Andrew Davie
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Posts posted by Andrew Davie
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1 hour ago, Dionoid said:
Hi Andrew, can you elaborate on what you mean by "acquisition process"? Are you referring to the IP acquisition that Atari is doing?
Atari the modern company appears to be on an acquisition drive for anything it seems to think "valuable" in terms of add-on to their association with retro Atari. IP is a part of that, yes.
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Hey Dave, I'm an OG Atari homebrew developer with some reputation in the community. I would like to know your plans for engagement with the community. I'm concerned that in this acquisition process you will alienate people like myself who have, so I claim, kept the Atari name alive for the past 20+ years. The question: what are you going to do to support our community, as opposed to profiting from it?
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I'd trade my harmony for it!
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I'm taking a break from all things Atari 2600. I'm not in a good frame of mind for this stuff any more.
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Nevermind. Don't want to deal with the drama and bitchiness. Move on, nothing to see.
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3 minutes ago, groundtrooper said:
Interesting timing on this one. I can only guess that this will have less appeal than it has in the past since we have an new ongoing licensed run that just shipped. This will be for collectors looking to fill a hole in their collection.
I know that @Andrew Davie & @Thomas Jentzsch like to keep track up these when they pop up to see where they end up selling for.
TY. I'll guess about $250
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40 minutes ago, llabnip said:
Anyway... it's a nifty little system - apparently marketed under the Dick Smith Wizzard (yes, with two Zs) in Australia and later the 'Funvision'. I'm pretty sure @Andrew Davie has done some work on this system in the past... and probably a few others.
I assisted in discovery/recovery of some of the information about the system in the "early days". Particularly, loaning some of my cartridges for dumping and generally collating information about the system. I have not programmed for it.
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Another option would be for the RAM to record the first (say) 3 machines cart has been plugged into, and restrict usage to those machines only. That would not require any verification codes. Could prevent zapping the RAM for a reset by having a preset value in RAM on manufacture which basically says "valid".
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So to expand on my thinking here; this is just a "how would I solve this problem" thought bubble. Not an actual thing I would entertain. But assuming a bit of battery-backed RAM on a cart, then you could basically have a setup routine which would return a machine ident value (say $FEFA) which you'd send to the author for verification. Author would return verification code ($F294) which you enter on your cart - and the cart forevermore runs on the machine (or multiple machines) you have verified for. So purchaser of the cart always has the ability to run the game. However, just like in PC software where you buy a license to use, this is non-transferrable - or even could be a subscription model. I know people will hate this and loudly proclaim they would never buy such a game. Totally understand, as I also hate software licensing. But I'm just going through this as a thought-experiment - would it be possible to setup a similar software licensing "scheme" for Atari 2600 carts. It's an interesting what-if for me.
If you're gonna pipe up and say "I'd never buy a game with that restriction" well yes of course I know practically nobody would. I'm more interested in responses as to if the proposed technology would actually work. I suspect it's possible. -
Just a thought bubble, really. Given it's now fairly straightforward to detect NTSC/SECAM/PAL machines through a timer on an ARM chip on the cartridge and comparing the number of cycles elapsed in a frame... I was wondering just how possible it might be to actually fingerprint specific machines (I am positing that the timer value would be slightly different between machines due to ever so slight differences in the crystal/clock). If that were actually the case, then could I perhaps write a binary that would only run on one particular machine? Obviously it's straightforward to write a binary that would only run on PAL systems, for example. But on a specific, individual machine. Maybe? That would have interesting implications for authors releasing their games.
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The label on Atari 2600 cartridges is both upside down, and on the wrong side.
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1 hour ago, BobAtari said:
That is a really quite remarkably dishonest misrepresentation of anything I've said.
I have read your original post - as it is currently edited - and I can understand your view on my comment. It was poorly worded and I do apologise.
I have removed the part I suspect you found objectionable. I am finding this thread has become personal - it started badly and has deteriorated since then. I'm not going to be a part of its continuation.-
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8 hours ago, MrTrust said:
"Reading the room" should not be a license for the Room to actually act like c****.
Since I can't delete this message, I have edited to withdraw my response to the above.
I'm gonna bow out of this discussion as I've said my piece. If you want me to see a response please PM me.
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3 hours ago, BobAtari said:
This, incidentally:
is an extremely bizarre form of entitlement. Almost all of you, as far as I can tell, live in the world's most capitalist
I do not live in the USA. And in my country, artworks on-sold come with legal requirement to pay a percentage of sale to original artist.
I consider my work... art. Whether you do or not.
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52 minutes ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:Looks like US Customs wanted to take a peek at my new toy! Unboxing on this Tuesday's ZPH when we return from our summer break, can't wait!!!- James
Damn, I guess all the "organic packing material" will be gone, then. Bummer.
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40 minutes ago, Mayhem said:
As for BobAtari from the UK, sorry guys, have to agree, his touch of what you didn't perceive as humour, was in fact quite mellow light banter. Harsh but true, we are being harsh but true.
Didn't offend me, but I'm an Aussie and we're used to the Poms whinging (assuming he's a Pom). I think he just did a poor job of reading the room.
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38 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:
It sounds like Andrew wants to license his ROMs for distribution only under very specific and limiting conditions. We already don’t “own” modern games thanks to onerous terms of service and click-through agreements. If the same kind of nonsense takes over homebrew titles for vintage systems, I’ll just stop buying entirely.
I have never, not once, ever sold a binary of any of my many games or demos. Every one of my games, where I have been legally able to, has been available free of charge for download. Not one person, ever, has ever sent me any $ as a thank-you for a game/binary, ever. I'm not actually asking for money. My hypothetical $X above would leave me in the situation where YOU have had the game in hardware form to play for as long as you possibly want - forever if you wish - and if I end up buying it back, it would have cost YOU nothing, and it would have cost me the inflationary increase + postage. In other words, I'd make a significant loss. But I bet very few people would see that. They'd just go "hey, I should be able to sell it because the market has increased!". Houses are not artworks, and in any case they are made under the "work for hire" doctrine where you specifically pay for a service and obtain all the rights. Games, at least mine, are artworks and not work-for-hire. I'm really just exploring ideas here, not seriously entertaining selling games this way. As I said, I provided all my binaries totally free. I just want people to be thinking about developers/authors and their work and not just the $20 and going "they can shove it!".
I may not "understand economics" insofar as I pretty much give my stuff away for free. But I do understand fairness.-
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Here's another way of saying it - if Atari themselves offered me $50K to write a '2600 game... I'd tell them.... I'd tell them no. Maybe not so politely. Because I'm still hurting. If it were possible to answer "how much is fair" in purely monetary terms I'd obviously be happy to work with them. $50K is a lot of money to me. However, it's about principles here - and I have my own (non-monetary) ideas of what is "fair". I'm all about not having others unduly take advantage of me and profit off my work. And by "profit" I mean financially or other means.
So, instead of selling you my game, I'll enter into an agreement with you where for $X (inclusive of postage) you get a cartridge copy of my game to have and to hold forever, but with the proviso that should you decide to sell it, I get first option to buy it back from you (I'll even pay postage) at the original price adjusted for inflation so you are not losing financially in any way. Now the only objection I can see anyone having to this arrangement is that people are buying my game for profit rather than for the game itself. -
2 hours ago, MrTrust said:
No, what is the total amount of money you consider to have made a project like Wen Hop worth your while? If you sell 10 units and make $200, obviously that isn't worth your while.
Lowering prices will increase sales, though I'm this instance, maybe not enough to shore up the opportunity cost of charging less. Point is, what is ultimately "worth it" in terms of the money you expect to make?
Having answered this in two ways already, I'll make the point that I don't think you're getting. There is no amount of money I would reasonably expect that could compensate me fairly for the time and effort I put into making these games. I know I will never receive a $ amount that would sensibly encourage me to write a game as a realistic way of earning a living and compensate me for the work involved. So, I do it for my own enjoyment, obviously. I never enter into programming these things thinking "hey, I'm going to make some money from this". The return per hour is ridiculously low. Literally a few cents per hour after all sales accounted for. So it's impossible to answer - to make Wen Hop worth my while in that it would encourage me, financially, to write another game...? It just doesn't work like that. As I said earlier, if someone wanted to make it "worth my while" to write a game like Wen Hop for them, then it would be around $50K. A shorter answer; there is no way to answer what amount of money I consider making it "worth my while" because I don't do it for money.
You know, despite putting in vast amounts of work writing a game, the programmer is basically the bottom of the chain in terms of $ rewarded for that. If you sell your game on cart through AtariAge, for example -- let's say the cart is $30... how much would you reasonably expect the programmer to get? It's probably lower than you think. So everyone paying "big" prices for games on cart, have a thought for the programmer - and now resell that same cart a few years later. You've already probably made more money on that single cartridge, for doing nothing other than purchasing and selling, than the programmer has made on selling a whole bunch of them. Everyone is profiting off the original authors' work; this is not sustainable. -
1 minute ago, MrTrust said:
No, I don't. I want to know what you consider to be worth your while. You don't expect to actually make $50k off of any 2600 homebrew, I assume. What, in your estimation, is enough money to make it worth your while.
$20/unit
1 minute ago, MrTrust said:You could tank the second-hand Boulder Dash market tomorrow if you wanted to.
Boulder Dash - is under a formal licensing contractual agreement. I am not able to sell ANY copies of that game. I have zero ability to manipulate the market, as I don't own any copies of my own with which I could possibly do that. But as to your point about artworks - artists regularly sell multiple copies of their work - e.g., limited edition prints; I see no difference at all.
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3 minutes ago, Jstick said:
Solution: Sell 50 copies, keep 25 for yourself, then when prices hit $1000+, very slowly sell the remaining copies into the market
I don't think you're quite understanding what bugs me. It's not about getting extra money. It's about other people profiting off my hard work.
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Just what-if thinking out loud here. Oz and UK have reciprocal agreements on resale royalty rights. USA does not. I could actually write games that simply would not run on USA consoles, if I wanted to. It's easy these days to detect PAL/SECAM/NTSC machines. So should I ever want to "enforce" resale royalties, that would be one way to do it. That would be popular
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2 minutes ago, MrTrust said:
How much money per hour of work spent on a game is worth your while?
I don't charge by the hour. I just don't want to feel taken advantage of. But if you actually wanted to pay me to write a game for you - say something of the quality of Wen Hop or Boulder Dash... then it would cost you probably $50K give or take. It's a lot of work.-
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Of interest to me, on a bit of searching - I see there are already laws in Australia covering the resale rights of artworks, where 5% of the resale value is owed to the original creator of artworks. At least to my reading of the legislation at https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2021C00461 -- and apparently this concept (called droit de suite) is standard practice in Europe (and of course Australia) but apparently rejected by the USA (although California did legislate similar requirements but overruled by the supreme court).
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Yes, my question was also carefully worded.