Orab Games

Well, all that work for nothing.... I should have just kept reading. Straight from the horse's mouth. 140 total copies.

So, after sifting through hundreds of posts for a few hours, this is what I accumulated. I'm not 100% positive that this is correct. I say this because for some reason, @Ferris Bueller and stardust4ever (has an unboxing video of a GE edition on Youtube) may have gotten undocumented copies around the PayPal testing time. Can you confirm what went down there, Ferris? zxdplay made a comment that you 2 may not be interesting in LE copies anymore and you were going to back out until #100 opened back up for you.

3 Gift Editions sold on eBay August 3rd, 2014. At least 2 have custom text. (Majesty ZX, Proveaux, 3rd buyer unknown)
2 (maybe more) Unknown Editions sold through PayPal as a test on September 12, 2014. (acomicbookguyc and maybe Johnnyboy113?)(Maybe more GEs?)
100 LEs sold on NA. Still trying to find a final list. 1-20 have custom text. (#74 was sold on eBay)
1 Unknown Edition gifted\sold to Dain
16 Regular Editions sold on eBay

Total documented copies sold: 122
 

So far, what I have found is that there were for sure 3 GEs (Gift Editions) sold on eBay on August 3rd, 2014. Those 3 are clearly marked with GE v1.0 on the title screen. It also looks like the buyers name or something was written on the title screen as well. I'm going to keep digging as I know more were sold outside of the LEs.

On August 16, 2014, zxdplay said that two of the three GEs were purchased by NA members Majesty ZX and Proveaux. He wasn't for sure who the third person was.

On September 9th, Majesty ZX posted:
Proveaux just decided to get his to say "Gift Edition" where as mine says "Majesty ZX".

Here is some more information on Star Keeper. I don't know how deep into the threads The Internet Archive will let you read, but the first link will give you the most information and it was pretty wild! The entire thread is pretty crazy, but it gets really good around page 12. EDIT: It looks like the archive ends at page 18. Maybe another date can go deeper into it. I was able to skip page 19 and go to 20. Still reading.

Archive of the Star Keeper thread in the Brewery section of nintendoage.com.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140818025501/http://www.nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=125036&StartRow=1

Archive of the Star Keeper Sales thread in the Seller's Forum of nintendoage.com.
https://web.archive.org/web/20141022030247/http://www.nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=6&threadid=134803&StartRow=1

If it is number, it is the LE. There are 100 LEs. Maybe a dozen or so of the others. @neodolphino might know exactly.

The first 20 copies of the LEs had the option to add custom text to the title screen I believe. Not all took that option. That is why I took 21.  Lowest non-custom game.

Welcome, neighbor. I'm #21. #20 was the last one with a custom text option.

I think so. I know he tried to get The Incident greenlit on Steam, but I don't think it did.

I didn't see a thread about this, so I thought I would start one about NEScape! by KHAN Games getting a release on the Switch and Xbox. It looks like he teamed up with 8-Bit Legit to make this happen. According to the Facebook posts, Pre-Orders start January 5th!
 

3 minutes ago, Alder said:

My takeaway from this is that limited releases are a bummer for pretty much everyone involved . This game looks great and I'd love to have supported the developer, but my budget hasn't always lined up with homebrew releases over the years - and sometimes I'm just inactive for months because life happens. I'm personally uninterested in "owning" a ROM, and while the piracy discussion has nuance on both sides (and may be inevitable), I don't want to see VGS associated with it. I greatly appreciate the work that goes into publishing physical releases, but I don't like the FOMO that comes along with limited releases, homebrew or not, and would very much prefer to support a print-on-demand model.

I really wish it was possible to print-on-demand but it is just not a feasible model for many factors. I tried to do this with Tailgate Party after the initial run and it was such a hassle in my life at the time.

57 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

NO, you're making the assumption that it's the excuse for theft.  And it's a damned flimsy one at that you're using to justify a poor argument with holes in it.

 

It's not an excuse, IT IS THEFT! It's literally written as a law. The only thing flimsy about it is the law doesn't fit your narrative on the matter and you are butthurt that you don't get free things. It's not gate keeping. No one is stopping you from buying homebrews or saying you can't. I would really like to have a 1966 Mustang, but since I can't go buy one new, I'm entitled to a free one because people are selling used ones higher than I want to spend? Just because I can't clone a Mustang doesn't make one more right than the other.

5 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Thank you for not leaving me twisting in the wind alone on that.  The hypocrisy here on this is utterly laughable and insane.  Kind of like I said, guess it's ok to rip off the big bad corporation as the possible excuse, as if that makes it any better.  A company(or fan) of one/few is ok, but get a board room involved ARR matey.  Yeah...nope.

I'd like to see that question answered by anyone here saying it's not right to want Starkeeper or any of them publicly out there just because some amateur made it, it's a hypocritical double standard.  Any ip holders wishes should be cared about, but cares shouldn't end at some personally comfort self chosen line in the sand.

 

One funny thing I commonly see why it's ok to burn on the big companies is that well if they don't care to make it for sale or use(like switch classic services in their $20/yr acct) then fuck em, they deserve it.  Ok, then by that nature, since Starkeepers author refuses to make more copies to meet demand, and the only choice is to buy from a shark, then fuck that guy too?  Seems that would be the logical progression of it, if you can't get it for a price from the maker, then wild west tactics are on the table.

Humans are hypocrites. Welcome to life. And welcome to capitalism as well? You are telling me that you wouldn't sell your possession for market value? See, everyone's a hypocrite! The seller didn't shark it, it went to auction and bought by the highest bidder. Should the seller message the winner and say "Hey man, I bought this for $60, so you only need to pay that much."?

8 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

My point is two-fold:

A. Size and scope of the company shouldn't dictate whether "preservation" on modern productions is okay or not. Period.

B. If they are concerned about the money issue, they need to listen to customer feedback. If they tried to please the (small/niche) customer base, we wouldn't even be discussing 90% of this nonsense, as it wouldn't be an issue.

Preservation is just a word thrown out by those that really mean "I WANT ROMZ, oMg!!" It's not preservation, it's theft. Real preservation respects the IP owner.

2 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

The people who went this route likely kept around a way of playing their favourite games, i.e. they aren't likely to be filling up the pi or powerpak with full sets of roms, and if they did,  I don't think the intention is there to be playing every game, and if they're that out of the game, so to speak, they aren't going to be wanting to play those homebrew games anyways. 

You said it yourself with your own words even, they moved on and priorized something else over having a bunch of physical objects. This has nothing to do with them wanting to use ROMs so they can play for free, and probably any that were still interested in games, would gladly just purchase a ROM of the game, when given the option.

 

Many of these people literally said before or after selling "I already have all the games in rom format, why would I keep physical copies?" Please stop trying to manipulate what I heard with my very ears and saw with my very eyes. From the people I know, it was one of many factors in their decision, period. I don't see how you are even debating this. Just because my facts contradict your thoughts on the matter? You hate being wrong? Why keep beating the dead horse?

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

Nice Code is making NES games for plug n play machines and other items, yet people keep buying, reverse engineering, and dumping the ROMs. The same thing happened when Nintendo released their DK ROM with one of their wii (?) machines a few years back. Aaand, this conversation has been going on since the Nintendo Age days, and back then companies like Waixing and Nanjing Tech were still releasing and selling Famicom games. Even Sachen was selling Famicom games up through 2007 or so.

Here are just a few random thoughts I had while walking home, for what they are worth:

1. I think a lot of these homebrew hobbyists are either terrible with marketing / business, or they don't care about the money. I keep hearing how they should get compensated for their work being tossed around, but if they cared about the money, why are most homebrewers only releasing games on one format (i.e. NES, not Famicom as well)? Back in the day the argument was because molds for shells were too expensive to make, but by now we have molds, we have PCBs, so it's literally just a conscious choice not to offer both formats. It would be like if I recorded music with my band and we only released our recordings on cassettes or records or something. Huge market that would be missed.

2. For these types of projects, people shouldn't be going into it "for the money". I mean, you can, and it's certainly a point to consider, but unless you're out of the 9-5 crowd, you should do it as a labor of love. On my Family Bits book for example, I'm only earning about $10 a book. I don't think I'll sell tons of them, as it's a very niche market, and although I would absolutely love for this to help me out financially, at the end of the day I made it because I felt it was something I wanted to do. Some of the old timer HB guys once said they made the games that they wanted to make. It's fine to take that approach if you're just doing it as a hobby, but if you're doing it for the money, then you gotta listen to what the customers want. Then again, I guess this goes back to point number 1.

3. We've seen the situation with digitalized movies and music, heck we even saw it with video games back in the late 80s and early 90s (well most of us haven't likely seen it, but folks in poorer countries where piracy was rampant did see it). People bootlegged, people downloaded, people used the items for free; however, they producer gained brand loyalty in exchange. By now, piracy of video games in Taiwan isn't really a thing, and I don't know anyone who downloads songs or movies illegally - people pay for Netflix or Spotafy or whatever, and are more than happy to do so.

Some people might download and play the games illegally, but it isn't going to hurt sales. At most, it's free publicity. Now I hear you barking big dog, but regarding the lost sale:

a. The person just "collects" ROMs and wouldn't have bought the game anyways, probably won't even play it

b. The person played the game, loved it, then decides to buy the real thing when / if the opportunity arises

c. The person played the game, hated it. Well they probably won't buy the real thing, but I honestly wouldn't want a dissatisfied customer either.

4. At the end of the day, gamers and collectors want  to buy games and support people in their community. I have an everdrive but I never use it. As a quick aside, I own a complete full set of Japanese Famicom games; I decided to collect these games solely because I had found a lot of bootleg versions locally, and felt that even if I weren't supporting the companies with my purchases, I could at least have enough respect for the developers to own legitimate copies too (I have about 1/3 of the licensed Famicom set in bootleg format too, single carts).

I bought some bootlegs of homebrew games on Aliexpress in Famicom format. If I want to play NES games, I can either use an adaptor with my Famicom (which would get nasty, with a cat that loves to race and tear around the apartment at night), or I could try to play them on my old toaster NES (which is a chore to get the games to run). That being said, if / when those games get official Famicom releases, I'll go back and purchase the real version as well, to help support the developer and community.

We're not a bunch of poor teenagers anymore who just want to play free games or listen to the latest rap album, downloaded illegally.

On a different note, the biggest turn off for me, by far, in the homebrew scene (and the homebrew scene is easily my favorite part of gaming by now) is the limited availability of games. If you even do so much as fart, you lose out. Then again I guess this goes back to my points about business sense and whether they're trying to make money or not.

You do you. We don't have to agree and I can honestly say, you and I are not going to agree with a lot on this. I can sit here and rebuttal back and forth until we are blue in the face, neither of us are budging from our stance. I can't control what options you choose to play games on as much as you can control what consoles devs release games for. Spend your money and time how you want, and devs will spend their money and time how they want.

You also missed the entire point that was being made. Either VGS is a platform that supports homebrewers or it isn't. Once people no longer feel supported or their wishes and opinions are not respected, they will eventually stop coming. So, if I see people going against the developers wishes, why would I support that? This developer chose not to release the rom, but from what I see, entitlement > dev's choice.

1 minute ago, fcgamer said:

Strongly disagree. I'd like to see evidence supporting this, as from every situation that I've seen, it hasn't been that way at all.

 

Obviously I can't prove this and you know that. It is only my experience from those I know who sold their collections. I'm not here to toss their names out. Off the top of my head of those I personally know who did this, the count sits at 7 or 8. Used the money for something they really wanted to do and condensed their collection to a pi or powerpak. I honestly don't know a single person who sold their entire collection and don't have one of those options to still play.

5 hours ago, OptOut said:

I have no skin in this discussion whatsoever, but I found this particular statement pretty contradictory... How is limiting the distribution of Homebrew games to incredibly scarce and highly expensive releases supposed to help expand interest in Homebrew games?

I personally don't have much experience with any homebrew games, specifically BECAUSE I have very few avenues to obtain them, they are not on my radar whatsoever. I would have thought having at least the ROMs of homebrew games floating around freely out there would INCREASE the interest in them, not decrease it?

 

Other than that, I have really no input on this discussion, I just thought that was an odd argument.

Want to know why most people have given up their collections? Because it got too expensive and got a raspberry pi with a bunch of illegal roms. When the avenue to free vs paid for is there, free will be chosen most often.

In my opinion, there is a big difference. What I may have done or haven't done doesn't justify promoting stealing other people IPs.

- The Konamis and SNKs of the world are no longer making games for you guys to play on the NES, so put that in whatever gray area category that clears your conscience. Current devs are making new games for you on the NES and want to make more.

- The money you spend on old NES games no longer supports the original developer. The money you spend on homebrews does support current developers.

- Supporting current devs only increases the quality of the games being made as you encourage them to give up their free time to make better games. Nearly every dev has an normal 8-5 like you plus many of them have families to support. You can buy many of the roms now for just a few bucks straight from the dev and continue to support them.

- The profit made on homebrews are already slim and piracy hurts current devs.

- You personally know many of the devs and talk directly with them, so support them.

- This is a labor of love done in the dev's free time that takes hundreds of hours. Then you see your work stolen, that can be demoralizing.

- Nintendo has a team of lawyers who can protect their IP from being stolen. Most homebrewers can't afford the money or time to work with a lawyer to protect their IP. So, we count on community trust and support.

- Just because the game isn't being sold now doesn't mean it may not be released. We have seen this on numerous occasions. I know a few people have tried to reach out to zdxplay to help rerelease Star Keeper. Who knows, it may return!

- Eventually, stolen roms of quality homebrews end up becoming reproductions sold on the internet. I've seen numerous homebrew repros being sold on AliExpress, eBay, and Etsy.

- Homebrew fans are already a pretty niche group. Trying to expand on that is tough enough, let alone if everyone can just find these games for free.

If you want to spend time hunting down homebrew roms across the Internet, then that is your business, I really don't care what you do. I don't want anyone's throat for pirating roms and I really care what your feelings about piracy and pircacy laws are.  All I can do is advocate for and support the homebrewers who wish for their IPs to remain protected. I am fully aware that many of these games are already dumped and out there and eventually, all will be. But VGS is supposed to be a forum that supports and welcomes homebrewers, not promote piracy of their work and then tell them how to they should feel about their IP being stolen just because you feel entitled to their work.

13 minutes ago, ecmyers said:

I didn't say I was going to dump it or release the ROM, just that someone has been bugging me to do so over on my YouTube post. I'm aware that 87Arts does not want it to be released publicly, so of course I wouldn't share the ROM even if I could. I assumed it was OK to share pics of the PCB though, since I haven't seen them documented anywhere else.

My comment about piracy was not aimed at you, bud. Tinkering with your own personal copy is not an issue for me. My issue is with those who thinks its ok to pirate homebrew roms. Speaking out against pirating other fellow community member's hard work is a hill I'm willing to die on.

Since when has VGS turned into an illegal homebrew warez forum? I'm pretty sure it goes against the developer's wishes to have this dumped and released to the public. He even said as much when he discussed not wanting his hard work lumped in with cheap Chinese clones. If someone uses their personal copy to create a backup and document the mapper, I see no ethical issues with that. However, I would be terribly disappointed in the homebrew collecting community if this rom was made public just because a few people feel entitled to own a rom.

Hope Gamers goes down. That store was always very shady. Haven't been to the Gameroom in years, but I always had a good experience when I went there.

It's not a completed project until all of the materials are ordered and assembled. Kickstarter was used to finish the project. There is 0 startup cost to program the game. All the overhead comes from production and manufacturing which is what he asking to be funded. Not everyone has $15,000 laying around to produce 300 physical copies.

I know for a fact that Goodwill would toss boxes of cartridge games and consoles in the 90s. My uncle worked for a garbage company and got me a lot of Atari games that way as a kid.

I feel far more may have been tossed by retailers and warehouses than by consumers.

1 minute ago, Deadeye said:

My knowledge of Chip Maestro is limited.  I was under the impression that it was a dev tool, without a music album on the cart.  Instead the cart is used to interface with music equipment.  

That impression might be wrong, and feel free to correct me. 

I think you nailed it. I've never actually used it in the years of having it.

1 hour ago, Deadeye said:

@Orab Gamesgot you for everything except music carts, only carts count at this time.

Great homebrew collection and work on Tailgate Party.

Whould Chip Maestro count as a music cart? I have that, too.