9 replies to this topic

[Colecovision Zone]

I sold 4 homebrew games last week on eBay for over $400.

I think it's unfair that the original conceptor of the games dont receive any money on that.
I have contacted Philipp Klaus Krause and Luc Miron to tell them that I wanted to share a part of the profit with them.

I hope it's something people could do in the future to support Colecovision homebrewer.

[youki]

Very nice behavior. But Does the publisher will share the profit you shared with the developper.

[Colecovision Zone]

The publishers are taking the financial risk. I'll be tempted to say no .... but I know why you are asking the question

[VertigoProcess]

I can understand why you would want to do this, but its the same concept of profit sharing with any game you sell... if you sold a non homebrew do you share profits with the developer also/

[Murph74]

It is a nice sentiment, CVZ, but one not likely to catch on. From a general business perspective, the publisher knew how much they had to charge to make it worth while to them and set their price. The collector bought it at said price, and knew there was a chance it could go up (or down) in value if they chose to resell it eventually.

The trickle down of the profit is a noble concept, but I'm afraid one that will just lead to greedy motives. For example, at what point does the publisher feel you're not giving them a 'fair' share of the profit and feel insulted? At what point does the programmer feel slighted? At what point does the publisher just auction the title off themselves? Not the same scenario, but look at the Opcode protos and how expensive those got being sold by the developer. And as VP noted above, why stop with just the Homebrew producers?

[ColecoDan]

Redistribution of wealth probably does happen anyway because look at it this way. The seller makes a big profit reselling the game (most likely to a colecovision enthusiast who doesn't know better or missed out). They will definately buy the next game that is produced to be able to do this again so that is one game sold and then the colecovision guy they sold the game to now has the info on the box and manual to look up the website of the developer and or producer and they might purchase the next game as well. Having it on ebay could also put it out there and get new people to look up the producers site as well. So that whole process has the potential to grow the producers pool of available purchasers which in turn redistributes wealth back into the process of making more games. I know that doesn't mean much in the form of riches to the little guy aka 'producer' and 'programmer' but for all the hours and hard work these guys do to produce these things if they were doing it for the money they wouldn't bother doing it because they could probably make more money working part time at mcdonalds. Also if they were in it for the money they would put the games on ebay and sell them in the form opcode did to make huge amount of dollars. Granted a lot of us bid on those games because we wanted to help opcode produce more games and give him money to accomplish his goal while getting something back for ourselves but I am sure there were other people that just wanted the game at any cost.

[retroillucid]

ColecoDan, on Tue Nov 15, 2011 2:02 PM, said:

Redistribution of wealth probably does happen anyway because look at it this way. The seller makes a big profit reselling the game (most likely to a colecovision enthusiast who doesn't know better or missed out). They will definately buy the next game that is produced to be able to do this again so that is one game sold and then the colecovision guy they sold the game to now has the info on the box and manual to look up the website of the developer and or producer and they might purchase the next game as well. Having it on ebay could also put it out there and get new people to look up the producers site as well. So that whole process has the potential to grow the producers pool of available purchasers which in turn redistributes wealth back into the process of making more games. I know that doesn't mean much in the form of riches to the little guy aka 'producer' and 'programmer' but for all the hours and hard work these guys do to produce these things if they were doing it for the money they wouldn't bother doing it because they could probably make more money working part time at mcdonalds. Also if they were in it for the money they would put the games on ebay and sell them in the form opcode did to make huge amount of dollars. Granted a lot of us bid on those games because we wanted to help opcode produce more games and give him money to accomplish his goal while getting something back for ourselves but I am sure there were other people that just wanted the game at any cost.

Well said!

[Pixelboy]

I told ColecoVision Zone to keep his money, and that if he wants to show his appreciation for my work, he can just use those profits to buy some of my upcoming games.

When I started out as a ColecoVision publisher, I knew that a phenomenon of rarity could (and likely would) drive up prices on eBay and elsewhere online. At this point I should remind everyone that I don't make any profit from my games, and I don't care about other people making money off my games. My goal is simply to get these games out there, with nice boxes and manuals, for everyone to enjoy. And unlike the greed-oriented players of today's video game industry, I believe everyone has a right to resell what they buy. That's one side of capitalism I fully support.

Incidently, I'll be putting a few copies of my Team Pixelboy games up on eBay next Saturday evening. This is not related in any way to ColecoVision Zone's recent auctions, I've been planning this for a couple of months, and I'll be selling a few TV shows on DVDs at the same time, if anyone is interested.

I do thank ColecoVision Zone for the profit-sharing offer, although such actions are kinda lost on me.

[Yurkie]

Good luck on the auctions Buddy. ColecoVision Homebrews make great stocking stuffers

[RelliK111]

ColecoDan, on Tue Nov 15, 2011 2:02 PM, said:

Redistribution of wealth probably does happen anyway because look at it this way. The seller makes a big profit reselling the game (most likely to a colecovision enthusiast who doesn't know better or missed out). They will definately buy the next game that is produced to be able to do this again so that is one game sold and then the colecovision guy they sold the game to now has the info on the box and manual to look up the website of the developer and or producer and they might purchase the next game as well. Having it on ebay could also put it out there and get new people to look up the producers site as well. So that whole process has the potential to grow the producers pool of available purchasers which in turn redistributes wealth back into the process of making more games. I know that doesn't mean much in the form of riches to the little guy aka 'producer' and 'programmer' but for all the hours and hard work these guys do to produce these things if they were doing it for the money they wouldn't bother doing it because they could probably make more money working part time at mcdonalds. Also if they were in it for the money they would put the games on ebay and sell them in the form opcode did to make huge amount of dollars. Granted a lot of us bid on those games because we wanted to help opcode produce more games and give him money to accomplish his goal while getting something back for ourselves but I am sure there were other people that just wanted the game at any cost.

That's kind of funny because that was how I got into being a fan of the whole homebrew scene I bought pacman collection on ebay and thought it was a colecovision game I just missed back in the day. When I played it I was blown away! It didn't seem like it should be playing on my Colecovision but it was! I then started looking into opcode and then all the other homebrews, now I'm trying to get them all, but it's not easy to do

Edited by RelliK111, Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:28 AM.