Seth

Only responding here in one long sentence because I was called out and need to respond but also do not want to take the thread further off-topic: for the first edition of the rankings I devised a methodology sui generis, then I asked for input and changed the methodology based on that input as any decent and honorable person who cares about the NES homebrew community would do, so now the review series (which is on Vol. 8 ) has a totally different methodology that reviews ALL NES homebrews (1,350 so far) without any regard whatsoever for physical release format—hence me buying an AVS and hundreds of homebrews at my own expense, and hence the site having a de minimis monthly subscription fee.

Sorry... how in the world do you know what I do? I happen to have an AVS and own 200+ homebrews in physical form. Also, I really don't care who reads RETRO or not (about 5,000 people subscribe but I do not hunt for subscribers here), but I literally have listed and ranked 1,300 NES homebrews (with links, with developer names, categorized by genre, with screenshots of many) at that publication, so being told 1,000 NES homebrews don't exist and then having some dude I don't know opine on my NES-playing habits is... like, *wow*. Seriously, what the hell? I've been a video game journalist for years, have taught video games as a college professor, and never rank a game I have not played to a sufficient degree to rank it with professional accuracy. I also, unlike some cowards who take potshots at people pseudonymously, post under my real name.

Hi all, I have just now gotten caught up with this thread. My only message to @zxdplay would be this: thank you for making a wonderful NES homebrew. I wish you only the best in all things. The rest of what I have to say is directed toward everyone else in this thread, and the thrust of it is that I think we all must agree, a month into this thread, that everyone here is wasting their time and words out of a desire for something to happen that is never going to happen. Every single person on this thread has told the OP that his plan is foolhardy, nonsensical, counterproductive, and just downright logically (perhaps even ethically) bankrupt. Many posters have offered (in great detail) infinitely better plans that would enrich the OP, honor original-edition collectors (though not sure why this is an actual value anyone would hold, given the tacit "buyer-beware" foundational premise behind all high-end collectibles), and most importantly get this great game into more hands. Some here have even offered to directly aid the OP in getting linked up with some of the most talented, successful, and respected NES homebrew publishers in the United States—and this is a group of people, here at VGS, with the sort of connections and know-how to make good on those offers. The OP has categorically rebuffed even single piece of advice that would require deviation from his current plan and ignored every offer of aid or else provided a justification for his view that the aid would be counterproductive or somehow beside the point. Has anyone here ever entered a room with 50 people who make up the desired audience for an idea you have, been told by all 50 people in no uncertain terms that your idea is a disaster, and been as recalcitrant as the OP has been in not changing your mind even a single iota? I would doubt it. It takes a special gumption to ignore so many wise people so gregariously. So please accept that the OP is not interested in doing anything but what he has already decided to do, and trying to convince him otherwise is fruitless. The OP is a non-lawyer who says he cannot afford a lawyer but is offering a deal based on a legal contract that requires the services of a lawyer. The OP wants to sell NFTs to a community whose leading members have told him in no uncertain terms that they (and the community they are part of, broadly writ) are anti-NFT. The OP has said that he is concerned most about homebrew gamers, but has concocted a plan that would enrich him without him doing any work, protect wealthy collectors, and do absolutely nothing for gamers or bring gamers any closer to what they want: to be able to play a very specific NES homebrew. When the OP is told that even collectors would be fine with a new release of the game, the OP does not budge. When the OP is told by his prospective IP fan base that no one cares about the IP but only the game itself, the OP does not budge. When the OP is given examples of others who simultaneously made money, protected first-edition collectors, and shared their games with the world by working with (e.g.) LRG, Mega Cat, or VGS, the OP does not budge. When the OP is told that the transnational and unprecedented (not in a good way, as the OP supposes) nature of this transaction alone would make it unlikely that anyone would interested in it, or that the Star Keeper IP (not the game itself) is so derivative that it lacks value, or that NFTs are increasingly despised among U.S. gamers, or that nothing the OP says he wants to do actually honors the values that he says he has, the OP does not budge. It is over. Let the OP do what he wants. It is clear to me and I think to others that—sadly—this ends with the game being pirated somehow, perhaps first to FC and then to the NES, and that the reason for this is because the OP is foreclosing the many roads that would lead to a different outcome while claiming to fear piracy above all else. And candidly, the fear of piracy expressed here causes me to feel that the OP does not understand this community at all. This is a community that wants to own games, not pirate them, and those who want to pirate them are not really part of the community. What this means is that even were the game pirated, it would still sell a ton of copies to legitimate non-pirating buyers, as is evidenced by the many successful releases by LRG, Mega Cat, and VGS (heck, LRG regularly releases, with great success, NES titles that anyone could emulate at any time; again, this is a community that wants to buy and play and collect games, not pirate and emulate them). Anyway, this is my two cents, and I felt compelled to offer it as this thread has gotten progressively more depressing. The right answer has been given to the OP over and over and over and over again, but either stubbornness, disingenuousness (as to motive), or some unstated mystery is making a sensible resolution of this situation impossible. Only a nonsensical, embarrassing NFT sale that will either never happen or be a disaster is left, and for that reason, I find myself not wanting to follow this conversation anymore. We cannot save people from their own foolhardiness. We should try—and folks here did try—but I think that effort has to come to an end at some point, and it does seem (from the slowing down of this thread) that we have arrived at that point. And I say all this as the video game journalist who ranked Star Keeper as one of the best NES homebrews ever, after playing 1,000+ NES homebrews. So if the OP has lost me, he probably should have lost all of us by now. S.

Voting for the NES Homebrew Hall of Fame is open through May 31, 2022! All you have to do is click the link below, read the instructions, and post your votes in the comment section. No paid Substack subscription is required. Please share this with any of your NES homebrew friends, as I'm hoping to make the voting as robust and inclusive as possible! https://retrostack.substack.com/p/the-nes2-hall-of-fame-voting-period?s=w

Fair enough.

@inasuma, re: SACK, I have actually been back for a while. Just not in this forum. And RETRO hasn't come up a single time where I've been posting on VGS—which I'm thrilled about. I've been collecting NES homebrews and that subcommunity is way, way friendlier than the High-Enders on Facebook. I don't even think you'd disagree with me on that. @AdamW, I may be—no, I am—an idiot in a million ways, maybe a billion, and have some truly massive and embarrassing blindspots, but at least give this English PhD enough credit that you realize that if I start a sentence with "respectfully" and then call someone a series of names that include dick and turd... the self-contradiction was intentional. You may think I'm a prissy arrogant neuroatypical self-aggrandizing self-promoting loquacious punk-a** b*tch because of how I've self-indulgently let myself fly off the handle here sometimes, but you don't have to also think I'm stupid. Anyway, back to invisibility in this subforum—not a ragequit, just going back where I feel more comfortable. Wanted to share this news; didn't realize everyone already knew. Be well.

Yeah, so I know everyone already knows this (hence the joke above) but litigation takes a long, long, long time. Barring something unforeseen, this will be a background story with WATA somewhere between a matter of months and a matter of years. Which certainly raises the question of how the market reacts to the uncertainty, and I actually don't mean buyers and sellers—I would be surprised if there were any effect—but people with games they need graded deciding between VGA and WATA and/or waiting for CGC. Do more high-end dealers decide to sit on their ungraded sealed games and wait for CGC? Grade with VGA with a plan to cross to CGC if the games don't sell before CGC opens (which seems to be taking forever and who knows when it will happen)? Stick with WATA when it could be in litigation for years and—more importantly—that brand name could be ditched by CU in mid-litigation or afterward, making all WATA-branded products something a high-end seller (or maybe even any seller) will have to "explain" if they go to sell a game years from now? Is there now going to be a sort of "WATA premium" in the sense of people thinking, "If I buy a WATA-graded game, I may have to pay for re-grading and should factor that into what I'm willing to pay now, and/or I may see less resale value well down the line than I think I would now because of the brand diminishment or dissolution of WATA, and/or are my buyers going to question the validity of WATA grades even more than they do now"? I think those are some key questions. But obviously there are other ones, too! Anyway, all this gives CU good reason to try to settle if this survives summary judgment.

While the plaintiffs seek to build and certify a class, the defendants will be preparing a motion for summary judgment unless they see some other issue (which I do not see at present) like a jurisdictional one, or something administrative like a service or SoL issue (even more unlikely, up to impossible under the circumstances). So yes, there will presumably be a hearing on a motion to dismiss at some point that seeks to attack the sufficiency of the complaint itself. The problem is that at such a hearing the court must (by law) take the facts "in the light most favorable" to the plaintiffs; is solely determining whether the facts of the complaint, if all true (and if all implications derived from the facts are taken in the plaintiffs' favor) sufficiently state a prima facie (basic, rudimentary, but by-the-book) claim under the applicable laws; and can easily choose to dump some causes of action but not others—i.e., if any claim survives summary judgment, the suit survives. I will be writing much more about the suit soon, and doing my level best to do so neutrally. My feeling is that CU should have just fired WATA leadership and changed the brand name upon purchasing WATA; there was little need for anything else to change, and it would have been hard to get punitive damages from CU if it had done everything to clean up the mess post-sale. But it did nothing, even though it seemed likely that it knew what had been going on (or was told during the sale process, or found out while doing due diligence for the purchase). Again, I am a collector; I do not hate WATA as a company (I simply disapprove of the actions of certain individuals in the company, and only disapprove on the basis of my experience, training, education, and knowledge in several fields; Karl and I basically have the same view in this respect, and like me he is a collector also); and I would actually much prefer it if CU were to find a way to weather this successfully, perhaps through a settlement that includes firing any malfeasors and disassociating from Heritage Auctions. I am in no way an enemy of this hobby; I am part of it and respect it. We will see what happens.

Note: While my journalism is cited in the complaint, I had (and have) absolutely nothing to do with this lawsuit. I own 100+ WATA games and am an avid collector, but I have only used WATA as a service once (to clean a game), would not be eligible to be part of this class, would not join the lawsuit even were I eligible, and have already made clear my thoughts on the lawsuit (pre-lawsuit) at the link below. https://retrostack.substack.com/p/breaking-news-a-federal-class-action?s=w I mainly am just urging people to not pretend they know things they do not. While you do not have to believe an attorney when he says there may be legal liability in a given situation, it is better not to substitute your Big Important Feelings for their sober legal analysis unless and until you have talked to someone else who is an attorney and they have given you a very different view. I took a lot of abuse from my fellow sealed-game collectors here for making an assessment as a legal professional that now an entire law firm has made: that there could be a case here (though they feel more strongly about it than I do, clearly, as they have filed a lawsuit and I have been dubious about the outcome here). I think we should/hope we will use the folks on this site as resources—respecting their knowledge bases not just on games but other things, and listening to what they say even when it makes us unhappy—rather than making everything a war in which even sound advice and reason become enemies.

The class-action complaint alleges RICO violations, Unfair Competition, False Advertising, Intentional Misrepresentation, Illegal Nondisclosure, and violations of the Consumers Legal Remedies Act. https://retrostack.substack.com/p/breaking-news-wata-games-has-been?s=w

You're not a lawyer and don't know what you're talking about; you forgot about punitive damages, which are primarily what this suit will seek rather than compensatory damages; litigants can receive compensation from punitive damages as well as compensatory damages; and this is a licensed attorney in California who is a sealed and graded game collector just like most of us here (including me). So it is BS for you to call him an "ambulance chaser" and a "two-bit" attorney and a "Reddit lawyer" just because he posted a notice on Reddit—which is candidly exactly what he should have done, as Reddit is one of several places any smart attorney would look for potential litigants in a suit in this arena. I have already written publicly that as an attorney I do not think this suit will amount to much, but your personal attacks against this licensed professional discredit you—not him. He is just doing his job and pursuing an issue he legitimately cares about because it has affected him personally, as you well know from reading his public statements on the matter.

I agree with you on all the grading companies you mentioned except UKG. There is no basis to say that UKG is "not credible" and that "no legitimate auction house would sell" games graded by UKG. UKG just happens to be a popular grading company on the European continent rather than in America; it has done nothing to be attacked or to be lumped in with the fly-by-night grading companies mentioned above.

PM'd you, @Scrobins. (Update: Sorry, wrong thread! Meant to post this in the Swap Meet!)

PS FWIW, @Scrobins you are one of my heroes for all the work you have done curating data about NES homebrews! It has been so helpful to this (relatively) new homebrew gamer/collector!

Ah, you may be right! Willing to buy the cart, then.

I'm light on things to trade at the moment, but if anyone is willing to sell either Space Foxes (CIB) or Legends of Owlia (CIB), I'd be willing to buy at a fair price and would love to hear what you want for it (either or both). Apologies in advance if sales are not permitted in this thread, I'm honestly not trying to break any rules here. @JamesRobot

I couldn’t figure out how to delete an Invision account, so I finally gave up and decided to just wish everyone well and go out the way I came. All the best to everyone here both now and in the future, Be well, Seth

GPX, I haven't seen even one of the market manipulators do anything to further discussion. Look at Gulag Joe's last few posts. Isn't this sort of gaslighting someone who's trying to engage while letting bad actors go unremarked upon? I think so. Anyway, good luck with... {waves hands}... whatever this thread is supposed to be now.

No, you're confusing the conclusion you were trying to get to with the conclusion you actually got to. I (a) made no prediction as to what would happen and have no idea what will happen (so you writing that I said "no result would surprise [me]" is in bad faith, as I never said any such thing and was simply avoiding making a prediction and admitting I didn't have one rather than trying to play your silly prediction game against my will), and (b) I didn't say any result would prove me "right," as in fact it's just a question of whether an existing, proven market trend changes or not. If the game sells for $500 or not at all, it's a change from what we've seen that could be indicative of some larger trend—we don't know, because this is the first post-report auction of its kind. If the game sells for $850 or more, it means we're not seeing, in this sale, any evidence of a shift. None of that has anything to do with me. You're kind of being a deliberately obtuse and disingenuous asshole, Adam—and not for the first time, with me—so I'm afraid I'm going to back out of this. My time is worth more than whatever it is you want to see happen here. Not calling you stupid, just a bit of a jerk.

I don't know. I don't see myself in either of those archetypes. Once full pop reports are out, I think spending $20,000 or more for the highest-ever grade of an NES game—or even the second- or third-highest grade—is totally understandable, even if I wouldn't do it myself. And I think this market could really grow in a healthy way if certain habits that are becoming systemic in the sealed-and-graded collecting culture were stopped immediately. Saying the market is unhealthy and saying it shouldn't exist, or can't grow, or has no organic elements are two totally distinct things. That said, I admit that I see nuance (or really even facts) behind the arguments made by the bulls.

Yeah, so... I didn't see that comment anywhere in your MS Paint meme? Look, uh... so... I don't know how to say this. I just don't think you're very sophisticated, and I think talking to you is a waste of my time, so I'm going to stop. No offense.

Nope. Your first question, which you spilled the most words on, was to ask me why I seem to be "taking a weirdly narrow view of things and saying that only how common a game is should be factored into the 'right' price for it." I answered that question at length, and you ignored the answers. I didn't answer your second, tossed-in question—which was one question repeated multiple times—because I had no idea what you were referring to. ON EDIT: Oh, you mean the DW1 auction? Well, I think I was pretty clear that it's simply the first auction of a highly common NES game since the pop reports dropped last night. And I was pretty clear that $500 is now the maximum value for that game, but it's starting at $500 rather than ending there. I also was pretty clear that I thought the market predators would avoid this auction. So with all that in view, sure, if it goes for $850+ I think it is a sign that people either haven't seen the pop reports yet or haven't learned the lesson of those reports. If it goes for $500 or doesn't sell at all, it means the market is responding in a healthy way to the pop reports.

C'mon, man—no one does anything "purely" for one reason, so no, I'm not saying high-end collectors are motivated exclusively by money. But being a reseller is a choice; being a high-end reseller is a choice; and the choice is to drown yourself in transactions that must be routinized for you to continue in the hobby, and those transactions are money-driven. And one can't continue as a high-end reseller unless the market rises—not excessively fast, but yes, very fast—or else it all falls apart. Again, that's why Dave Robbins has to cut videos begging people to buy his NES games at insane prices, like Renegade for $22,000 or even Bard's Tale for $4,750. The kind of buyer base he wants doesn't exist, and he's doing nothing to create it. I agree with you that "genuine collectors" don't want the market to rise too quickly; they're buyers first, and no buyer wants the things they want to buy to get more expensive. The very fact that someone does want that marks them as a seller (investor) first and buyer (collector) second, which means—yes—they are motivated by money more than collecting. I don't know why you think I see only two groups when I just posted a gross-over-simplication summary to Adam that had five groups listed, and a follow-up that acknowledged it didn't capture any nuances. But that said, yes, market manipulators and collectors who believe in the long-term health of the hobby are at odds.

It's so exhausting. No matter what anyone says to you folks, you just keep playing out a straw-man conversation that's happening only in your head. Like I said: cult behavior.

Your "favorite part" is a conversation that happened entirely in your head... so that's concerning.