New Proto Roms

[Inky]

What is it with the new proto roms that people are burning them and selling them, (elevator action) or promising to release them and not doing so (Combat 2)?

 

Atari HQ said they were going to release combat 2, but never saw the roms on thier site. Anyone have them? I don't mind proto roms being burnt so you can play them on a real 2600, nor either do I mind them charging for such service, but those of us who are chaep *******s (like myself :^) ) like to use emulators..

 

Any thoughts?

 

Als, has anyone noticed that Atari HQ hasn't been updated since, I think, November?

[paul]

the combat 2 rom was released, i have it and will email it to you if you'd like.

 

paul

[Albert]

We have the Combat II ROM online here at AtariAge. You can download it from this page:

 

Combat II Profile

 

As for other ROMs, yeah, I'm not crazy about how long it's taking some of them to be released, but they almost always make their way out. I'm guessing there'll be some new games available after CGExpo. Even with the games that are being sold (and perhaps not being made available online), it only takes one person to dump and release them to the net.

 

..Al

[Blackjax]

I just think it's lower than dirt what some of these people are doing... preach for years about the "evils" of public prototype dumping and that its their choice not to do it and blah blah blah blah

 

except SELLING copies of a prototype is OK... i just don't get it.

 

I hope this time the carts are bought, dumped, and released. Hell, if anyone's going to CGE2001, I'll pay for the carts if you pick em up. Personally, I don't see much difference between this and ROM CD selling - except everyone recognizes one of the acts as wrong.

 

(except if its the original copyright holders, they have every right to sell copied since it's THEIR game...)

 

*revision* Things like the Multi-carts from Sean Kelly and Hozer Video games are different - sold for the price of parts and not for profit... there is a difference...

 

[ 07-01-2001: Message edited by: Blackjax ]

[Marco(2)]

An interesting posting (clearly there's a lot of anger involved). The way I see it, is that you are mad at people that:

 

1. are willing to pay $1000 or more for a unique (or not so unique) prototype;

 

2. invest another $$$$ plus lots of time and great care in producing boards, labels, boxes and manuals;

 

3. sell those at a price that enables them to recover production cost plus part of that $1000 or more?

 

I'd say, this is a rather cool way of introducing prototypes. Boxed-game idiots like me have a chance to add great items to their collections. Others get their hands on ROMs of games they never thought they'd play. And the buyer of the proto gets some of his money back.

 

Everybody happy...

 

...but you're apparently not, so what am I missing?

 

Cheers,

 

Marco

[Tempest]

I honestly don't see whats wrong with selling copies of prototypes (as long as you get the owners permission of course). It's better than the proto not being released at all isn't it?

 

I mean it takes major $$$ to get a unreleased prototype (unless your unbelieveably lucky). I know I've shelled out a bucks for some games and those had already been dumped! These people went through the time and trouble to make nice labels and boxes for these games and are just trying to get back some of their cost. Plus you have the guy who shelled out the money for the original proto, he's got a right to try recoup some money for the investment he's made.

 

Sure it would be great if they would just make copies for everyone for free, but I don't blame them for trying to make some money. It's not like these protos come cheap or anything.

 

As I found out it's real easy to sound all high and mighty in your ivory tower and preach the evils of selling protos for money and not having the "True Atari Spirt" until your put in that position. Thankfully my protos are just early versions of released games or games already dumped. If I owned a one of kind game that I decided to release to the public I may want to charge a few bucks too. Does that make me a bad person?

 

BTW, I should have my protos dumped in time for the CGE 2001 (if not I'll try to get them dumped there). I think I'll give away disks with the roms on them to friends. Later on I'll post them on my webpage, but I thought it would be cool if my friends from this board got them first.

 

Speaking of unreleased protos, does anyone know who ended up with that 2600 Crack'ed proto? That's surely a one of a kind....

 

Tempest

[Blackjax]

Well, there's a gigantic difference here when you speak of your prototypes Tempest. You've never sat around and preached and condemned the dumping of ROMs on the basis that they "would no longer be unique" and that "it's not fair to the original copyright holders" only to turn around and sell that very same game - making it no longer unique or (probably, but no one's ever said any different) contacting the original copyright holders.

 

It's just being hypocrytical.

 

Anyone who paid in blood more or less can choose to dump publically or not to dump publically - it's their cart. It just gets under my skin when someone who has been thumping the proverbial bible about this kinda stuff turns around and starts selling copies of his "unique" cart, going against everything he's said.

 

Personally, I owned two prototyes at one time, one for the NES and one for the SegaCD. I had the NES cart dumped and I ripped the SegaCD myself. Granted, I didn't pay thousands like you guys are talking about, but I still paid a decent ammount of cash for them.

 

One turned out to be byte-for-byte identical to the released version, and the other is now publically available on the internet. And as far as value, I sold both for more than I bought them for, even after they were made public.

 

It's not the hoarding that I despise - that I can at least understand even though I may not like it, but the preaching and the holier-than-thou attitudes of some people about dumping and then they turn around and SELL the cart when that was one of their concerns...

 

Although I suppose none of you understand and will simply write me off as a "rom grubbing warezer" as you usually do.

 

(although i suppose the easiest way of putting it is "personal vendetta", but take it as you will)

 

[ 07-01-2001: Message edited by: Blackjax ]

[Alex]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tempest:

Speaking of unreleased protos, does anyone know who ended up with that 2600 Crack'ed proto? That's surely a one of a kind....

 

Tempest

---

 

2600 Crack'ed? What's the story behind that? We don't even have that listed in our database. Is that a 100% confirmed proto?

[Tempest]

Yeah it 100% confirmed. It was one of the protos that B&C was going to sell off (I got Motorodeo and Klax), but he sold it to a private collector who wants to remain anonymous (although I think I know who it might be). Rumor has it it want for $1200+

 

I have some pictures of the game screens (and of the actual proto I think) but they're at work. I'll send them to you on Thursday (when I get back to work).

 

The graphics are really nice, they don't look that different from the 7800 version (which I always thought looked like a 2600 game anyway). It's by the guy who did the 7800 version (Robert Nevre?), maybe he did them simultaniously?

 

Tempest

[Alex]

Coolness! Please send them to us. And if you notice any other protos that we missed listing, please let us know. For the time being, we've listed all the protos known to exist that we are aware of (although maybe we need to remove Rush Hour, I'm still not totally clear on that one). We'd like to add a "rumored" list in the future though, that would be fun.

[Tempest]

Will do.

 

If you ever need someone to help work on your prototype section let me know. Prototypes are what I live for (at least in an Atari sense).

 

BTW, did anyone see those 3 prototypes that are up on ebay right now? I don't think they're actually protos since all the 20th Century Fox and Spectrvision protos I've seen never looked like that. And why would they use the exact same prototype labels and casings? I'm gussing they're from some kind of copy cart gizmo (like the Yoko copier).

 

Tempest

[Blackjax]

i dunno, kage* is pretty reliable...

 

if they're copy carts, then he got taken by someone most likely.

 

Several of the NES protos around came from him

[Marco(2)]

Blackjax,

 

I think I know most (all?) people that are involved in the 'release' of Elevator Action, and I don't recall any of them ever "sitting around and preach and condemn the dumping of ROMs on the basis that they 'would no longer be unique'". These people very well know that the value of a prototype like Elevator Action does not drop because of a ROM release.

 

I think it's a bit easy to say "although I suppose none of you understand and will simply write me off as a "rom grubbing warezer" as you usually do." It seems to me that you are doing exactly the same thing: accusing 'the other side' of being hypocrytical sobs. It also seems to me that the replies to your post have been trying to understand your position. Apparently, most people feel there's something to say for both sides of the argument.

 

So, why turn this into the classic dispute between those two sides? Why not see the advantages - for all involved - in this way of 'releasing' prototypes to the public?

 

I fully agree with Tempest on this one.

 

Cheers,

 

Marco

[Albert]

quote

If you ever need someone to help work on your prototype section let me know. Prototypes are what I live for (at least in an Atari sense).  

 

This is definitely an area of the site we need to work on. I personally would like to get pictures of as many prototypes as we can, especially games that were never released. As Alex said, right now we only have prototypes in our database that have been confirmed to exist. But we'd like to add a section for "rumored" games, as it's nice to have a list of games to look out for, even if they never show up.

 

So we'll probably add such a list soon, but we don't want these titles to show up in the normal queries when looking through the database. At least not until we put together a better search page, which is something we're working on.

 

In the meantime, it'd be great to get pictures of prototypes we have listed in our database. We have a few at this point, but we haven't gone out of our way to secure images for most of them. For those we'll have to count on others, as Alex and I don't have a great number of prototypes ourselves..

 

..Al

[Blackjax]

quote

So, why turn this into the classic dispute between those two sides? Why not see the advantages - for all involved - in this way of 'releasing' prototypes to the public?

 

[corrected post... wtf didn't someone tell me john hardie wasn't the owner of this thing... /me removes foot from mouth]

 

Eh, I'm just blowing off a little steam. I'm just hoping this gets dumped and doesn't turn into "Not posted at the request of the guy sellin the carts"

 

...plus I'm just miffed that my vacation time didn't come through and I don't get to go down to CGE...

 

ignore raging irish hothead.. move along, move along

 

[ 07-02-2001: Message edited by: Blackjax ]

[Blackjax]

besides, i run a prototype *rom* site, so my opinions tend to swing pretty strongly towards the dumping end...

 

especially after dealing with DreamTR

[Tempest]

Actually John doesn't own it anymore (I least I don't think so). At the Philly Classic he mentioned that it was being loaned to him so someone else must actually own it, but he was the one who discovered it.

 

I can understand how you feel, when someone preaches one thing and follows another it can be very frustrating. Prototype hoarding doesn't bother me as much as it use to, eventually someone will find another copy and hopefully they will release it, we just have to paitent. What really upsets me is people who hoard protos and don't have them dumped even for backup purposes. Can you imagine a one of a kind proto lost forever because out one static electricity spark? Scary stuff...

 

My adversion to dumping (which I'm over BTW) was because I remember the early days of proto duping. Way back at the dawn of time (4 years ago I think) when someone would find a prototype and got it dumped usually fakes would start showing up shortly after. After awhile it got to the point that people assumed your precious proto was worthless because there were so many fakes floating around they didn't believe you had the real one. This activity seems to have gone away for the most part (probably because we know what real protos look like these days) but those memories still scare me.

 

And yes, I did preach the evils of dumping and "prototype uniqueness" at one point, but my additude has softened a bit since then. I was always split on this issue because I could see the merits of both sides. But your right that I never sold copies for money, I either release them or I don't, no strings attached.

 

BTW, the Elevator Action and Combat II thing is totally different, my comments don't apply to that. I know the DP guys and they're not in it for the money.

 

Alex: Once I get my protos dumped I'll send you pictures, I could try and take pictures of my TV but they never look right.

 

Tempest

 

[ 07-02-2001: Message edited by: Tempest ]

[Alex]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blackjax:

[QBEh, I'm just blowing off a little steam. I'm just hoping this gets dumped and doesn't turn into "Not posted at the request of the guy sellin the carts"

[/QB]

---

 

There are a few circumstances that come into play here.

 

The only time we do not post ROMs is if the *copyright holder* has made that request, or if someone sends us a unique ROM for evaluation or preservation purposes and asks us not to publish it.

 

If someone is selling copies of a game to which they don't hold the copyright, there isn't much they can say about it. Once a game is being sold, it's going to get dumped by someone, then get published (unless the copyright holder makes a request as noted). So fear not.

 

If someone's selling a proto and can get away with it, it doesn't bother me as long as it's also available for free download. I like the fact that new games are being produced with boxes, manuals, etc. If anyone doesn't like it, they can just get the ROM or get a vanilla cart from Hozer. There will always be collectors and players who will buy it anyway, so there is room for both to co-exist.

 

As Tempest noted, the only thing that bothers me are protos that aren't dumped for archival purposes. Other than that, I'm not going to harass anyone about anything. I would however at least like to see nice emu screenshots of the games that haven't been released, if anyone's reading *cough* *cough*.