Reproductions carts-Homebrew games

[icemanxp300]

This is a touchy subject and while I do not do reproductions of homebrew games, it is for the sole reason that it is not right to take away from someone's profits on a game they worked hard to make. The catch of this is for a game that is no longer being produced it is not taking $$ away from the person/people who made the game.

 

I always have found it absolutely annoying that people release there games in limited quantities, then just leave their fan base up the creek w/out a paddle. With that said. On games that are no longer being sold whether homebrew or original there isn't much difference in reproducing them as long as they are marked as reproduction, in my opinion.

 

To go even further would a timeframe of when the games were sold matter in your opinions? Like It was sold 5 years ago 10 years ago, so on. What time frame would you say it is ok to repro or never?

 

Curious on peoples thoughts here. I know there will be the people who will be against it as they don't want there limited 100 release homebrew game tanking in value, but just like any other limited game out there as long as it is marked it should not take away the collector value.

[+save2600]

All the other intrinsics aside for a moment - I'm not worried about long out of print repro's ruining the value of my originals - but when it's not obvious, reproductions should always indicate somewhere that they are indeed a reproduction! And if/when you go to sell or trade a reproduction away, should always make it clear to the other party what's what.

[Justin Payne]

Great mental exercise!

Ah, yes. Good ol' intellectual property laws.

I don't think one should be able to take a person's game, put it on some media, and resell it. I don't think I can budge on this point.

 

Let's focus on original retail game. You can try to grab one on eBay. They're full of stock but unless you're looking for a cartridge, bit rot is most likely what you'll be buying.

Let's take a trip over to AtariMania. It's full soft copies of games. I did a little looking at didn't see anything about how they obtained permissions to host this software so I can only assume they put it up there and then just wait until the creators of the software complain. Some time has passed since this software was created so I now consider this a historic repository.

 

Now, let's take same same thinking into account for homebrews. If they aren't being sold by the author anymore,there is still a chance that you can head over to eBay and grab a used copy. Of course, these runs were a lot smaller and that will translate to less available and higher prices.

As with the original retail version, the author isn't benefiting from these sales so it's really just those homebrew buyers that were lucky enough to be around when these things were produced.

 

Since we see retail games on AtariMania, when would we expect to see homebrews up there as well. Should this be the point when the community reaches out to the homebrew creator. Although this probably didn't happen with those retail games were made public, chances are the homebrew author would still be around to give approval. But what if they don't. While we were more than happy to wait 30+ years for nostalgia, we, and the hardware we play these games on, aren't getting any younger and so I don't think we have another 30 years to wait for homebrews to make their public appearance. I think 5 years is long enough to wait to make a game publicly available without asking for consent. The author could just produce one cartridge every 5 years to keep their ownership freshened but this is sort of a dick move so I would expect that small batched would have to be made available at least once a year. I think it's also a great idea to reach out to the homebrew authors and try to come to an agreement if someone is willing to do a run for them. I think most people that create games for these systems do it out of love for the community and are generally less interested in making a quick buck so I'm sure a reasonable agreement can be had by all.

 

Here is my last thought. Those selling homebrew versions of retail games are in a way stealing the intellectual property of others so my conscious on these games tends to be less compromised.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

I'll start by saying that I don't care about lowering any value homebews might have. I don't buy them as collector's items. I buy them because I like the games and I want to support the creators. Often when a game is released in limited numbers, it's all about cost. Not everyone has the equipment to put a game on a cart, which means paying someone else to do it, which means up-front cost. So you only make what you know you can sell.

 

For me the issue with reproductions come down to personal use vs. selling. If you want to make one cart so you can play the game on real hardware, that's fine, I have no issue with that. If you want to make a run of carts and sell them, you need to get the permission of the creator/rights holder. That goes for homebrews or commercial releases, but I have a lot of wiggle room when it comes to commercial releases, since a lot of those companies don't exist anymore or the rights have been bought, sold and dumped off so many times that no one, maybe not even the actual rights holders, knows who owns them anymore.

Edited January 16, 2017 by KaeruYojimbo