Pipercub

Moving forward.....

We had a pretty detailed discussion on this in our latest episode at 3hr 29min in; http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/shownotes/2017/roundup121_2017.09.php The gist of the way we see it is there are two audiences that have two needs that had better be fully fleshed out and Atari has nothing on the table other than some Coleco Chameleon renders. Group one is modern gamers, at best they wear an Atari shirt they bought at Target to get a little "street cred" as a serious gamer, they think it is cool that an Atari logo console is coming on the market but they are cost conscious and make either-or decisions on consoles so this Atari one had better have everything that PS4/XB1 have if it is going to play at the same price point. Group two is us, sure we will drop PS4/XB1 money like we were buying lunch at a fast food joint but only if we are getting what the current generations of consoles have been missing, a world in which Atari never went away. It had better be an ecosystem as if Atari had continued along it's development path of its IPs and culture somewhat as Nintendo did. We want to timewarp from 1984 to 2018 and find a console that has games we want and a community we identify with. This could be done, when I hit the game aisle I wouldn't mind leaving with a console and some games but all I see is FPS, sports, and kiddie games and I just leave the store with nothing. Nintendo is OK, and has done a good job keeping its character and culture alive but I was an Atari guy before I was a Nintendo guy so I want to see the Ataribox appear with the same relevance to the 2600 as the Switch has to the NES. What has been seen from Atari are quick renders of an attractive shell but nothing of substance about the games and ecosystem and as we know the shell isn't 99% of the job. I want to be blown away by a product as well developed as the Switch but made for guys in their mid-late 40's and like I said, as if Atari had never gone away. What I fear is that the plan from Atari no more complex than the droplets that have come out from them thus far; 1. Create slick render 2. Create media campaign that will get regurgitated by the gaming press and given Atari is Back! blurbs in the mainstream press 3. Crowd funding! 4. TBD

What happened to all that Asteroids money we gave them, well?

I have a Retro Replay (2004 edition) that was sitting in a drawer, I am thinking about using it on a second C64 I am setting up. Does anyone know how good it's quick loader function is in terms of speed relative to stock? I did some searching but saw no hard numbers? Also, the manual gives the command to turn the quick load on and off, anyone know if it is on by default?

Pattern recognition is still a thing, so my guess is further bans and pruning of tough questions.

There have been several claims from that camp that the writers are coming back, but all the writers I have talked to have not been contacted. I have been a big fan of Eli's past work, and did our best to clear his name during the Chameleon debacle by having him on RetroGaming Roundup and letting him talk. Sure, I have a problem with him putting money into MK's pocket when he should have never profited from his scams, but I can't help notice when stories don't match.

Bogus, I made a quick call to some of the past writers I know and none of them have had any contact. He may have contacted some but not every one of them....

It is a very unfortunate circumstance, Keith Robinson who was the president of the company has recently passed away. The future of the company is still being sorted out. I certainly cannot speak on their behalf, but if you need them sooner than later Nurmix at the Intellivisionaries podcast makes the ones that INTVp sells and he can probably take care of you directly and sort it out with INTVp.

Holy shit, he is even using Socal catch phrases: "Moving Forward" And Socal delusions, the writers are not coming back, the vast majority were gone by issue 8 and want nothing to do with it. I even see the same use of plurals and multiple fictional people, in one post he referred to the PR guy as if there are multiple people working on this. What we have here is another Socal one man band trying to look like a larger organization yet every post has that same fingerprint that tells you it is the same guy. Boys, we got ourselves a train wreck!

Guess SoCal doesn't just change eBay accounts but also AA user names. 'Cmon guys, let's drop the topic and close the thread, right! Who's with me lads?

When your first move a month before "launch" is to create a new company with new partners in secret and move the physical and intellectual property to it that belongs to another company, yeah your a crook from the start.

Loved both of their work during the escapade. Recently at UK Mike's suggestion I gave Famicom Dojo #124 a listen again and I really suggest to anyone that they listen to that episode again now that a year has passed, http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/124 What you will experience knowing what you know now, is what the very few of us that knew the whole thing was fake at the time experienced. How anyone could have taken that smoke and mirrors BS seriously is a jaw dropper. This interview is the peak of delusion, buzzwords and BS being strung together and endless claims of this deal or that deal. Sometimes even in one sentence the story changes! For example the molds saved them both 250k and then it was 500k, between 15-20 developers like Konami were contacting them a week for a total of 200 developers. Give it a listen, you will be completely blown away that nobody verified any of these claims or called BS on the contradicting claims.

I would not read too much into a link exchange. For CGE2K14 we contacted Rick and the boys at PRGE early on and asked about a link exchange on the pages, and of course we discussed de-conflicting the expo schedule so no two expos were on the same weekend or two close. They were nothing but nice and helpful. But it isn't as if we kept moment to moment track of any drama connected with the expo scene. When you run an expo of any size you get all sorts of drama that this group doesn't like that group, these people won't come unless they get in free, this vendor won't go if you don't remove links on your site to another vendor he has a beef with, some guy makes these girls uncomfortable so you ban him and they don't even come, etc. etc. etc. etc. and another etc. to bring it home. The PRGE folks might not know, or may have heard something, but don't have the same personal investment that the people directly involved do. During the early stages of the RVGS scam, what if I had gone to Albert with the proof I had and demanded he boot everyone involved and ban all news related to it and Albert blew it off, would everyone have called for his head? All I am saying is a courtesy link exchange is not a deep investigation and total fidelity with the other party.

Ummm, so I want every episode so bad!!!!!!!

Please tell us how you recall it! For me it is a lifetime keeper! I had no idea anyone but myself and Darla saw it.

He told us many times that his lawyers told him he had to enforce his rights but that he never wanted to step on toes of fans. He believed that if he had a good product that people would buy it if they already had the ROMS, images, etc.

He was the best! I'd like to share my favorite Keith story, we were running CGE 2K14 and I was standing in the expo hall on setup day with my hotel/convention rep discussing how well everyone was following the rules and she was agreeing that this was a break from some of the more chaotic shows they have had. One rule that we had to abide by was no vehicles in the expo hall, the reason being the unions wanted tens of thousands of dollars to lay down protective plastic, over the carpet rated for vehicle travel, if vehicles were in the hall they wanted their windfall of cash. Just as were having this discussion Keith comes in hot right past the guy I posted at the door to make sure vehicles did not come in, he whips right by us on the way to the booth with a load of the Intellivision flashbacks doing like 30Mph indoors with that huge santa claus smile he always had. I look at my rep like I am about to be beheaded and she says, don't worry, this is not a problem. Were gonna miss the big guy!

Much respect for that! My view is that the humor and satire really did lead to very productive results. StopDropandRetro went down the satire road but ended up creating some of the best overviews of the situation. Well done.

I don't agree with restricting the humor, going down those alleys actually lead to productive discoveries sometimes, but rules is rules and the moderators have the final say. What always hits me as a red flag is when people start calling for a thread to be closed, lots of that happened during the Chameleon debacle when major revelation after major revelation was still to come. Just who's interest is served by closing a thread, I think the answer is clear, and I can't help but be suspicious of that.

I think it goes further than that even, his portable as I recall, was a cut down modified Colecovision. Let's say I take one of my cars and cut the top off and install a convertible top, change the wheels, and put on a wide body kit. I do not need to go back to Subaru, Ferrari, Chevy, or Lotus and get permission for my car to exist or wear the company badge. The car is customized but still is what it is.

In all fairness it was proven to be a scam by us at the time of the first crowdfunding effort when it was called the RVGS, few listened at that time, but eventually it became too obvious to ignore. This latest fiasco is such an uncecessary waste of the hobby's energy and resources, and totally illogical because Chris and Coleco had generated a ton of good will when they stood up and took honorable and visible action when the CC scam was revealed. This feud has wiped out all that good will. At this point, I think that the smartest thing Chris can do is halt any efforts to explain or justify their position and just leave the community alone. Maybe a Colecovision or table top arcade will get featured as a prop in Guardians of the Galaxy 3 like the Mattel handheld and that will stir up a nostalgia for a modestly successful line of Coleco shirts at Target and they can see some profit on their investment in the brand. I have never had a problem with their stated business model, the example I have used is PBR, Pabst went from a national brand to essentially gone yet it returned as a popular brand served nationwide, you see PBR shirts now and even Stern pinball created a PBR themed pin! Imagine if you bought the brand for a song when it was down and were able to craft that return? I think it is an interesting business idea, albeit a risky one. Buying and restoring distressed brands can be done without patent or copyright trolling. And last but not least, when Socal played the victim card and tried to control the narrative by seeking to get videos, threads etc. removed that had almost as much of a backlash as the fake prototypes, copying this move is something that leaves me pretty much speechless, I honestly can't put the words together to explain the pointless, counter productive and illogical nature of this!

I know right! I got one of the shirts worn in the booth, a real piece of history, but that banner would rock! What i would really like is that box that Silverman made for youtube, but he's not answering messages and I would be willing to trade him something in return.

I know of another fellow who didn't like dissenting comments............

Eli, you liking or not liking, respecting or not respecting, any opinion here has jack to do with their success, however their opinions are a future indication of yours as they are the community. That is all I have been trying to tell you, you bought a toxic waste dump and your not going to do well with it. I think most of us (myself included) want to see you and other people with the guts to try do well. I know you have high hopes for this and want to move forward with the potential you see in it but you just going to get a backlash every time you roll it out. Lets say you were to offer up a Wolfenstein 3D Sega Master System cart from an unreleased property next week, I and my guys would be backing you 100%. Don't mistake people telling you you screwed up here with us telling you your a total screw up.

New management of a dumpster fire is just that, a new guy standing next to a burning trash heap. The poison and stain won't go away, people inside the community will avoid it for many reasons, but the simplest one is that they don't want to see a scammer rewarded, and they will continue to warn people from outside the community (person who finds a high value item and wants to know where to sell it). You (Eli) are not a scammer but you put money in MK's pocket and people are going to be dead set against rewarding you for that or helping to facilitate it. There have been many posts were people have expressed their opinion about making sure not one dime goes to him and that will include it passing through you. As your already seeing the former sellers granted accounts for "life" that they haven't used since the site went abandoned are not happy about it restarting with their accounts terminated, so you loose them too. The eco system also makes no sense today but did 5-10 years ago. Today there are so many no-obligation no-fee services like Facebook and Craigslist that people can use for things that don't need a national audience, and for things that do your just not going to beat Ebay for visibility. Same with Retro, the burned writers and contributors won't come back and the readers have already jumped ship and move on, Patreon could barely break 300 people willing to consider one issue. Even if you staff it out with great people somehow the moment is gone. I have liked your other ventures and been impressed by your ability to see value in things such as the faith based media, but I am certain you will be spending a lot of time and effort in the future trying to wash this stink off. Out of all the reactions to your decision has there been one positive one, how would you gauge the interest?