Collectors and prototypes: have times changed much in your opinion?

[spacepup | 2,404]

Ok, seriously now, STOP. 

All of you.  Stop the contentious back and forth fighting and personal bickering that is spanning across multiple threads now.  If you want to get back to the original topic and have normal discussions, that is fine.  The other stuff needs to stop immediately.

[Moondog | 19]

The only thing that really pisses me off, is when something highly desirable gets teased and then denied those fans who have been waiting decades for it. I get that it's their property and maybe they just want to show it off, but sometimes it's better not to imho.

[final fight cd | 186]

14 hours ago, Moondog said:

The only thing that really pisses me off, is when something highly desirable gets teased and then denied those fans who have been waiting decades for it. I get that it's their property and maybe they just want to show it off, but sometimes it's better not to imho.

Without digging into 4 pages of messages, are you saying you’ve been waiting decades for a game that was unreleased, assuming that a prototype would be dumped at some point in the future?

 

[Tanooki | 4,932]

Maybe it's figurative a general comment.  I can think of some random games that have been thought lost or never made beyond some casual statement (text) listing of in the future that did crop up but not come out.  A few years ago we saw that Magician Lord NeoGeo had a sequel coming on the NGPC but it went from text, to the owner of the game showing off pictures, videos, and then static.  Or it could be thinking about SimCity which showed up fairly recently that was shown off in NP around 1990 with Earthbound to just get ghosted for decades, but that DID in time eventually come out.  There are people out there who do just buy games to conceal them in their collections scrubbing what little info there was about it (usually unless someone saved a copy of the sales/auction page.)  There's a known copy or more of Wing Commander II finished for the SNES and SFC, it vanished decades ago and all that remains are some articles and fuzzy images from the title that the WC CIC covered here: https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Wing_Commander_II:_Vengeance_of_the_Kilrathi_(SNES)

[Moondog | 19]

6 hours ago, final fight cd said:

Without digging into 4 pages of messages, are you saying you’ve been waiting decades for a game that was unreleased, assuming that a prototype would be dumped at some point in the future?

In a way, yes. I've been waiting over 10 years, for the Resident Evil/Biohazard 0 N64 builds to be leaked. People no doubt remember the whole RE 1.5 thing and how long that took.

3 hours ago, Tanooki said:

There are people out there who do just buy games to conceal them in their collections scrubbing what little info there was about it (usually unless someone saved a copy of the sales/auction page.

While I enjoy hoarding rare physical items, pre-release data is an exception. A private back up does not always guarantee that the data will be preserved; and if perceived decreased value of the media is the issue, a fundraiser can be organized for a public release. I'm not talking about anyone in particular btw, just my 2c

[Code Monkey | 2,006]

22 hours ago, Moondog said:

The only thing that really pisses me off, is when something highly desirable gets teased and then denied those fans who have been waiting decades for it. I get that it's their property and maybe they just want to show it off, but sometimes it's better not to imho.

If I offered you a game for $5 that would be worth $1,000,000 in 5 years in unreleased form, would you release it?

Question 2, how are you going to fund raise for $1,000,000? The $5 isn't the problem, it's the perceived future value loss.

[Gloves | 11,771]

1 minute ago, Code Monkey said:

If I offered you a game for $5 that would be worth $1,000,000 in 5 years in unreleased form, would you release it?

Question 2, how are you going to fund raise for $1,000,000? The $5 isn't the problem, it's the perceived future value loss.

If I could get a game for $5 I'd release the dumped rom regardless of some otherworldly knowledge of future value. 

[Code Monkey | 2,006]

1 hour ago, Gloves said:

If I could get a game for $5 I'd release the dumped rom regardless of some otherworldly knowledge of future value. 

What if you paid $20,000?

[fcgamer | 4,722]

1 hour ago, Code Monkey said:

What if you paid $20,000?

It depends how rich you are and what kind of salary you're on, if you're financially independent, got a house, got kids or not, etc.

Too many variables.

[Gloves | 11,771]

1 hour ago, Code Monkey said:

What if you paid $20,000?

If I was in a position to spend $20k frivolously, yes I would.

[Tanooki | 4,932]

I don't know about 20k or 1M, and not even sure why it made me think of it either but if I could get something very cheap and had the opportunity knowing it had value but would rather people be able to use it I would release it.  I did too, back in the NA days which infuriated the hell out of a number of people.

This could go tldr and I won't.  Tried to get the Faria mail away map for at least a year or so, asked kindly if someone could scan it, ended up being mocked, teased, someone sent me a scan after running it through like some 90degree+ swirl every X many pixels rendering it unreadable.  I put the work into looking for it, found it with a copy of the game and got it.  I took the best settings I could with my flatbed scanner and it took hours, but I stitched multiple images together (both sides), lined it up perfectly, cleaned up a few pen marks with photoshop CS2, then saved masters and a PDF.  At that point I sent it to Digital Press and sent it to my personal webspace and released it.  I caught a good bit of flack, especially since I refused to watermark it.  I was serious then and meant it when I swore if I had a chance I'd release it so other people could enjoy it, have it publicly archived, so others could enjoy the game and struggle a bit less.

[Armageddon Potato | 124]

Some of us are still out there preserving stuff! I'd keep an eye on HiddenPalace.org this X-mas!

[Sumez | 2,934]

Does this have anything to do with that one-of-a-kind Konami prototype that just surfaced on YAJ?

[fcgamer | 4,722]

5 hours ago, Sumez said:

Does this have anything to do with that one-of-a-kind Konami prototype that just surfaced on YAJ?

which was that

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

35 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

which was that

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/d1112584940

I have no idea what something like this normally goes for.

[fcgamer | 4,722]

39 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/d1112584940

I have no idea what something like this normally goes for.

That seems like a cheap price, considering it's 1:1. I mean what does chase the chuck wagon and air raid go for, and they're less rare.

[Kid Fenris | 2]

Battle Choice is an interesting case because very few people even knew about it until a 2015 compilation of old Konami music mentioned it. 

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/unreleased-konami-famicom-game-battle-choice-surfaces-on-yahoo-auctions/amp/

 

 

[Armageddon Potato | 124]

On 11/14/2023 at 3:27 AM, Sumez said:

Does this have anything to do with that one-of-a-kind Konami prototype that just surfaced on YAJ?

No, but that is really cool! I've never even heard of Battle Choice until now!