The new breed of collectors thread

[JamesRobot | 5,800]

Clean that crap up! Peel off that rental sticker and slap on a crisp new repro label.  Just like new!

[Gloves | 11,777]

2 minutes ago, JamesRobot said:

Clean that crap up! Peel off that rental sticker and slap on a crisp new repro label.  Just like new!

Also remove the pcb w/ the original ROM, that thing was all buggy; get a nice repro and put it in there w/ a re-translation ROM on it, maybe some cheats built in. NOW we're GAMING!

[Tanooki | 4,933]

Given what a EB box goes for years ago, and what is going for even nastier now.  I've done without.  I can't justify hundreds on cardboard, especially when I remember it being like maybe 300 and now it's in the 850+ range.  Not a chance.  My mortgage is LESS.

[GPX | 1,369]

On 6/22/2021 at 2:24 AM, Gloves said:

Also remove the pcb w/ the original ROM, that thing was all buggy; get a nice repro and put it in there w/ a re-translation ROM on it, maybe some cheats built in. NOW we're GAMING!

Forget gaming, why not then sell it on eBay and list it as “brand new”?!

[JamesRobot | 5,800]

1 hour ago, GPX said:

Forget gaming, why not then sell it on eBay and list it as “brand new”?!

Got you covered!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/EarthBound-SNES-USA-Cartridge-With-BOX-Super-Nintendo-Game-NTSC-US-1994-/393343488592?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286

"Brand New"

"Last one!"

"You will not found a better quality than this on the market.  We will check for you."

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

Another who prefers to get 20 repros vs just one flash cart

 

[Tanooki | 4,933]

He has some good valid reasons, even if someone has an opposing feeling, it's just an opinion, and in that case, a wrong one for that original writer.

I've got flash kits, but I've been tempted since I rarely use them, yet I've never gone all the way getting a few made as it seemed not cost effective.  Up side is far less variety, less distraction.

[GPX | 1,369]

6 hours ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

Another who prefers to get 20 repros vs just one flash cart

 

There’s nothing wrong with the opinion of the OP here, he can like what he want to collect. Except his belief is faulty in a few areas:

- not all people who bash repro collectors are bashing them indiscriminately; the majority are knocking on the reproductions that are near exact 1:1, where casual collectors can easily be deceived.

- he’s looking at it purely from his perspective only, and not the issues relating to legality/deception/ethics. 

It would be akin to me saying “I love collecting repro coins that look and feel like the real thing, why are people knocking on how I collect?” Perhaps because then it might be potential fraud money?

[Tanooki | 4,933]

And that's where he's actually, at least one point 2, not at fault.  The ethics really don't matter nor does the deception or legality, because those attacking it saying to use a flash cart basically cross that line either way, same would be arguing to use a Pi thing or PC emulator too with ROMS...it's all sketchy.  Now there is some grounds on the first, but 1:1 is how it is now, so before where it was encouraging it not to happen, now it's just whining for whining sake attacking entirely the wrong person.  Either way I know at least as far as being on a collector site I"m not in the majority, but I strongly support the creation of 1:1 copies, at least, externally.  It's a viable ways to have a game or a few games fit in with the rest without having to commit to a rom dump on a SD card or using some half baked emulator scheme.

[a_profile_name | 230]

On 5/28/2021 at 10:44 PM, MiamiSlice said:

Let me tell you what I cannot fathom: people who spend years trying to track down a game, sometimes at a reasonable price, sometimes waiting until they can finally afford it, and then they are like "I can finally play this game!" Like, wtf? Just emulate it! JUST EMULATE IT! I mean I have my dumb reasons for collecting authentic games but if I ever just want to play a retro game I have zero qualms about emulating it. I am not going to wait years to obtain a copy secondhand for just that purpose. That's insane.

I totally get it. I guess there is much more excitement if you wait patiently until you get a copy. So they sort of engineer more excitement and satisfaction for themselves in the hobby, and this actually makes a lot of sense. Also, it probably motivates them much more to find it.

[a_profile_name | 230]

Honestly what I really find hard to understand is stuff like this

or this

Why would anyone want something like this?

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

3 hours ago, sg17 said:

Honestly what I really find hard to understand is stuff like this

or this

Why would anyone want something like this?

I’d be interested in a pokémon Green like that if its really a translation of the japan version with all the old sprite work from over there. What would be the problem with that its just a romhack i assume? I cant speak to the box, was there ever a box for that game in the US?

[Tanooki | 4,933]

53 minutes ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

I’d be interested in a pokémon Green like that if its really a translation of the japan version with all the old sprite work from over there. What would be the problem with that its just a romhack i assume? I cant speak to the box, was there ever a box for that game in the US?

Agreed, I was thinking both that earlier, but also if it's actually the correct one to be translated because our RED and BLUE aren't the same pair Japan got either when they skimmed games down from 3 to 2 for the US.  I think green became blue, and blue got lost, so that would have to be pokemon blue on that one, or, there would need to be a R B G for each with the original translation and pre-standard sprites they stuck with.

[a_profile_name | 230]

13 hours ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

I’d be interested in a pokémon Green like that if its really a translation of the japan version with all the old sprite work from over there. What would be the problem with that its just a romhack i assume? I cant speak to the box, was there ever a box for that game in the US?

 

12 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Agreed, I was thinking both that earlier, but also if it's actually the correct one to be translated because our RED and BLUE aren't the same pair Japan got either when they skimmed games down from 3 to 2 for the US.  I think green became blue, and blue got lost, so that would have to be pokemon blue on that one, or, there would need to be a R B G for each with the original translation and pre-standard sprites they stuck with.

I'd understand if it didn't look like an official release. Fan translations/hacks totally make sense to me, and I don't care too much for the ip issues because most of the time these are done in reasonably good faith. But here, I just find the fact it looks like an official release as kind of ugly and unfitting.

It's not always that making something look like an official release is bad. For example, there's the Pokemon Yellow for NES I see on ebay all the time. But it's so obvious that it's not an official release, so making it look like that is kind of nice. But when something looks convincing enough, it's sort of an uncanny valley that I don't like.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

2 hours ago, sg17 said:

 

I'd understand if it didn't look like an official release. Fan translations/hacks totally make sense to me, and I don't care too much for the ip issues because most of the time these are done in reasonably good faith. But here, I just find the fact it looks like an official release as kind of ugly and unfitting.

It's not always that making something look like an official release is bad. For example, there's the Pokemon Yellow for NES I see on ebay all the time. But it's so obvious that it's not an official release, so making it look like that is kind of nice. But when something looks convincing enough, it's sort of an uncanny valley that I don't like.

Im not seeing the difference between the Pokemon Yellow for NES and  the Green for Gameboy. Theyre both pretty obviously not original releases 

[twiztor | 851]

i think the PokeMon Green is pretty neat. I wouldn't pick one up, but it's an interesting enough novelty that it's fun.

OTOH, i have a number of NES repro carts (unreleased in the west). i much prefer them to something like an everdrive.

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

20 hours ago, sg17 said:

 

Why would anyone want something like this?

 

Box looks nice on the shelf. That's all. 

[fcgamer | 4,723]

21 hours ago, sg17 said:

Honestly what I really find hard to understand is stuff like this

or this

Why would anyone want something like this?

First one they're using the wrong mould for a GB game, look at the lettering

Seeing as he has so many, it's definitely modern made, but similar style would have existed back in the day. 

 

 

 

[fcgamer | 4,723]

5 hours ago, sg17 said:

 

I'd understand if it didn't look like an official release. Fan translations/hacks totally make sense to me, and I don't care too much for the ip issues because most of the time these are done in reasonably good faith. But here, I just find the fact it looks like an official release as kind of ugly and unfitting.

It's not always that making something look like an official release is bad. For example, there's the Pokemon Yellow for NES I see on ebay all the time. But it's so obvious that it's not an official release, so making it look like that is kind of nice. But when something looks convincing enough, it's sort of an uncanny valley that I don't like.

The Pokemon Yellow sucks, as it tries to make it look familiar and often they remove and try to whitewash things, ignoring that it was made unlicensed by a Chinese company. That sucks.

With fan translations being put onto carts, I wouldn't mind that as much, and as I said earlier, the cart mould isn't right anyways.

[fcgamer | 4,723]

1 hour ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

Im not seeing the difference between the Pokemon Yellow for NES and  the Green for Gameboy. Theyre both pretty obviously not original releases 

Ones a bootleg of a commercial products, the other is a free fan translation put onto a cartridge.

 

[Tanooki | 4,933]

I have no issue with the Green, it's so close to be right, but anyone even with a half of a half wits common sense would not buy that thinking it's real as it just doesn't exist on any list anywhere online outside of Japan, so the very fact it exists and is in english is pure bs.

Even if it did exist though, I still wouldn't care, it's a viable choice considering Nintendo isn't making money on it, so why should someone else at the rates things have crept up to with Gameboy stuff this year as it's sickening as it is sad.  I know I won't win many agreements with that comment, but I stand by it.  I'm entirely over the rates, unless the original developer is getting some money back, I've got a hard level I'll go to, then it's free for all at this point.  If the market and tactics the market has fabricated to cause these issues didn't exist, it wouldn't be a problem in the slightest, as much as it is the fault of people who fed the possibility by going all FOMO about it too.  Plenty of blame to go around, but had it not happened, these copies wouldn't happen in such clarity of quality either.

[koifish | 556]

On 5/28/2021 at 1:44 PM, RH said:

I can't fathom "collecting" fakes.  If you want to play games you have emulators and why wouldn't you want an Everdrive.  I mean, I'll give the people a pass that want to play old games on OG hardware, but have never learned of an everdrive.  There are a lot of people that never consider seeking out communities and they just want a NES/SNES/Genesis and maybe 5-10 games from their childhood.  They aren't thinking about everdrives and will just go for the cheapest option.

But if you want to get into collecting, why intentionally buy fakes?!  It's like buying reproduction comic books or ball cards.  Sure, a reproduction comic book is fine for reading.  I get that.  But why would you buy a repro Action Comics #1 and immediately board and bag it?  It's not apples to apples because I'm sure some re-releases of old comics get "special edition" treatments but if an old comic is mass rerproduced so people can get the experience of looking and "feeling" an original copy, why would you consider it "collectible"?  I'm sure people do though.

Anyway, people can do what they want to do, but this blows my mind.  Collectibles need provenance and there's just none of that built into bootleg carts.

The one humorous point of your last sentence to me is that there are in fact people who collect bootleg carts, especially chinese famicom things but of course I know what you really meant, just poking fun (and I guess FCgamer already demonstrated his strength on this topic).

I feel like it's a kind of coping mechanism, to be honest. I don't mean that as in "someone has a serious problem and they use bootlegs to get through it" but more like, these folks aren't malcontents or otherwise having bad intentions, it's just they want a piece of a world that came and went before they ever knew it.

My hypothesis is that many of these people are younger, possibly teenagers, who are too young to have been picking up clearance bin items in the 90s, and who are too young to have been running around in the 00's, grabbing current three- and four-figure games for a song at garage sales, flea markets, etc. They are likely only old enough to have become aware of old games through youtube, etc. and are interested. They want to do what we do and what we did, which was pick up great games we like for cheap, but again, that era is gone, and you just aren't going to get those rare games for anything cheap anymore. Given that reality, and given that they aren't older people with jobs and strong income to make up for being late, they just suffice to get things that are "close enough".

It's funny to think that we are now looking at a "lost era" of sorts, but I think that's how it is for people who are too young to remember those days. If you think about it, the 90's for them (and maybe the 2000s as far as buying power is concerned) are a bygone era they never witnessed, in the same way that if you were a kid or a teen in the 90's, that the 60's was likely the same kind of bygone era, just a bunch of older people waxing nostalgic about their own prized objects (I guess in the 90s it would be car guys and their vintage muscle cars, or maybe comic books/baseball cards since those seem to have had the same boom in the late 20th century). When you want to have a piece of that world you never knew, but it's just too expensive, why not go for "the closest thing to the real thing" as the Intellivision ad stated?

As for why they don't go for everdrives, well I guess because they aren't "as legit" as something in a "real shell" with a "real label" that goes on your shelf. Yeah you aren't really collecting genuine carts, but you also aren't breaking the bank to have the best SNES games. Maybe there's some boasting and fronting in there too; I can't say that kids wouldn't buy fakes to post online simply because they know most people they are sharing with on social media won't really care about the difference. Plus if you are going for that "content creation" buffoonery, then you can't really post an everdrive because it's one pic and you're done, where buying fake carts is a neverending fountain of picture uploads. Can't guarantee that this is a major part of it, but I wouldn't be surprised either.

Edited July 8, 2021 by koifish

[RH | 4,903]

3 minutes ago, koifish said:

The one humorous point of your last sentence to me is that there are in fact people who collect bootleg carts, especially chinese famicom things but of course I know what you really meant, just poking fun (and I guess FCgamer already demonstrated his strength on this topic).

Well, it's funny you point that out because I too am semi-interested in original-era Game Boy bootlegs.  Stuff that's basically before 2000. But yeah, my intent was fresh, newly made bootlegs just don't make sense to me, but I hadn't considered children getting into this.  I guess there could be 12-16 year olds out there, who have their daddy's SNES and he only had a couple of games, but they want more.  Getting a $200-300 flash cart might not be an option but a $10 knock off from eBay could be doable.

I still don't consider that "collecting", though.  Oh, and I also give fan-translated games a pass.  A high-quality copy of something like Bahamut Lagoon or Final Fantasy V makes sense to me if it's patched and made to look like a SNES release.  Some of that stuff is cool so long as it's appropriately priced for what it is.

[noiseredux | 232]

personally, I have picked up cheapo bootlegs of expensive games over the years as an alternative. More often, it was for unofficial translations. But I don't consider myself a "collector," really. That is, I collect games to play them. That being said, I've never cared for everdrives/etc. I guess that subconsciously I'd rather have a single cartridge of a single game with a label that says what the game is, even if it's clearly not the real deal. I can't really explain this - I don't post pics of my pickups or anything, so it's certainly not any sort of bragging rights or anything. It's just what I'd prefer if given the option.

That being said, nowadays I'll just grab a cheaper import copy of an expensive game, and then English-patch it on my Retron 5 rather than buy a bootleg.

[koifish | 556]

3 hours ago, RH said:

Well, it's funny you point that out because I too am semi-interested in original-era Game Boy bootlegs.  Stuff that's basically before 2000. But yeah, my intent was fresh, newly made bootlegs just don't make sense to me, but I hadn't considered children getting into this.  I guess there could be 12-16 year olds out there, who have their daddy's SNES and he only had a couple of games, but they want more.  Getting a $200-300 flash cart might not be an option but a $10 knock off from eBay could be doable.

I still don't consider that "collecting", though.  Oh, and I also give fan-translated games a pass.  A high-quality copy of something like Bahamut Lagoon or Final Fantasy V makes sense to me if it's patched and made to look like a SNES release.  Some of that stuff is cool so long as it's appropriately priced for what it is.

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I think some of that stuff is interesting from a historical perspective. I also likewise think repros don't really have a purpose for me, but then I'm also a committed supporter of flashcarts.

My (perhaps optimistic) perspective on a modern repro buyer is a kid who maybe has some spending money and who wants to try and emulate the experience of being a game buyer in the day; Go to garage sales/flea markets and try to get lucky, or dig around at a used bin, or even just try a new rental for the weekend. They can't fully recreate that, as many things have changed, but with repros, you can kind of simulate what it was to just pay a small amount of money to play an amazing old game. As someone who themselves can only read about what life was like in many time periods from history, it is understandable to me.

3 hours ago, noiseredux said:

personally, I have picked up cheapo bootlegs of expensive games over the years as an alternative. More often, it was for unofficial translations. But I don't consider myself a "collector," really. That is, I collect games to play them. That being said, I've never cared for everdrives/etc. I guess that subconsciously I'd rather have a single cartridge of a single game with a label that says what the game is, even if it's clearly not the real deal. I can't really explain this - I don't post pics of my pickups or anything, so it's certainly not any sort of bragging rights or anything. It's just what I'd prefer if given the option.

That being said, nowadays I'll just grab a cheaper import copy of an expensive game, and then English-patch it on my Retron 5 rather than buy a bootleg.

Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with that, personally. Buying a fake because you can't or won't pay for the real thing isn't too different from buying a really shitty, beat-up cartridge because you can't or won't pay for a nice one. All about what you value for the given item. I have some horribly beat up hardware, and I have some beautiful pristine hardware, and they don't serve the same purposes, nor do I expect them to.

Your comment about "it just being different" makes sense to me too, because once upon a time, I used to have a problem I find to be common amongst young players. They download an emulator, they grab a fullset, and suddenly where they had 0 games, they now have hundreds or thousands. Countless masterworks and "best of all time" list fillers are now at their disposal, but what happens? They just boot up a game, play it for a bit, then stop it and open another one. The problem is choice paralysis; It's been observed that when you give someone at a store too many choices, that not only is it harder to make and commit to a choice, but even after making a choice, they will assert that any problems with the end product are their own fault, because the idea that "surely there must have been a superior choice, and I just messed up" just runs through their head on repeat.

When you restrict yourself only to buying carts, you effectively kill that drive. No more infinite gamelist, no more choice paralysis. It really is true that "less is more". In that way, buying repros (as opposed to getting all the games at once) is a natural control mechanism, while maintaining that repros are much, much cheaper than real carts.

 

Going back to the greater thread discussion, I do understand the frustration that making 1:1 unofficial repros can bring to collectors, because they can and are abused by scammers to commit fraud. It's not unlike the bootleg wine industry; There are people out there who spend time and a little money to carefully fabricate wine, or specifically, extremely rare bottles of wine, bottles which fetch absurd prices of $100,000 a bottle or more (well, maybe not absurd to those who are in that field). These people tirelessly strive to make imperceptible copies of the bottle, fill it with liquid that is a dead-on match for the appearance of the real wine, and who then work to either deceive wine sellers into buying it, or who work with fraudulent wine sellers themselves to pass these tricks onto buyers, at a ludicrous profit margin (my understanding is that the typical forgery can be made for as little as 20 USD, a paltry sum compared to the six-figure asking price). They prey on the same people that our repro scammers do, new collectors who are in a rush to join the fold as serious enthusiasts, and they are sometimes successful, passing worthless swill off as real, ultra-prized wine bottles.

It's actually a common enough problem that there are portions of the US legal system dedicated to finding and stopping wine bottle fraud. That may be due to the extremely high amounts of money that are made off of these fraudulent sales, or it may be because the kinds of people who can drop six figures on a collectible are also the kind who can drop very large chunks of "influence" into lawmaker's bank accounts. Either way, it's taken as a very serious crime to make and sell such items and to pass them off as legitimate. Do game repros fall into that category as well, especially as we reach the point of four-figure dollar value carts being faked with almost imperceptible accuracy?

When it comes to collecting and building a game shelf, I think there is definitely a place for repros, as others have said, and there is also a danger to them, as others have said. It ultimately just falls on the owner and the seller of such items to be honest about it. I don't think anything is dangerous about repros, only the people carrying them, and then only if they lie about what they have. Sure, that means hoping for people to be saints while expecting them to be sinners, but we deal with that in any aspect of life. We all just have to be careful about what we do and with whom we do it, same as anything else.

Edited July 8, 2021 by koifish
minor edits for clarifying points and improving flow of read