How does buying a multicart help the homebrew scene?

[SlowCoder]

I hear so often that buying a multicart will help the homebrew scene. My question about this is, how? The homebrewers are typically selling their games on separate cartridges, for the most-part, as far as I can tell. When I bought my Harmony, how much of the money I spent actually went to a homebrewer to help finance development of new games, rather than to the multicart maker? I'm asking because I'm genuinely curious.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

I have never heard this claim, unless a homebrew is sold ROM only buying a multicart certainly would not help the homebrew scene.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

People who don't use emulators can test new homebrews and maybe decide to buy them.

[+save2600]

Everybody homebrew!

[accousticguitar]

I hear so often that buying a multicart will help the homebrew scene. My question about this is, how? The homebrewers are typically selling their games on separate cartridges, for the most-part, as far as I can tell. When I bought my Harmony, how much of the money I spent actually went to a homebrewer to help finance development of new games, rather than to the multicart maker? I'm asking because I'm genuinely curious.

Thanks to the Harmony cart developers can now easily (and cheaply) test their games out on real hardware. Before the Harmony it was necessary to have an expensive and difficult to obtain multicart like the Krok cart.

[BillyHW]

I think anything that gets people playing classic games and systems helps the homebrew scene.

[+Nathan Strum]

1. Multicarts are homebrews. Ask Fred sometime how much of his own money he's sunk into the Harmony cart.
   
2. Homebrews can be tested on multicarts. While Stella is great for development work, it doesn't tell a programmer how a game will work on real hardware. Multicarts do. This doesn't just apply to the programmer either, but enables others to test the games out on real hardware and provide feedback.
   
3. The Melody board (basically, the guts of the Harmony cart), can be used to make homebrews that are easier to assemble, have more capabilities, and can be re-programmed with new games.
   

I think people will always buy homebrews, even if they own a multicart. You get a custom cart, manual and occasionally a box when you buy a homebrew, and are putting a little bit of money into the programmers' pockets. Those who use multicarts to circumvent buying homebrews would likely just be playing them on emulators anyway.

[trent]

Having a viable market for Harmony indirectly helps by keeping the cost down (homebrew developers need a Harmony type solution to test games on real hardware).

[Amstari]

People who don't use emulators can test new homebrews and maybe decide to buy them.

 

My homebrew cart purchases have been because I have played them on the Harmony cart first (except Boulder Dash). The Harmony cart is great but there something special about owning the real cart.

 

Some homebrew programmers might not care if their game is on a cart they just want to share it and have people playing it. A multi cart lets them do that on real hardware.

[nathanallan]

People who see homebrew getting sold are more likely to buy one, and makers of homebrews are more likely to make them if they see them being sold. Same goes for hardware and software.

 

I'm more of a hardware guy, and if I see something cool getting made and it sells nicely, I'm more likely to make a few devices of my own to sell. Unless it's something that is just cool, liek the 2600 joystick testers (remember those?) then I'll just make them because they're so darn cool.

[+Random Terrain]

If a ton of people buy a Harmony cart and batari gets rich, he'll be able to spend more time working on batari Basic and that will help batari Basic 'homebrewers.'

[Deteacher]

In some cases, homebrew ROMS are not the completed version of the game. The actual cart version sometimes has added features that the ROM version does not. So, you can test out the ROM through your Harmony (or emulator) and then decide if you want to buy the actual cart. So, in that respect, the Harmony does help the homebrew scene.

 

And, as was mentioned earlier, the Harmony is, itself, a homebrew...and WHAT a homebrew it is!

[Dauber]

Here's how I feel....perhaps a multicart will help the homebrew scene in this way: guilt. Then again, it might be whatever shred of Catholic I still have left in me saying that.

 

So you're playing the latest 2600 homebrew on your multicart thingy, be it Krokodile, Cuttle, Harmony, whatever. And you're loving it. You realize that one of your peers spent a lot of hard work putting that together. And working on a 35-year-old system at that. Gotta be a challenge. You feel bad for enjoying the game without rewarding the developer. So you buy the homebrew. Kinda like how at Midway International Airport in baggage claim, they have a snack bar run by visually impaired and blind people. I bought a Coke from them once and wasn't quite sure how they handle money. So I handed the guy a $20 and said "here's a $20." And right then it hit me why they probably don't get ripped off: you'd feel really really guilty handing over a $1 and telling 'em it's a $20. But I was amazed...they really use the honor system?! (Well, no -- I found out that what they do is feed the bill into a machine, which has a voice that actually announces out loud the denomination.)

 

Also, there's just something really really cool about opening a bubble mailer and pulling out a cartridge for an Atari 2600 or 7800, feeling that brand-new label on the cart (you know what I mean -- how that fresh label feels when you first open the game)....and seeing a copyright/publishing date that starts with a 2. Heh...a former coworker once saw me open a homebrew I had delivered to the office and he said "Oh wow, you still play Atari? That's cool!" And I said, "Wanna see how cool it REALLY is? Check out the date on the cartridge." He loved seeing it dated 2006. (It was Pac-Man Collection! -- honestly, am I the only one who's ever noticed that there's an exclamation point in that title?)

[+Gemintronic]

When I think multi cart I think pirated 10000-in-1 game units. When I think of Harmony I think it's a flash cart.

 

Including ROMs of any license on a flash cart only helps the cart maker. More people actively downloading your homebrew means a bigger buzz for your game and hopefully better testing and/or critiques.

[Pioneer4x4]

Here's how I feel....perhaps a multicart will help the homebrew scene in this way: guilt. Then again, it might be whatever shred of Catholic I still have left in me saying that.

 

So you're playing the latest 2600 homebrew on your multicart thingy, be it Krokodile, Cuttle, Harmony, whatever. And you're loving it. You realize that one of your peers spent a lot of hard work putting that together. And working on a 35-year-old system at that. Gotta be a challenge. You feel bad for enjoying the game without rewarding the developer. So you buy the homebrew. Kinda like how at Midway International Airport in baggage claim, they have a snack bar run by visually impaired and blind people. I bought a Coke from them once and wasn't quite sure how they handle money. So I handed the guy a $20 and said "here's a $20." And right then it hit me why they probably don't get ripped off: you'd feel really really guilty handing over a $1 and telling 'em it's a $20. But I was amazed...they really use the honor system?! (Well, no -- I found out that what they do is feed the bill into a machine, which has a voice that actually announces out loud the denomination.)

 

Also, there's just something really really cool about opening a bubble mailer and pulling out a cartridge for an Atari 2600 or 7800, feeling that brand-new label on the cart (you know what I mean -- how that fresh label feels when you first open the game)....and seeing a copyright/publishing date that starts with a 2. Heh...a former coworker once saw me open a homebrew I had delivered to the office and he said "Oh wow, you still play Atari? That's cool!" And I said, "Wanna see how cool it REALLY is? Check out the date on the cartridge." He loved seeing it dated 2006. (It was Pac-Man Collection! -- honestly, am I the only one who's ever noticed that there's an exclamation point in that title?)

Excellent post. I agree as well. I have a slight case of the guilts with some homebrews even just launching them once to check them out, but I really don't play any of them. I do plan on buying some more. I have only bought a couple so far. And I also agree about seeing the brand new 30 year old repurposed casing, way cool.

[Deteacher]

I bought some homebrews over the years and I've never been disappointed. These homebrews really push the limits of the 2600. It's quite amazing to see what the homebrew programmers are able to get out of the ol' girl.

 

Whether you have a multicart or not, everyone should buy some homebrews. You won't regret it.

[fernando marrin]

can't believe nobody has started selling roms (with Drm) for flash carts yet...

[+Random Terrain]

The return of Robsterman!

[SlowCoder]

You guys are right. I hadn't considered the Harmony (or any flash cart) to be a home brew in itself. And you guys did come up with some good points in how the carts can be utilized by the homebrewers for testing.

[Schizophretard]

When John Titor bought Random Terrain the Harmony Cart he started to work on finishing Seaweed Assault. I also bought a Harmony Cart and did a lot of game testing for him. He got the game finished. I had so much fun testing the game that when it was finished I wanted to buy the binary that I already had on my Harmony Cart. I watched step by step on how hard he worked on it that I felt he deserved something for it and I wanted to say my copy was mine. So, I paid him for it. Later when it was released for the limited edition I bought it again. And when it is in the store I will buy it again. Anyway, my point is the Harmony Cart rocks because it helped Seaweed Assault rock which is evidence that it helps the homebrew scene rock.