Personally, I see scarce reasons for buying games that are no good, simply because they are rare.
Many collectors incorrectly believe that possessing something which no one else has makes them somehow more special or respectable by keeping it to themselves and never allowing for their games to reach public eyes. However, said attitudes are despised by the majority and in fact promote selfish behavior, as well as giving people a similar notion which is wrong. A person is more honorable and respectable when they are willing to sacrifice the ‘value’ of something for the sake of others, to share and to preserve. (i.e.; Brandon Murphy of California Raisins proto fame)
Typically, there is no true fulfilling power in collectables. You may have the entire collection of Virtual Boy games but unless there is much of a reason for owning such games (i.e.; as reference material, if you are sharing data on a web/historical resource like this) then I cannot see why one would be paying outrageous prices for games you will never use or play. Perhaps to some it is entertaining to engage the repulsive quality of games like Insmouse or Waterworld, but for 300-400 dollars, you could be purchasing more enjoyable and entertaining titles, making a ROM download a better option for that case. Likewise, you could invest in numerous other practical non-game items.
However, as referenced above, it depends more on WHY you collect.
This is more of a question to the people who actually spend that much themselves to own those kinds of games, the kind of person you may be selling that rare game to that you’ve found in a thrift shop cheap.
Any questions, comments, or critique are welcomed. Please show respect to everyone in your replies.
Here’s an idea… if people really want these rare VB games, but don’t want to shell out $500+ to play it, why not get a group of VB fanatics to all chip in a small percentage and buy the game off of eBay or something?
For example, if Gundam sells for $500 and you have 20 VB fanatics each donate a modest $25 each, you can buy the cart and then have someone dump it. Once the cart gets dumped, you can resell it on eBay and start it off at a low price with no reserve just to guarantee it will sell back. So lets say once the cart is dumped, it resells on eBay for only $300, that means that everyone will at least get $12 of their original $25 back. So in total you would be paying $13 for a ROM of Gundam. If you have even more fans willing to pay for the game, then you end up paying even less.
I don’t know who would organize something like this, but it would have to be someone trustworthy. I mean, fans do stuff like this all the time with things they’re crazy about, such as TV shows. When Star Trek Enterprise was announced that it was going to be cancelled, fans were able to raise over $3 million to try and get it back on the air. All we need is $500 to dump a cart. I’d be willing to fork over 13 to 25 bucks for a ROM of a super-rare game.
Clearly you don’t know the difference between enjoying playing videogames and collecting them. I can testify, from my own experiecne, that collectors rarly play there games. The thrill is in the hunt. I for one have over 25 systems and 1,000 games. There is no way in the world that I could ever play all of thoes games, ever. Granted I probably have too many games and should consider getting a simpler hobby, but that is not the point.
An avid videogame player on the other hand buys and sells games in an effort to get his hands on the latest and best games, whatever that means to him. He would gladly trade out is rare copy of E.T. for the 2600 (no its not realy rare) to get his hands on GTA 3. See the difference?
I totally understand the difference between playing and collecting. I like to do both. But those who can’t afford $500 for a rare game (some of which aren’t even very good) should be able to play the ROM for enjoyment purposes. Playing a ROM, especially for the 3D VB, is never the same as owning the physical cartridge and playing it on the actual system it was made for.
Someone who doesn’t want to share the ROM of a rare game they’ve purchased for a hefty sum of money doesn’t and shouldn’t have to as it’s their choice. But gamers should know that there are other options and possibilities that exist for them to obtain rare ROMs, rather than pestering a collector who clearly doesn’t want to give it out.
Having played all of the ‘rare’ games I can tell you your not missing much. SDGundam is pitifuly boring, im sure even a SD Gundam fan would think so. Virtual Labs feels very unfinished, V-Bowling is 99% the same a Nesters Funky Bowling. The only game i like is space invaders, and It does not add anything to the game, other than a hoky pseudo 3D mode where the alians come at you from the horizon insted of from the top.
I understand your frustration, In an Ideal world I would think that the origional authors of the VB games would actualy want to post there games to the public, in the hopes of keeping them alive even if they were not comericaly viable. but I am a realist, there is to much greed going on in the game industry (teritorial lockouts anyone), and noone will ever bother to negotiate out of there contract with the Big N to get the rights to there games back.
I’m hoping to launch my own videogame company soon, and my goal is going to be giving the games away for free. As a revenue stream I will be offering value added features, like bundling a yo-yo with each game. And offering faster access to the games, ie. release the games to paying customers for 6 months then give them away on line after the pay perioud is over. The trick is getting your game out to a lot of people, not making a big proffit on each copy sold. If I made $10 a game and sold only 1,000 units I would be a failure but if I made $0.50 a game and shipped a million units….
Yeah, that’s the way I wish group ROM buys would work… a group pays for the immediate dump, then they sit on the ROM (maybe even a rom w/ a signature that doesn’t affect gameplay, but is tracable in case someone releases it early), then the ROM becomes public after the set time period is up (6 months or so).
But instead, it seems like either the few people that pay money get screwed, by them donating $20 toward the dump, then everyone gets the ROM, or only the donors get the dump, and they keep it private.
BTW, there’s a few groups that do similarly to what you’re wanting to do… http://www.oldergames.com buys the rights to a bunch of old stuff that was never released, then they release it, or sometimes even fix it up or complete the game, then release it, although it seems like they do a lot of CD based stuff, probably because it’s a lot cheaper to make the discs to sell. Also, some of the people from http://www.lostlevels.org get ahold of protos to release the ROMs for free.
The thing I’ve noticed about collectors is that they ALWAYS want carts/discs with nice labels and cases that they can play in their system, then put on their shelf. You can send a collector a ROM of some super-rare game and they won’t even know what an emulator is, but if you tell them you’ve got a copy of a proto cart that looks nice, it’s worth it’s weight in gold. That’s what’s nice about a lot of the homebrew for older systems (2600, Vectrex, etc), the carts have become mass reproduced, so making professional looking carts is easy, so now at video game conventions people can’t wait to get their hands on the latest homebrews! I guess it also helps that a homebrewer can make a game that is comparable with other games released for the system in their spare time too, unlike some of the newer systems.
So, all I’m saying is that if you’re looking to make some money to stay in business and get more protos, I’d aim for the collector market and not the Leech/ROMs/Warez people… the collectors have the money, and the ROMs will make their way to the internet in their own way 😉 .
But there is one thing that people tends to forget about prototypes…. It isn’t theirs to sell in the first place. It’s stolen property and every collector knows that. It belongs to the company who made it and was never intended to make it to public. Do you think Nintendo or other companies are happy when their stolen prototype is sold for millions on ebay?
Wouldn’t it be fun to be able to play a prototype of lost games such as Zero Racers or Dragon Hopper? 😛 or to see a beta version of your favourite game? Prototype ROMs makes this possible for us mortal humans. I hope there will be alot more prototypes dumped. I mean… if the prototypes keeps beeing stolen from their rightful owners… atleast give it for free to everyone rather than collect dirty money that isn’t theirs.
I hope you understand what I’m trying to say..
(yes i know he wasn’t looking for prototypes… but I just wanted to tell this)
Im interested in buying Rare Virtual boy games. I dont know who to contact for them. Ive got money. Just need a collectors information. Email me with the information. I heard about Mr G, or whatever his name is. Thankyou
I may be getting my hands on Space Invaders soon. If and when I do, I would like to dump it and share it with the rest of the world. Once I have it, who would be able to dump it for me? Is anyone on the board able to do it? If not, is there any tech info on what I need to build a rom dumper? Thanks for your help.
