bojay1997

The mail service has definitely slowed down again from Venezuela to the US. I have an order from Liwer and one from Eightiesvault that are both pushing eight weeks at this point. I'm going to give it a couple more weeks before I worry. This Venezuela find has been discussed multiple times but basically, the parent company of Musicland and other chain retailers cleared a warehouse and sold it to a distributor in Venezuela a number of years ago. The stock sat unused until a few people found it a couple years back and essentially, these Ebay sellers are buying stock to resell a little at a time. It's not all minty and some of it has mold, dirt and shelfwear, but there is some stuff that is pretty nice straight out of the shipping cartons.

Not sure considering it hasn't even been released in the US yet.

Any chance of posting some high res close up shots on the games? Your starting prices seem reasonable, but without really good quality pics I doubt many Neo Geo collectors will bid on them.

I agree 100%, but none of that has anything to do with what is being discussed here. The discussion is about whether or not sniping gives an advantage over just normal bidding. I think there are both some benefits and some risks to sniping. I just don't think a lower end price is one of the benefits as there are too many other people that snipe or bid at the end manually and too many people with deep pockets bidding on video games today for sniping to give anyone a real price advantage.

Again, I just think that Ebay has fundamentally changed with the ubiquity of smartphone Ebay apps and I know literally half a dozen co-workers who regularly use them to bid at the last minute. Sniping doesn't provide a benefit unless you are literally only bidding against one other person and that person is too slow or too disinterested to respond in time. Every video game auction I have bid on in the past two years has had literally 2-8 snipers hitting it at the last minute trying to win. In those cases, the sniper who bids the most is going to win. Similarly, if someone bid more than those snipers five days earlier, that person wins. Having said that, I do agree that sniping helps prevent bid shilling and all of these people who may be shills that bid something up to see your limits only to withdraw their bids. At the same time, waiting to bid can and does result in side dealing. Frankly, Ebay loves sniping and just last minute bidding in general because it increases final value fees as people respond to the time pressure and overpay. If Ebay didn't love it, they would go to a Yahoo type system or place other limits on the practice.

I don't agree it's overthinking it. It's called being realistic and analytical about how the Ebay marketplace works. I have seen many video games on Ebay pop up only to disappear from my watch list because someone side dealed it. Would the outcome have been different if I had actually made a bid when I initially saw it? Quite possibly. Similarly, lots of items today are posted as auctions with a BIN. If the BIN is reasonable, you take a huge risk trying to snipe the item as someone may swoop in and grab it. I have never seen much evidence that sniping results in lower final prices. If anything, people get overexcited and put in some crazy amount in the heat of the moment and when you get two people behaving that way, one of them ends up paying way too much for something. Not everyone uses sniping apps. In fact, I think most people do it manually in the last ten seconds of an auction, so passion and adrenalin definitely plays a role. Frankly, unless your theory is that people will forget about an auction or forget to snipe something (which is pretty rare now that many people use the Ebay app and maintain watch lists on their smartphones), sniping provides no real benefit since lots of people are doing it and ultimately, all it's doing is delaying the same bids people would be placing if they bid early to the last few seconds. If you really want an item, just bid the most you really want to pay and hope for the best.

Actually, as I noted above, it can raise the risk of not being able to bid at all if someone side deals it and the seller assumes they have no bids. You could also run into a technical issue with the snipe service or if you're manually sniping with your Internet connection and computer/device. Finally, your theory about "chipping" is silly. If you are really bidding the most you'll pay right away, it doesn't matter if someone tries to chip away or not. Eventually they will have bid more than you were willing to go. What you're really saying is that you don't have a good handle on what you want to bid on items until the end anyway and so you just let your passion and the excitement and whatever your budget feels like at that moment dictate. Frankly, that's fine, but let's not pretend that snipers are any more rational than anyone else in their bidding behavior.

I agree that sniping is pretty pointless and has no impact on the final price. What it does protect you from, however, is fraudulent/shill bidding by dishonest sellers. On the other hand, I have waited to bid on auctions before and lost out because someone did a side deal and the auction was shut down. Of course, that could still happen even if you make an early bid, but newer sellers may be more likely to panic and take a side offer if they see no early bids at all.

Yahoo used to do it that way and it seemed to result in lower prices as nobody ever overbid for stuff at the last minute like they do now. There is a correlation between time pressure and human tendencies to panic and overpay for things. .

Unfortunately, the Apple II card for the Mac was pretty useless for playing games. Even very old Apple II games played horribly slow and with graphic glitches.

Yep, I don't see how anyone could ever be offended by an offer regardless of how low. All they need to do is thank the potential buyer for the offer and politely decline. If you're really such a sensitive seller, just post a reasonable sale price and add OBO to the end of it. Otherwise, just stick it up on Ebay and see how high it goes.

But your opinion about what is and what isn't media mail is completely irrelevant. The only thing relevant is what the post office says it is now. You can certainly share opinions about what the OP posted and plans to do, but trying to argue that media mail used to be something else has zero relevance to the current discussion. Similarly, the fact that some postal employees take the position that their own policies shouldn't be enforced is disturbing and also irrelevant. If the package is opened and the contents don't comply, the recipient will be charged the difference. I know this for a fact, as I have had that experience several times and each time I paid several times what the seller spent to send the package and this additional postage directly to the post office, so I paid many more times the actual postage rate through zero fault of my own.

Your definition of what constitutes media mail is not what the post office considers to be media mail and has no relevance. Please refer to the post immediately above yours.

Actually, it does mean SNK has no involvement. There has been quite a bit of discussion about this device on neo-geo.com as well as other sites. Blaze and Tommo licensed the name, logos, casing designs and roms for the release. SNK is in no way involved in the engineering or manufacturing and frankly, hasn't had a hardware engineering division for years. Even their software teams don't deal in Neo Geo stuff anymore. This is a pure cash in for them, nothing more, nothing less.

Yep. This guy is terrible. He sent me a damaged game in a bubbleope and then seemed surprised when I wasn't happy about the fact that the game was completely smashed. He then sent a replacement the same way and it was worse. I would suggest avoiding him if possible.

The only Venezuelan seller I trust completely is Eightiesvault. He always packs well and always selects the best possible copy to send out. I have had mixed results with Liwer and Edintv.

Ok, I'll concede the point that it was released, but it doesn't change the fact that this is simply a copy of the original and that there is nothing to stop multiple people from releasing exactly the same thing in a bunch of different versions. That was my only point. This guy wanting to know how many will be produced seems to be asking for irrelevant information. It doesn't matter if 10 or 1000 of these are made since the idea is for everyone to get a chance to play it and the buyer has generously made that opportunity available very quickly after the purchase. The copies are unauthorized, so they aren't going to be more or less valuable than any other copies out there long term unless the author dumps some more originals on the market or authorizes a release, signs and numbers copies, etc...in which case I think those particular versions would be in higher demand and possibly of higher resale value.

Except that it's an unlicensed copy of an unreleased homebrew, so it's not like people are going to be dissuaded from releasing their own copies of it in deference to Atari4you and it's not like this particular run of copies is going to be considered by future collectors to be "official" in any way. Heck, someone might even try to get permission from the author at some point and do an actual authorized release which might actually have some value beyond just being able to play the game. Like you said though, who knows what the future holds...

I'm not following. How would limiting the number of copies impact the later availability of more copies? It's pretty certain that as soon as they are in the hands of the buyers, dumped copies will be made available through various rom sites and anyone can then burn their own carts. Heck, the buyer of the second copy may even do that himself. It's not like buying one of these is going to guarantee any exclusivity other than that you'll have one of the 100 from this particular production run.

I don't think what you are posting is really in the spirit of this thread. What people need is some kind of specific incident(s) and facts upon which to decide to avoid certain buyers or sellers. The fact that you are lowballing sellers and then feeling hurt and surprised when they feel insulted and call you out on it is interesting, but not unusual. If the seller sent multiple e-mails back, you may have a legitimate complaint. If they just declined your offer and said something insulting in the reply, it's unfortunate, but not really something to get worked up about and probably not a basis upon which others should avoid that seller. I don't know the real value of the items, but offering a third of the asking price could be construed as insulting depending on the value of the item.

That's totally ridiculous and a good way to run afoul of the IRS. All you need to do is to write down on a piece of paper what you are spending on those projects. It's not like you are ordering thounsands of parts from thousands of vendors. You just take all your invoices and receipts from whatever raw materials you are buying, subtract them from what you sold the finished items for and that's the amount you pay the tax on. Honestly, it shouldn't take more than 15 minutes total. If you're selling at a loss or just breaking even, there's nothing to worry about. If you're making some money, you have an obligation to pay the taxes.

Do you have references? How did you get the game so quickly when the auction just ended? How do you know it works all the way? Why would you need advance payment if you spent $10,400 on a game already? It seems like you would have adequate resources to front any production costs yourself. Have you been in contact with the author about obtaining his permission for the release? I'm sorry, but everything about this seems suspicious including your public posting of a gmail address for payment.

So, if you created something but were never able to sell it, your position is that everyone should have free reign to do whatever they want with it including sell it at a profit? What about a painter who paints for many years and then suddenly late in life becomes popular and famous with collectors? Should the painter's earlier work be public domain since it was never sold? What about homebrew authors, many of whom are members here? If I don't like their pricing, should I release my own copies of their work at a lower price? While I understand that people are curious about this game, the programmer has already made it clear he doesn't want it released. Everyone should respect that without getting into a huge debate about the potential litigation which is neither as complex nor as expensive as people are making it out to be. Heck, none of us even know if the buyer(s) wants to dump it, so this entire debate may be completely moot. Assuming the buyer does want to dump it, I would hope that they will try to work with the programmer and seek permission. If permission is not granted, all of us should respect that decision.

Nice text book answers. The reality is that there will be no High Court case here, or even a Supreme Court case. Do you have ANY idea what it would cost to make an application to be heard by a Supreme Court or to have a case heard there? To fight a copyright case through the courts would require a very experience barrister representating you, preferrably silk. Not only that, but courts do not award full costs to parties. Given at best there's around $20k of revenue at stake ($10k of profit at best) and out of pocket legal representation AFTER costs are awarded would be in the vicinity of $100k, is a no-brainer. So the most that will happen here is a C&D, unless as I said earlier, Steve had VERY deep pockets and principles .......which was exactly what I just said.......I am incredibly confused by your response. Small claims court in the United States is not even remotely close to a high court or a Supreme court, in fact the small claims court is the lowest court in the USA, not even requiring legal representation in the form of an attorney. It is designed for small claims, usually less than $10k, to be heard without incurring massive legal expenses. All that is required in a small claims case, which goes before a small claims judge (no jury) is court fees to be paid. I'm curious as to how exactly you are disagreeing with what I posted (or at least seem to be, but perhaps I am reading it wrong), when aside from your claim that there will be "at most" a C&D you're saying something exactly in parallel with my assessment. My point was you wont get a subpeona from a small claims tribunal, as you stated, so you would need to go to a court. so you are left with a C&D. If you decide to go to a small claims tribunal, you wont be in a position to represent yourself in a copyright matter. You will STILL need an experienced lawyer to represent you if you want any chance of winning. It will still cost you $50k-$100k in legal representation in a matter like this and legal fees are paid by the parties in small claims matters. As the other poster indicated, a lawyer can't represent you in court in small claims in most US states. In many states, however, there is something along the lines of "limited jurisdiction" for those claims where the amount is slightly more than small claims, but you want to be in court with an attorney. Discovery and other processes are truncated which reduces costs and fees on both sides. Ultimately, for a variety of reasons, a claim of this type should be brought in Federal court and attorney's fees are recoverable by the prevailing party, assuming the other side even has any assets. It is entirely possible to get an injunction barring the release, although many jurisdictions require posting a bond, so there are means of taking action to prevent release of the game but you're right that a lot depends on finding an attorney willing to take the case and actually finding the person releasing the game. In any event, I don't think anyone wants or expects it to get there and assuming somebody even wins one of these things, let's hope a deal can be worked out with the creator for permission to then release the game.

The second a single character of code was entered, it was under copyright. Registration is a formality that has no relevance in this situation. Not necessarily true...in a perfect world, maybe. I get what you mean, but the reality is that we are talking about a 30 year old game. There needs to be evidence that Steve actually "authored" the game, coded it, kept ownership of the rights, etc. Consider this scenario...maybe, back in the 80's, the rights to this game were shopped around and the copyright was sold. Does the author still "own" the ability to say anything about repros? Nope. It would be up to the company / person who purchased the rights...even if that company never mass-produced the game. The truth is, none of us really know the status of this cart. There isn't much information on Red Sea Crossing anywhere at all. That's why we were in awe of the magazine ad which was found. It shed a tiny bit of light on the subject for us. Who knows...I would bet that if the author never copyrighted this, as that is an expense to do. If it isn't legally copyright protected, it would be one hell of an uphill battle in court...just trying to establish proof that he actually even wrote Red Sea Crossing 30 years earlier. For everyone's sake, I hope it never even comes to that. I am sure that everyone involved could work out an arrangement in which all parties walk away happy (and with a little bit of coin in their pockets!). It's really not as difficult as you're making it out to be. All he has to do is produce the paperwork for whatever his deal with the publisher was or a cancelled check or some code and then testify as to how and when he wrote the code. The burden of proof in a civil case is more likely than not, it's not beyond a reasonable doubt or conclusively or any other higher standard. It's not like whoever makes unauthorized copies will have any way to refute anything he says. I agree with you that hopefully there will be a way of working it out, but I would hope that if the author asks the community not to release it that the buyers will respect that wish so it doesn't have to go further. Similarly, I hope that for the enjoyment of the community one of the buyers and the author can reach a deal to release the game in an authorized manner.