanted your opinions. But before all, and in order to respect the forum rules, should I post the list here ? If so, should I put the prices that he estimates, or should I rather ask your opinion on how much the lot is worth to compare with what he owes me, and whether it's a reasonable deal or if this would take too much time ?

Thanks for your help !

[wildfruit]

Did you know This person personally? I cant think of a situation where you would agree payments if you didn't.
Also it will be hard to judge if these games are worth it without knowing what you are owed. This other person should sell them and then pay you.

[esteban]

Hello,

I'm new to this forum and therefore do not know if this post is at the right place. If not, I hope the admins can move it to the right place.

I run the Pong-Story site about early videogames but had some trouble with somebody to who I sold an unreleased PCE prototype. We agreed the price and the buyer sent monthly payments until he stopped paying (he owes me 25% of the agreed price which I will keep confidential).

In order to finish the deal, he's proposing 185 NOS PCE games which I'm free to sell even if I get more than what he owes me. As I'm not familiar with PCE games I wanted your opinions. But before all, and in order to respect the forum rules, should I post the list here ? If so, should I put the prices that he estimates, or should I rather ask your opinion on how much the lot is worth to compare with what he owes me, and whether it's a reasonable deal or if this would take too much time ?

Thanks for your help !

Damn. You have to tell us about the PCE prototype.

Now.

Thank you.

[pongstory]

To make it short: we agreed a price. The guy paid 75% of it through several months and then stopped.
The prototype is Dino Fore.
The other option that I considered was to make a limited release, but I don't know how and I would need to refund him, which is not possible.
Making a Hu-Card version would be too expensive as far as I know.
Making a CD would hardly be feasible as I won't share the ROM (I have an MSc in software design and have good notions of assembly coding), and as the ROM is 4 megabit (4 x 128 kilobytes) which is larger than a section on a CD where it can be put (as far as I know).

Anyhow, the questions are:
- Can I post the list of games here ?
- If so, should I include the prices that the guy considered to be fair, or should I simply ask for someone to give me a rough idea of what this stuff is worth ?

Thanks !

[Punch]

Dino force? Posting before the flame war.

[elmer]

Please help me understand this pongstory ...

You got hold of a prototype PCE game cartridge for an unreleased game "Dino For(c)e".

You agreed to sell that cartridge to a "collector" for some embarrassingly large amount of money as a unique item.

The "collector" has failed to pay what he agreed to, but is trying to make up the difference in "goods" instead of "money".

You'd like a 2nd-opinion on the value of what he's offered to see if it's worth enough to meet your expectations.

You've already spent the money that he's sent you so far, and so can't just cancel the sale and refund the money.

But ... you've considered manufacturing the game so that you can get your desired profit level, although it sounds like it might be a bit difficult/expensive to you.


FYI 1: There's a guy here currently trying to selling off a large collection of factory-sealed games.

http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=19085.0

259 different titles (all new factory sealed) for 3800 US + ship.

That's $14 per game bulk-price.


FYI 2: There's another manufacturer of HuCards (apart from Aetherbyte) ...

http://www.db-elec.com/home/products/debee-card


FYI 3: As of last week's Turbo Everdrive 2 release, you should be able to manufacture a CD and have it run boot a 512KB ROM game on the PCE. It would just require a small loader program.

Or just manufacture a "collectable" CD with a 512KB ROM image that can be loaded onto any Turbo Everdrive.


But ... apart from Nullity's total hard-on at the idea of buying a game that he hasn't seen before ... is manufacturing a HuCard with someone else's game on it, for profit, any different from what Tobias is doing?

To quote Nullity from a different thread ...

How shitty!  What the hell, 2015 is shaping up to be the year of the talentless work-stealing bootlegging shitbags.  Seems every other post lately has been about some shitbag or other burning and printing some shit, and a flock of fartknockers buying it up.  I like some of the fartknockers (despite their knocking of farts), but have 0 use for the shitbags.

[HailingTheThings]

[elmer]

If someone who is out the cash for it wishes to recoup some monies and make the world 1 PCE game brighter, I approve of that more than someone with no significant investment of time or money cashing in.

Haha ... I'm not actually calling you out, I totally understand your excitement at the idea of everyone being able to get hold of an unreleased PCE game.

I'm also enough of a capitalist to support pongstory's desire to sell the prototype for what he feel's that it is worth (which is at least what someone actually agreed to pay for it).

He's come here totally honestly, been very open about the situation, and he's asked a reasonable question, to which we've both responded.

Now he's hopefully got the beginnings of an idea of the value that he's been offered by the original "buyer", and of some the alternatives if he wants to manufacture the game.

He's also still free to post a list of the games and get a more detailed idea of the value that the "buyer" is offering if pongstory wants to take the time to sell the games individually.

But beyond that information ... there are a lot of unknowns and a huge grey area, and everyone gets to decide where they stand.

FYI ... I own the copyrights on a couple of "dead" video games ... so perhaps my position on the "for profit" manufacture of old games is somewhat different to yours.

[PunkicCyborg]

Wow last thing I remember hearing about this is when the Japanese seller had it up a couple years ago then I thought they decided not to sell. Well I just looked it up and there's a vid up on YT from 2 years ago
http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=19150.0;topicseen

[esteban]

I am confused, and it smells funny:

HuCARD and CD-ROM are distinct formats.

It is not a trivial task to convert from one format to the other.

And yet...folks are talking as if the Dino Force prototype, if it exists, can effortlessly manifest itself as a HuCARD or CD-ROM.

[elmer]

Well I just looked it up and there's a vid up on YT from 2 years ago

Thanks for the pointing out that it's up there.

I just looked it up on YouTube ... what can I say ... 

I wrote more ... but really, why bother?   

[elmer]

I am confused, and it smells funny:

HuCARD and CD-ROM are distinct formats.

It is not a trivial task to convert from one format to the other.

And yet...folks are talking as if the Dino Force prototype, if it exists, can effortlessly manifest itself as a HuCARD or CD-ROM.

OK, just one more post on this, then.

pongstory already knows that he can't just burn a CD and have it work.

But it is possible to load a cartridge image off CD-ROM if you've got the right hardware.

TailChao's StupidCard would work ... it specifically supports that kind of thing, and the TED2 should allow the same thing (according to KRIKzz's information).

A PCE bootable CD could also be produced that would copy the game to a regular TED1 or TED2's SD card.

I don't think that anyone actually mentioned magically making the cartridge image into a regular real SuperCD game.

But ... if you want cash, and you don't want to pay upfont for a bunch of Aetherbyte's or dbElectronics' flash HuCards ... then there are ways to cheaply produce a version of the game on CD that a bunch of people could then buy and play.

It's an alternative ... not a great one, but still an alternative ... if you want quick and easy money, and if you don't mind limiting your potential market (until you raise enough cash to produce real carts).

It would, of course, be pirated in about 5 minutes ... but then so would any actual HuCard release.

[esteban]

I am confused, and it smells funny:

HuCARD and CD-ROM are distinct formats.

It is not a trivial task to convert from one format to the other.

And yet...folks are talking as if the Dino Force prototype, if it exists, can effortlessly manifest itself as a HuCARD or CD-ROM.

OK, just one more post on this, then.

pongstory already knows that he can't just burn a CD and have it work.

But it is possible to load a cartridge image off CD-ROM if you've got the right hardware.

TailChao's StupidCard would work ... it specifically supports that kind of thing, and the TED2 should allow the same thing (according to KRIKzz's information).

A PCE bootable CD could also be produced that would copy the game to a regular TED1 or TED2's SD card.

I don't think that anyone actually mentioned magically making the cartridge image into a regular real SuperCD game.

But ... if you want cash, and you don't want to pay upfont for a bunch of Aetherbyte's or dbElectronics' flash HuCards ... then there are ways to cheaply produce a version of the game on CD that a bunch of people could then buy and play.

It's an alternative ... not a great one, but still an alternative ... if you want quick and easy money, and if you don't mind limiting your potential market (until you raise enough cash to produce real carts).

It would, of course, be pirated in about 5 minutes ... but then so would any actual HuCard release.

Gotcha, understood.

[pongstory]

Thanks for you replies.
I indeed have this Dino Force prototype.
What I forgot to say is that the guy was supposed to pay for the price, and stopped paying without prior notice. That's why I didn't keep the money in a safe way. Anyhow.

The list of games proposed is here:
http://www.pong-story.com/temp/nec.txt

I do not have these games. The prices are what the guy considers they are worth, which I doubt after checking some ebay sales.

There are two questions now.
1) What, in the worst case, would I get from all these games, especially from those which would sell faster, and then once all the rest is sold ?
2) If it's really not worth selling these games, how much would a HuCard release of Dino Force cost, including a nice label / case to make real collector ? How many should I make and what would be the typical resale price ? If this can pay for my investment, I'll then propose the guy to refund him little by little in order to compensate the income from the release. But that's just a blur idea. I'll check the new hucard you're talking about and see how this looks like.

Thanks for your hints. I hope I can solve my problem soon, whichever option is best.
And yes, I would love to see a release of this game to share it, but only if it can cover my initial investment (which I prefer not to disclose so far).

[bob]