PCEWorks is back to making passable bootlegs and lots of them

[esteban]

If you're wondering what kind of harm he does by ripping off things from the community, by the way, there are two factors. The first is that it's demoralizing to see your work used in that way, and in the absence of money, morale is the only thing that fuels these projects. The second is that it potentially moves us all under the eye of relevant copyright holders who can then start throwing around cease-and-desist orders. I have a feeling that Konami doesn't give a damn, but as the keepers of the entire Hudson estate, they could give us all a good scare if they decided they wanted to start barking loudly.

Indeed.

[Gypsy]

I had a dude who was saying how the PS2 trounced the OG Xbox in every conceivable way. That was fun for me.

This had to be incredible. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how someone could even come to that conclusion. The Xbox is technically superior (as it should be since it came out later). Microsoft really did a good job making it HD friendly.

Both are good systems honestly. Have both, play both, enjoy both.

[elmer]

If you're wondering what kind of harm he does by ripping off things from the community, by the way, there are two factors. The first is that it's demoralizing to see your work used in that way, and in the absence of money, morale is the only thing that fuels these projects. The second is that it potentially moves us all under the eye of relevant copyright holders who can then start throwing around cease-and-desist orders. I have a feeling that Konami doesn't give a damn, but as the keepers of the entire Hudson estate, they could give us all a good scare if they decided they wanted to start barking loudly.

Indeed.

Yep ... the idea of putting in hundreds/thousands of hours of unpaid work on a translation just "For the love of it" (sic), and then to have someone take it and try to make money off of all your hard work (and be praised by collectors-of-plastic) ... is very demoralizing.

IMHO, it's the kind of selfish act that will kill people's willingness to work on translations far more surely than any Konami C&D.

In the case of the Legend of Xanadu games, they've both been completely re-compressed in order to get the translations to fit into memory on an SCD.

That compression code and method is my copyrighted property, the translation won't work without it, and it will not be licensed to Tobias.

That should be enough to give us legal-standing to get a C&D against PCEWorks, even if Falcom don't care (which I think that they would, since they actually still sell both of the Legend of Xanadu games on the Wii Virtual Console).

[TheClash603]

I had a friend that was selling bootleg football jerseys for $40 a pop and he got a cease and desist letter from the NFL. 

A "friend"... Riiiight!

I will introduce you to him, DaCa$h6O3.

[seieienbu]

I don't really have a problem with piracy and bootlegs in general.  If somebody wants to sell Magical Chase repros then I couldn't care less.  If the guy making the bootlegs charges to make a profit then that's fine.  In this particular case Tobias lied, cheated, swindled people with fakes and then stole projects from persons currently active in the community for a quick buck.  These two things lead me personally to want to not have any dealings with the man's business.

My limited knowledge of economics tells me that there is clearly a market for these types of things and the high profitability of bootlegs will (eventually) lead to others making copies of PC Engine games.  Even if some guy charged exactly as much as Tobias, I would be happy to fill in the expensive gaps in my collection of games I want to play.  Optimally, multiple people would have a pricing war and in the end a CD with a manual and a nice case would become pretty cheap regardless of what game it was ripping off. 

So long story short?  My fingers are crossed that other bootleggers take notice on Tobias' profiteering and on the current stupid high ebay prices on some PC Engine/Turbografx games and see that a market with demand is there thus there is money up for grabs.

[Otaking]

IMO you can't say one type of bootlegging is ok and then for whatever reason another is not ok, at the end of the day it's all using someone else's IP to sell something you don't own the rights to.
So taking into account what I just said at the end of the day there's no difference between the repro hucards sold on this site and Tobias's bootleg stuff.

I'm not a fan of Tobias myslef mostly because I love fan translated games, and what he is doing is putting in jepardy translations in the future. He should of contacted the translators first and asked permission and offered a cut of profits. That is my ONLY issue with him, I couldn't give a f*ck about anything else TBH. If dipshit idiots want to spend dollars on his energy drinks, collectors coins or panties that's up to them, I don't care.

More my point though is I find it jarring when people are pissed at Tobias mainly just about him bootlegging yet are fine with the bootleg hucards on this forum, they're both bootlegs! just the difference is one person is friends with people on the forum so gets a pass.

[bob]

the tobias crap is worse than the hu cards partly because of the motive.  the pce works stuff is aimed at the collectard mentality who want pretty packaging to fap to on the shelf.  most of the people that buy it are peobably never going to fire them up because they dont want to take thier duo out of the box.

as for the hu's, to me, it seems like they were being created for the sole purpose of people playing them, sans emulator, who might not otherwise have a chance.  the cases are totally different with no flashy coins or stupid crap like that.  most of the work went into simulating the huc itself accurately.  for that i applaud.

[sirhcman]

as for the hu's, to me, it seems like they were being created for the sole purpose of people playing them, sans emulator, who might not otherwise have a chance. 

Just get an everdrive if you want to play the games. Both PCE Works and the HuCard bootlegs pander to collectors

[Black Tiger]

Unique looking bootleg HuCards with commercial game roms on them is strictly a collectarded thing, just several tiers below Tobias' products.

I love the novelty of being able to have authorized homebrew projects on dedicated HuCards and having them in a homemade case. It's cool that at a game show people might come across a PCE setup playing HuZero on a HuCard and ask what the hell is going on.

Anyone who just wants to play commercial game roms can buy a TED for the price of a couple bootleg HuCards.

I understand how someone might feel if they end up with all but a few TurboChips and would like the novelty of putting something inside of their Sparky labeled novelty cases. But I'd rather put a homemade stickers on a few copies of Gunboat or Falcon and have them in those cases, as they'd actually look and feel like the real deal.

[Necromancer]

It's amazing how many people still say there's zero difference between the repro hueys and the stuff Tobias has done.  This bullshit has been discussed how many times now, with the same issues being brought up each and every f*cking time, yet some chucklef*cks continue on with the simplified (and naive) drum beat of "It's all bootlegging!  It's identical!!!"

Seriously, it's not hard to see the difference between a profit margin of 10-20% and one of 1000%, in selling translation hacks and homebrews only with permission and selling anything you can get your hands on, or in selling things that're obviously unoriginal and selling things that are only distinguishable if you know what to look for and are advertised as legitimate.


As for this latest round of booties, I don't mind 'em too much.  Assuming they all have the logo on the disc and manual back cover (not all of 'em are shown), they're easy enough to distinguish as repros; even the sealed ones, seeing as the shrink wrap isn't even close.  Still, that only applies to the disc and manual, as someone could easily pass off the back insert and spine as originals.

[Bonknuts]

I wrote a post, but then deleted it. Pretty much what Necro said. Also, there is difference in people who do bootleg for the community, usually respect the community (don't take stuff from the community without permission), and those who claim respect or for the community - but are solely in the profit for it. I'm not saying one is illegal and the other is not, disregarding the legality of even having roms/rips of games you don't own - on your PC or emulation device, but there is a difference in motive here. And I don't think this whole black and white perspective of it's "all bootleg", is representative at all of the issue. Maybe that difference doesn't mean anything to you personally, but it's something that should be acknowledged. I mean, it gets to the core of all this - motives, and the effect and implications of those motives.

[sirhcman]

I'm glad these were offered to the community at an affordable rate http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=20020.0

[geise]

The whole point of this thread is the fact that "new bootlegs" are being sold with no indication as being a bootleg. So, anyone either new to pce or a veteran could have no idea that they are buying a boot if it's new.  This should be known to anyone regardless of how they feel about buying bootlegs or not.  It is not fair if someone comes along and has no idea they're buying a pceworks boot and want a legit copy.  If I can stray at least one person away from buying a boot (especially from Tobias) that wants a legit copy, but give 10 others that don't care and just want to collect it is a win in my book.

[Gredler]

I'm glad these were offered to the community at an affordable rate http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=20020.0

This link was blocked by my work's spam filter, wat?

[esteban]

The whole point of this thread is the fact that "new bootlegs" are being sold with no indication as being a bootleg. So, anyone either new to pce or a veteran could have no idea that they are buying a boot if it's new.  This should be known to anyone regardless of how they feel about buying bootlegs or not.  It is not fair if someone comes along and has no idea they're buying a pceworks boot and want a legit copy.  If I can stray at least one person away from buying a boot (especially from Tobias) that wants a legit copy, but give 10 others that don't care and just want to collect it is a win in my book.

Yes. That's correct: helping just one person makes it worthwhile. We can't save a f*cktard from being a f*cktard, necessarily, but someone who is simply ignorant can (potentially) be helped.