131 replies to this topic

[Willard]

In this case I suppose there was a bit of a misunderstanding resulting from me, as I honestly don't think it would be possible for MD to profit (make money) off this considering how far in the red he is (a detail I really should have mentioned in the beginning) . There is no way you could interpret this as an investment.

What he plans to do with this have never been clear... he has suggested that he might have had permission to release but the emails were lost, that he might continue dev or might release the files. I don't think there is enough information to put everything 100% together. all that's certain is that he's been absorbing every sale of anything unique related to the game for the past decade since his initial deal with HVS to get the ROM (data drives, an alpine with the ROM loaded .etc .etc).


At any rate, a debate was way past due in the Jag section

Edited by Willard, Sun Dec 11, 2011 8:33 PM.

[goatdan]

CyranoJ, on Sun Dec 11, 2011 7:26 PM, said:

It's only an "investment" if you plan to make money from it (ie, cash cash-cow money gouge) - Otherwise it's just a file on a hard disk. That doesn't belong to the seller.

Interesting debate... gotta ask though...

Let's say that someone could secure the rights to officially release some game by paying $2500 for it. The option is either the person obtains the rights for $2500, or the game is not legally released, and may be lost for all time. Would you rather it be lost, or would you rather it be sold?

The point that I think that was missing from this conversation is that for other consoles, generally the rights for certain titles *cannot* be obtained, either because those companies have long since gone belly-up, or because the rights holders want nothing to do with the title (Mother for the NES comes to mind). The Jaguar is different because most of the companies that worked on it still retain the rights to their titles, and to make it worth their while to whip up a contract to allow a beta to go public would definitely take some money. Companies *aren't* just "hobbiests", and if you are actually going to the source of the material to get the release rights, there will probably have to be some sort of agreement there that is more than just the person in control of the ROMs dumps them. You're talking potentially hours of contacting people, negotiations, and so on.

I think that the option with many things from the Jaguar era -- with perhaps the exception of a lot of the Atari stuff that Curt has been so good to find and pass on -- have right holders that should be contacted. There are groups that don't do that, but in the case of a game like TRF, I think you would have to do that.

I wish that someone made TRF into an investment because I would love to pay for a legit copy of it so I could see what it was shaping up to be in real life. If you disagree, no one is forcing your hand to buy it. But, if the belief is that the people that invest their own time and money above and beyond obtaining the game code itself should not be compensated in any way for their work and investment, I doubt the Jaguar community would have seen half the releases that it has seen. The ridiculous amounts of protos, betas, and unreleased games that have come out to me attest to the fact that there is a strong enough interest in it. I can also guarantee no one doing anything legitimately is getting rich off selling a few carts for $50 or whatever.

Seriously though, if you go and look at the major unreleased titles that are available for the other consoles out there, I can't come up with any that have nearly the same amount of stuff available that the Jaguar does. I know of a half dozen things for the Dreamcast, but I know of a TON of Dreamcast stuff that has no chance of legally being reproduced because the community probably wouldn't be interested. That Jaguar has dozens of these releases, which I think is amazingly cool.

If you don't like them, just don't support the releases. If enough people don't support them, then the market will dry up and we'll have no regular releases like most of the other retro gaming communities out there.

[ggn]

I will never understand why Jag people are so touchy regarding piracy but are completely at ease regarding prototypes. Both are really the same thing: You're actually trying to profit from the blood, sweat and tears of other people, without doing the real work. No matter how much you sugar coat it with pretty words. By that logic: If you sell a ROM which is not your intellectual property, you're a low life pirate scum. Paying a hefty sum for buying a cart or a dev machine that has a proto with intentions of selling it only makes you a fool low life pirate scum.

Edited by ggn, Mon Dec 12, 2011 12:42 AM.

[Willard]

@ dan megadata was so badly burned by HVS i would not advise anybody try to get the rights lol, prbly get ripped off again. Might be an interesting hypothetical discussion tho.

Edited by Willard, Mon Dec 12, 2011 1:24 AM.

[BuddyBuddies]

"JAGUAR RULES!"

[CyranoJ]

goatdan, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 12:35 AM, said:

Let's say that someone could secure the rights to officially release some game by paying $2500 for it. The option is either the person obtains the rights for $2500, or the game is not legally released, and may be lost for all time. Would you rather it be lost, or would you rather it be sold?

Good point, and I'd agree, hitting even would then be acceptable. Even making a profit would be ok then (permission permitting) given the rights were obtained (eg, Robinson's Requiem)

However, that isn't the case with the vast majority of Jaguar prototypes, now is it? It's hardly fair for you to make that statement as if it is the status quo. It certainly wouldn't be in the case of TRF, and it most certainly wasn't the case with a certain Warner IP that was recently pushed out for sale.

[goatdan]

CyranoJ, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 3:45 AM, said:

Good point, and I'd agree, hitting even would then be acceptable. Even making a profit would be ok then (permission permitting) given the rights were obtained (eg, Robinson's Requiem)

However, that isn't the case with the vast majority of Jaguar prototypes, now is it? It's hardly fair for you to make that statement as if it is the status quo. It certainly wouldn't be in the case of TRF, and it most certainly wasn't the case with a certain Warner IP that was recently pushed out for sale.

I guess my point would be that while that isn't the status quo with a lot of titles, the Jaguar definitely has a MUCH larger slate of legally released post-mortem titles than everything else. You can dump the two into totally separate categories without much trouble at all, and I thought you weren't noting a difference between the two.

Personally, I own all of the legally released Jaguar titles that have come, and I have ZERO issues supporting those. I let my money do the talking. I own none of the protos that people dumped and just made into random protos, as I think that is totally unfair, and I won't pay for those. So, I am there with you...

...but, please do make the distinction here. If someone legally bought the rights to release TRF, then let's have it, profit for them or whatever involved! I'd LOVE to see it. If it just appears on cart, I have no interest.

[Willard]

in light of the nature of the particular contract I think there needs to some restraint on the profits being made. Most often the companies that give independant publishers the rights do it with the understanding that it will be distributed in a way that most fans of the retro-platform will have access to it (i.e. no "cash cow money gouge"). Unfort. there are also some people in the retro game publishing business who get low license costs or royalties fees from very generous IP holders and yet they take advantage of this. Even worse some try to justify it with deceiving tactics. So to an extent I disagree with this since the individual who obtains the license can intentionally deceive the IP holder to (by understating earnings potential or misrepresenting production costs or their initial investment.etc). You can fall into unethical territory whether or not you have a license.

I think it should be noted that several publishers declined to reprint battlesphere simply because they could not profit off it, even tho the proceeds would have gone to a great cause and these publishers are really only "in business" because of the support of the retro gaming community.

Edited by Willard, Mon Dec 12, 2011 12:56 PM.

[CyranoJ]

Willard, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 12:12 PM, said:

I think it should be noted that several publishers declined to reprint battlesphere simply because they could not profit off it, even tho the proceeds would have gone to a great cause and these publishers are really only "in business" because of the support of the retro gaming community.

Can people please stop posting this guff about BSG and charity. See here.

Edit: Sorry, you didn't mention Gold.

[Willard]

CyranoJ, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 5:34 PM, said:

Edit: Sorry, you didn't mention Gold.

yea, to the best of my knowlege the proceeds would have gone to the American Diabetes Association had someone actually taken up the offer to reprint at that time. The debacle where the proceeds of a few Gold auctions were donated to some form of "piracy prevention" occured a little later and seemed unusual.

Anyway, did anybody see that there is a new video of Thea on youtube

kevincal, on Sat Dec 10, 2011 2:16 PM, said:

new vid of this game and it looks great

Edited by Willard, Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:17 PM.

[ls650]

Is anyone really all that excited about this? I mean, really, does the Jaguar need yet another 1-to-1 fighter game..?

[Sauron]

ls650, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:49 PM, said:

Is anyone really all that excited about this? I mean, really, does the Jaguar need yet another 1-to-1 fighter game..?

Nope, can't say I've ever been. I would've much preferred seeing a port of SFII or any of the MK series on the Jag rather than seeing yet another medioce fighting game.

[kevincal]

its better than nothing and better looking than 99% of homebrews put out

Edited by kevincal, Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:59 PM.

[goatdan]

Willard, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:40 PM, said:

yea, to the best of my knowlege the proceeds would have gone to the American Diabetes Association had someone actually taken up the offer to reprint at that time. The debacle where the proceeds of a few Gold auctions were donated to some form of "piracy prevention" occured a little later and seemed unusual.

The link that you have there says nothing about this deal. I don't remember that deal ever being offered -- to reprint them -- but I know of one company who would have been happy to do so, so long as we didn't risk losing money on the project. I can't speak to how other companies operate, but I can say that as long as we are interested in the project and can come up with a business plan that doesn't involve us losing our butts, we'll do it.

For instance, with the Skunkboard Rev 3 run, I think when all is said and done, we'll have made like $250, and that is only because we had 100% of the boards work. GOAT Store Publishing as a whole has lost more money than we expect to ever recoup... But, we do it to get cool stuff out there.

If the Battlesphere team is interested in this, I'd love to follow up with them.

And, if MD wants to contact me regarding TRF, I actually know a bunch of people there today. I'd be happy to try to help get this game legally out there one way or another :-)

[Austin]

kevincal, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:58 PM, said:

its better than nothing and better looking than 99% of homebrews put out

[goatdan]

Sauron, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:46 PM, said:

ls650, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:49 PM, said:

Is anyone really all that excited about this? I mean, really, does the Jaguar need yet another 1-to-1 fighter game..?

Nope, can't say I've ever been. I would've much preferred seeing a port of SFII or any of the MK series on the Jag rather than seeing yet another medioce fighting game.

To me, TRF holds a cool place in my 'gaming life' history...

At Jagfest 2k1, someone (Carl?) brought the game to show off. I was too busy to ever see it, but JD Norman came to Jagfest just to see it. We met at that show, and since then he has been one of the largest driving forces behind the MGC. So, it holds cool sentimental value for me :-)

[kevincal]

Austin, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:01 PM, said:

kevincal, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:58 PM, said:

its better than nothing and better looking than 99% of homebrews put out

LOL so which homebrews look better than TRF!? This should be good.

The graphic quality of the recent TRF video is just as good as say, MK3 on the playstation.. smooth realistic character animations nice colors paralax scrolling. nice looking backgrounds.

Edited by kevincal, Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:31 PM.

[Sauron]

kevincal, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:58 PM, said:

its better than nothing and better looking than 99% of homebrews put out

Let's see kevincal make a homebrew game that looks better than anything out there right now.

In other words, put up or shut up.

[kevincal]

Sauron, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:30 PM, said:

kevincal, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:58 PM, said:

its better than nothing and better looking than 99% of homebrews put out

Let's see kevincal make a homebrew game that looks better than anything out there right now.

In other words, put up or shut up.

It has nothing to do with that. I simply find it funny when sensitive homebrewers get their feelings hurt and their panties in a bunch when someone says a professionally made game by a professional team of programmers LOOKS better than their homebrew effort. Its funny I also got attacked when a homebrewer started talking smack about Supercross 3d and I mentioned it looked better than any homebrew that has even come out. Ya the framerate is not good but the game looks impressive with the big 3d texture mapped polygons and the game is plenty fun once you learn the ins and outs of it. So here I go again getting attacked because I think TRF looks better than homebrews with simple 8 bit (1st gen 16 bit at best) style graphics? LOL Guess I better keep the truth to myself from now on and always remember to kiss homebrewers asses no matter what.

Edited by kevincal, Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:40 PM.

[CyranoJ]

All the 'sensitive homebrewers' either got kicked out, left, or never managed to complete anything. Just us unsensitive ones left now.

Don't get so cocky mate.

[Sauron]

More like you should keep your mouth shut unless you have anything intelligent to say, in which case you wouldn't have much to say on here at all.

But yeah, if you're a total graphics whore and don't give a shit about gameplay, then sure, you're entitled to your opinions, no matter how ridiculously absurd they may be. But I'd easily put the gameplay of 99% of homebrews that have been released for the Jag up against Supercross 3D or even a proto of a game that's nowhere near complete. I play games to have fun, not look at graphics that weren't particularly impressive even 15 years ago.

[Austin]

kevincal, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:39 PM, said:

It has nothing to do with that.

Go back and read what you wrote, then figure out how to be a little more specific in future posts so your words aren't so easily taken out of context.

[Willard]

goatdan, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:00 PM, said:

Willard, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:40 PM, said:

yea, to the best of my knowlege the proceeds would have gone to the American Diabetes Association had someone actually taken up the offer to reprint at that time. The debacle where the proceeds of a few Gold auctions were donated to some form of "piracy prevention" occured a little later and seemed unusual.

The link that you have there says nothing about this deal. I don't remember that deal ever being offered -- to reprint them -- but I know of one company who would have been happy to do so, so long as we didn't risk losing money on the project.

That's because I didn't provide a link The link that cyranoj provided was just to show that the proceeds of certain gold copies went to piracy prevention, which some feel was a bogus cause but totally irrelevant considering the deal Thunderbird offered to certain people was for the proceedsd to go to ADA (the piracy thing didn't happen until well after gold was printed and thunderbird and gorf went nuts over piracy).

As for you not remembing the deal... read waaayyyy back and you might find some mention of it on AA and JS2. Thunderbird has mentioned certain companies by name before, I don't care to get into pointing fingers .etc

In regard to how goat store operates, that's a good way to operate, I never said u did otherwise I was just pointing out that the method of distribution does not necessarily determine whether publishers are gouging people or making unfair profits (or profits at all).

Edited by Willard, Mon Dec 12, 2011 10:21 PM.

[goatdan]

Willard, on Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:59 PM, said:

That's because I didn't provide a link The link that cyranoj provided was just to show that the proceeds of certain gold copies went to piracy prevention, which some feel was a bogus cause but totally irrelevant considering the deal Thunderbird offered to certain people was for the proceedsd to go to ADA (the piracy thing didn't happen until well after gold was printed and thunderbird and gorf went nuts over piracy).

As for you not remembing the deal... read waaayyyy back and you might find some mention of it on AA and JS2. Thunderbird has mentioned certain companies by name before, I don't care to get into pointing fingers .etc

Okay, sorry -- I thought that the link was supposed to be for that deal being talked about. I personally never saw that put forth, although I have followed a lot of the Battlesphere stuff. From what I remember (actual events may vary):

Thunderbird asked a few companies *before the first run* about producing it with no profits, and they turned him down. So they made the original run themselves. Part of the deal to get Atari (Hasbro) to release the rights to the Jaguar was that 4Play (Scatologic) would donate the proceeds to charity. The initial run of carts was made expecting to fill demand and just a little bit more, but shortly after being announced the story of the Jaguar's rights being released got picked up and spread through some huge news sites, and the demand for the game skyrocketed. They sold out within a few hours, if I recall correctly.

After that run, a couple years later, BattleSphere Gold was created. Because the game had been revised, they were not under the same "donate all proceeds to charity" rules, and I believe they kept some or all of the proceeds (and thank god, they worked on that game for how long?!) From what I know, after the initial run was created, no companies were approached to rerun the game...

Again, that is how I remember it happening. I believe this was all taking place in the very late 90s, maybe 2000. I know that by 2001, the game was officially out, and we held an 8 game network at Jagfest 2K1. I don't think that has ever been replicated anywhere, and it was really, really cool. BattleSphere Gold was not out at that time.

I would *love* the game to get a repress in any way, mostly because I would love to get more copies of it to create a big network again. I still have the material to do a three person network myself... and dang, I'm going to have to do that sometime soon. I think that Gary has a copy too, which would actually make it a four person network...

Quote

In regard to how goat store operates, that's a good way to operate, I never said u did otherwise I was just pointing out that the method of distribution does not necessarily determine whether publishers are gouging people or making unfair profits.

It's a good way to operate if you're a fan, not so much if you're a real business. If it was my full time job, we'd have gone bankrupt a long time ago. I agree that the method of distribution doesn't determine whether people are gouging or not. To me, whatever you want to do is fine so long as you actually own the rights to the material you're selling. If a noble intellectual rights holder gives you the rights to release something and expects it cheaply, they should write that into the contract... otherwise, we have no idea what it costs or doesn't cost to actually license the games and acquire the rights. I know that in some cases, just having the lawyers at a company pull out the rights and review them can cost hundreds in legal fees -- and doesn't even guarantee that the company will feel okay with selling it.

Considering those companies have to turn a profit too, I'm guessing that the majority of legal rights acquisition really isn't cheap. I've been presented with situations that were different in the past that unfortunately didn't work out due to various other legal issues, but I think that was a pretty special circumstance (and those games, sadly, will remain unreleased forever I believe... but it isn't the Jaguar, at least). The Jaguar community has been pretty persistent about finding and legally releasing a lot of stuff, and I think that is really cool.

[kevincal]

this thread proves that certain people hate me so much they will twist whatever I say to form some sort of attack against me. It's pathetic. and equally pathetic how the same people like each other's comments over and over LOL. homebrews are cool but too many of you are overconfident and COCKY about how good YOU THINK Jag homebrews are...