Definition of a "Complete Set"?

[Tulpa | 3,488]

1 minute ago, cartman said:

It seems we're just not on the same page and there's really not much else to it. Your view is that any programmed junk on a cart is part of a "full set" while for me there's really no point in a definition wich doesn't exclude anything.

 

I can agree to disagree.

I just think that if you're talking full, you need a few qualifiers.

[cartman | 195]

3 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

I can agree to disagree.

I just think that if you're talking full, you need a few qualifiers.

I don't think i need qualifiers in the same way that counterfit items are not part of a discussion unless specified. People can qualify their unlicensed stuff though that's fine.

 

[Tulpa | 3,488]

1 minute ago, cartman said:

I don't think i need qualifiers

Then be prepared to answer questions. Is it including European licensed? Or just North American? Hong Kong Mah Jong included? (That was licensed.)

[cartman | 195]

1 minute ago, Tulpa said:

Then be prepared to answer questions. Is it including European licensed? Or just North American? Hong Kong Mah Jong included? (That was licensed.)

It's including the NA set as the default because that's the most broad library. The European releases have like half the NA amount it's a fucking joke. But yeah but would be legitimate aside from that.

I don't know about that game. I'd say yes if it was licensed.

[Tulpa | 3,488]

3 minutes ago, cartman said:

I don't know about that game. I'd say yes if it was licensed.

Then I hope you have a big pocketbook. Only nine or so have been found (compared to 200 or so Stadium Events.)

[cartman | 195]

5 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

Then I hope you have a big pocketbook. Only nine or so have been found (compared to 200 or so Stadium Events.)

Yeah that happens sometimes games become practically unobtainable. Altough people probably don't go crazy over that one even if the numbers say it's rare.

[Tulpa | 3,488]

4 minutes ago, cartman said:

Yeah that happens sometimes games become practically unobtainable. Altough people probably don't go crazy over that one even if the numbers say it's rare.

No, but they find ways to exclude it.

To me, the most egregious example are those who say Stadium Events doesn't count. Yes, they're out there. What next? Little Samson and Dino Peak?

[guitarzombie | 924]

Just now, Tulpa said:

No, but they find ways to exclude it.

To me, the most egregious example are those who say Stadium Events doesn't count. Yes, they're out there. What next? Little Samson and Dino Peak?

The issue is although it has its own NES ID (NES-SD) it was bought BY Nintendo and renamed and re-released.  SE and WCTM is, as far as I know, the same exact game with a different title screen.  Maybe some different text. Little Samson/F2 are its own games entirely without any variant or re-release.  Im in the SE as a variant camp anyway.  I wasn't going total NA anyway.  I think of full set as every licensed NES game that came out within its lifespan when licensed games were stopped being made for it.  1985 to 1994.  Variants arent important to me personally for that.  Like the Tengen/Namco Pacmans.  But IIRC those are both different gamewise.  Could be wrong.

[Tulpa | 3,488]

Just now, guitarzombie said:

 Like the Tengen/Namco Pacmans.  But IIRC those are both different gamewise.  Could be wrong.

The Ms. Pac-Mans are different. The Pac-Mans are the same aside from the publisher listed on the title screen, IIRC.

[guitarzombie | 924]

Yeah (and the Namcos MUCH worse Ms Pacman), but I was talking about the gray shelled licensed NES versions.

[Tulpa | 3,488]

AFAIK, the two Tengen Pac-Mans (the licensed and unlicensed) and the licensed Namco Pac-Man are indistinguishable once you're actually playing the game.

Tengen was (along with Bandai) the primary publisher of Namco NES games up until Namco started doing their own publishing in 1993. So I imagine they all just used the same game code.

I have no idea what the sequence of events was that led to Tengen publishing a radically different Ms. Pac-Man.

Edited October 18, 2020 by Tulpa

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,055]

1 hour ago, Tulpa said:

No, but they find ways to exclude it.

To me, the most egregious example are those who say Stadium Events doesn't count. Yes, they're out there. What next? Little Samson and Dino Peak?

We agree here, excluding SE is dumb

[cartman | 195]

8 hours ago, Tulpa said:

No, but they find ways to exclude it.

To me, the most egregious example are those who say Stadium Events doesn't count. Yes, they're out there. What next? Little Samson and Dino Peak?

Well there are circumstances around it that are exceptional it has this weird sub-region of Hong Kong and was barely made available to anyone. Stadium Event and the others are more straightforward in comparsion.

[Tulpa | 3,488]

5 hours ago, cartman said:

Well there are circumstances around it that are exceptional it has this weird sub-region of Hong Kong and was barely made available to anyone. Stadium Event and the others are more straightforward in comparsion.

But the game was licensed and released. Tiny quantities, but it was released.

See, if you have to make excuses to exclude games, then your set isn't full. Just accept and deal with that.

Edited October 18, 2020 by Tulpa

[cartman | 195]

1 hour ago, Tulpa said:

But the game was licensed and released. Tiny quantities, but it was released.

See, if you have to make excuses to exclude games, then your set isn't full. Just accept and deal with that.

Yeah if it is licensed and released it belong to the set. Those are some excuses that might be used but they still aren't valid enough to change anything.

[avatar! | 1,807]

On 10/18/2020 at 1:03 PM, cartman said:

Yeah if it is licensed and released it belong to the set. Those are some excuses that might be used but they still aren't valid enough to change anything.

Agreed! and for the ultra-collector, I think they can in principle get a complete set of "commercially released licensed games" - which I denote as such to include of course homebrews such as Project Blue - which my copy should be on it's way  

[Armageddon Potato | 124]

Whoa, this topic is giving me flashbacks! It's funny how little this topic has changed even over the last 20 years or so. I can only give my opinion based on my personal experience. Some of my personal ideology for collecting:

1.) Have consistent naming conventions for quick and easy reference as to what you are collecting. It's ok for sets to literally just be for fun. (Variant NES set, Standard CIB NES set, Capcom only NES set, all games that include the word "Taco" CIB set, etc)

2.) Have clear consistent definitions that would equally be able to apply to any game console set.

3.) Collecting will always be in the eye of the collector.

There are two different sides of how "much" of something needs to be collected for the collecting "end goal" to have been achieved. This depends on the collector's view. One side is the "Full True Interdimensional All Universes Any% Set" and the other is "Like, I got all 3 Mario games dude." Most people will arrive somewhere between those two points. The thing here is the words used to describe the build of each set. Some emphasis words like "Full" or "True" are unnecessary since no one has a "Empty" or "False" set of games.

An example could be: USA licensed/unlicensed variant CIB NES set. This would contain every single USA NES game licensed and unlicensed, all variants & revisions, CIB. That's a lotta copies of the same game CIB across the board! Matching those boxes and carts is gunna be a lot of work!

Personally I collect: USA licensed/unlicensed CIB NES set. This simply contains one of each "game" and excludes all redundancy in variants and revisions. This also means boxes don't need to match the cartridge revision, etc. I do own some variants(Punch-Out!!, King Neptune, Flying Scroll, etc.) They actually don't count towards my main collecting goal. They are just for fun! Most of us probably have some variants somewhere in our collection even if we don't collect them specifically.

Now onto the Stadium Events issue. This game originally wasn't a big deal(just like Little Samson), but after appearing in a lot of news articles and circulating around different collecting forums it's gained a lot of hype. With hype and rarity it's price has certainly jumped up sky high! It's rare for sure, but what is its placement in a particular set? We would need to define what a "game" is first. I would say "Punch-Out!!" is a game. If you own the one with Mr. Dream, or Mike Tyson each one is an example of "Punch-Out!!" the NES game. If you own just one of these, you own the game "Punch-Out!!". If you own only one of these however you do not own all the variants and revisions of the game "Punch-Out!!". Variants and revisions get tricky because some are very hard to spot. Here's a few examples:

The first one is pretty obvious, but the second one is an example of when they revised the death screen in Zelda for the NES. The last one is a total box, manual, cart art overhaul. This gets even trickier when you consider there are games with no discernible outside differences other than playing the game to a certain point that exist(Ghosts 'n Goblins original versions that have the final level poison ladder glitch, etc.)

Something else to consider is that if you hacked any version of "Punch-Out!!" and changed Don Flamenco to be another character like Ivan Drago you would simply consider this an alteration of an existing game. Not a completely new independent game.

If you want to claim you're collecting a complete NES set and that includes Stadium Events to stay consistent in your own definition you would also need to own all those small minuet variants and revisions as well. I often see Stadium Events is kind of just thrown in randomly and all the lesser known ones go ignored. I don't see any reason why it should be mandatory for anyone else who is just collecting a standard NES set to have to own it since World Class Track meet is the same "game." In fact it's more the same "game" than some of the other variants and revisions that exist out there. I don't get why Stadium Events would get any kind of special treatment or rules that would force it's inclusion into that category.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Armageddon Potato

[fcgamer | 4,719]

On 10/16/2020 at 10:27 AM, DefaultGen said:

I mean this one is easy, collect Activision games and throw the rest into the garbage, because it’s the others who are second class citizens.

I default to US licensed sets when people say full set (licensed by the company that makes the console). So on many Genesis “full set” lists I’d pull out something like Ishido: The Way of Stones and for something like Atari a full set doesn’t exist unless you define what you mean, although by any realistic definition of full a full set wouldn’t be very possible to collect.

Licensing is based on regions too though. So you have something like Videomation on NES. The game was licensed by Nintendo for the NES in the USA, but it was unlicensed (not a bootleg) for the Famicom.

So how do we classify it? Just depending on which region you are collecting?

Okay, that's fair enough, but what about those notorious ROM sites, how would we classify the ROM on there? As licensed or unlicensed? It's my understanding that the actual rom data is identical between the versions.

[fcgamer | 4,719]

On 10/16/2020 at 2:13 PM, Sumez said:

Unless you want to own everything that exists in the entire world, a "set" is nothing other than a specific list of items.

You decide what items are a part of that list, and those make out the set. If you have all of them you have a "complete set".

Any other way of looking at it is ridiculous.

And that's why it's better to be a trailblazer. The pioneers make the lists and define the sets, they codify it so to speak. Afterwards, the followers try to make changes, but interestingly enough, generally the disputes are over expensive and rare items, which weren't as expensive when the trailblazers were making the lists and obtaining the items themselves.

[fcgamer | 4,719]

On 10/17/2020 at 6:59 AM, Mr. CIB said:

You are making the case against your own argument. A “licensed” game is a two way street.... it must be licensed by the developer/publisher and the console manufacturer. Till this day no side show bob can legally make a game for a console and have to be approved by the console manufacturer. Nintendo has since stop licensing any game for their systems up to the Wii in North America Which was confirmed by V-Blank when they couldn’t make Shakedown Hawaii in NA. 
 

Make no mistake about it.... if Nintendo wrote LRG a letter and told them they couldn’t create anymore reproduction carts for their previous systems it would be shut down. As far as LRG they licensed it from the developer to publish the carts which they would need to reproduce them legally or risk being sued by the developer. 
 

I always go back to the list Nintendo Published maybe 18-20 years ago of their NES licensed games which had a few exclusions because they didn’t want to recognize things such as MTPO. If you even go to their financial historical data they publish on their own site...... it sure doesn’t include anything past the time they were manufacturing the carts. 

Not true , as court cases showed, making original games that were unlicensed by Nintendo was totally fine. The problem would be if the IP was stolen or the game was not properly licensed from any developers.

[fcgamer | 4,719]

On 10/17/2020 at 1:50 PM, Code Monkey said:

Common usage doesn't change the definition of a term. When I ask someone how they're doing, 99% of people tell me they're, "Good," that doesn't make it correct. That just tells me they don't know the difference between an adjective and an adverb.

(Spoiler alert, the proper response is, "I'm well.")

So that only tells me 99% of people don't know what a full set is.

Right, because you would follow a prescriptive approach to linguistics. Luckily for me, I much prefer a descriptive approach , as I prefer realities.

[fcgamer | 4,719]

On 10/18/2020 at 7:23 AM, LeatherRebel5150 said:

Just because something works as a NES game means nothing. The unlicensed games then and now use methods to circumvent the lockout chip that were/are either potentially damaging (voltage spike) or outright illegal (Tengen lying to acquire Nintendo's CIC code).  

It also gave them access to the proper components to work with the machine as intended from my previous comment. I'd argue arbitrarily saying someone found a way for something to work on this machine and illicitly found a way to circumvent the technology creators copyrights (CIC code) is reason for it not to be considered. The other problem I find with statement is these games your talking about DON'T work just as well. If they did then there would be no need to circumvent the security chip at all. The mere act of stunning the CIC is proof that it does not work correctly at all. No electronics would need to be hit like that if these games "worked just as well as those gray ones."

What are you calling recent? I been around 10yrs doing this now and when I first came in their were posts of people completing their NES set, they clearly meant licensed and there wasn't a flurry of people attacking them for the terminology. It wasn't until a few years later did I see a person or two bumming on the threads with "Umm well actually, that's not full, 'cause you don't have that one game some dude made once, so yea"

Patents may have ran out but copyrights last a stupid amount of time. The CIC code is still copyrighted. The clone chips that may use their code are doing so illegally even if Nintendo don't care to act on it. Clones don't contain the lockout chips as far as I'm aware, barring maybe the AVS since they had the said CIC clone. 

They quite literally were illegitimate they did not work with the machine as they were supposed to. See above comments about the lockout chip. Just because I can force a Mustang 302 engine to work in my Firebird doesn't suddenly make the 302 a Pontiac engine. 

Personally I'm still going to refer to it as a full set anyway. It's common vernacular at this point, people know what I mean. If they don't they can use their brains to figure it out from the context.

Aside from one exception (the Codemasters games using the wrong "black", I don't think any of the above actually relates to the games themselves. It's a hardware thing not a game (software) issue, same could be said about running famicom games or pal games off a ntsc NES. 

[O.G. CIB | 415]

7 hours ago, fcgamer said:

Not true , as court cases showed, making original games that were unlicensed by Nintendo was totally fine. The problem would be if the IP was stolen or the game was not properly licensed from any developers.

What court case? In what country? Can't be Atari Games Corp. and Tengen, Inc., Plaintiffs-appellants, v. Nintendo of America Inc. and Nintendo Co., Ltd., Defendants-appellees, 975 F.2d 832 (Fed. Cir. 1992)

Because that clearly wasn't the case in this ruling. In 1990 the court granted Nintendo all rights to go after unlicensed games by Tengen games that were sold in stores by retailers. In the case I referenced above cir. 1992, Nintendo won the case to stop Tengen's unapproved games permanently. Atari also had a lawsuit which caused the FTC to look into Nintendo practices and the eased them to avoid it. Point me to what case you are referencing?

Edited November 2, 2020 by Mr. CIB

[fcgamer | 4,719]

IIRC it was with Sega vs Accolade?

[fcgamer | 4,719]

Besides, the problem with the tengens were A, they copied the CIC device, and B, Tetris they didn't have the proper rights to use. Those were the two issues, rather than it being unauthorised.