Homebrew Games and Limited Quantity

[san-d-2000]

Typically the collectors are the ones who want the cib versions and dont play them (much)

 

I collect and like Boxes, and i do play them a lot!

Also i open shrinkwrapped games to play them, i just like boxes :-)

Edited September 28, 2013 by san-d-2000

[Kiwi]

So if you don't have Ghost n Zombies, then it's all my fault, not Youki's fault

 

i guess I owe you all excuse

 

So, Sorry guys

Don't beat yourself up man, I do respect youki's decision.

 

For me, I prefer let as much people as possible have a chance to play my games. Every programmer is different. There are people who want a chance to play Sidetrak like one guy on the Collectorvision forums .

[retroillucid]

I have suggested cart and manul runs before as I think that saves time on the publishers end so they dont have to deal with glueing and folding the boxes . And it saves money for people who just cant afford all the boxes . Typically the collectors are the ones who want the cib versions and dont play them (much) and the cart and manual guys are the ones who want to just play them ... (imo)

Boxes come glued

[goldenegg]

Boxes come glued

Oh ya? Are your boxes from a different source that Pixelboy's releases? I thought I remember him talking about putting boxes together. Maybe he was just referring to putting the carts and manuals in to the boxes.

[retroillucid]

Oh ya? Are your boxes from a different source that Pixelboy's releases? I thought I remember him talking about putting boxes together. Maybe he was just referring to putting the carts and manuals in to the boxes.

No, we use a different source, boxes comes folded, cutted and glued together

 

Luc use a different service than us, and I think he have to glued the boxes himself

[108 Stars]

It's so hard to guess the numbers a homebrew can sell.

With homebrews being either manufactured by small companies or private persons, there is little way of investing in large quantities without knowing when you will get your money back. People usually know the number of die-hard fans for a system, and that they will get their money back within weeks if they produce just about as many carts. If they produce more they gamble; will there be more demand immediately? If not, how long will it take to sell out all carts? When you put your money into it, you don't want to wait for 2 or 3 years for the stock to sell out.

 

Sometimes a second print run can be considered; but then you need to know the number of buyers is high enough to justify manufacturing. The fewer carts you have manufactured, the higher the price. At some point it just doesn't make sense. The turnside is that if demand is high enough, and you do a second run you think "man, I should have produced more in the first place. Then the game would have been cheaper for everyone."

[AtariBrian]

I have yet to see a game cheaper due to more produced .

[108 Stars]

You see it all the time. You just don't know what they would cost with smaller runs. For example the reprints of Pier Solar were more expensive because of smaller production runs than the first run.

[Pixelboy]

I have yet to see a game cheaper due to more produced .

Didn't you buy a copy of Gulkave from me? That's a perfect example right there.

[AtariBrian]

That's correct , since your prices are always great I was kind of excluding your games

[youki]

Yes exactly

 

Now, when a programmer ask their game(s) to be published by us, we always warn them, "there could be another run"

 

With Ghost N Zombies, it kind of my fault

I was expecting no more than 60 copies would be sold

At time we were always selling that number or so

Guess things changed with time!

 

Oh man! I was completely wrong!

Call me stupid on that one!

 

I remind you, that you wanted publish only 25 cart at start. Not 60.

 

Then you increased the production...to 45.... then to 60...

 

And early buyer started to complain about the fact you increased the production each time.

 

So you said , that NO MORE Ghost'n Zombie will be realeased. Ghost'n Zombie is a LIMITED run to 60 copies.

 

BTW, considering the number of email i got asking me for a Cart , i bet you could have sold 500 copies. (but in 4 years).

[lucifershalo]

I've noticed an increase in demand, but it's mostly linked to the Super Game Module. The SGM has had a sort of crystalization effect on the community: Lots of people want a SGM, and they want the games that make use of it. So with 200+ SGMs sold on the first run alone, that means 200 buyers for SGM games, although the games actually bought vary greatly from one buyer to the next.

interesting that the SGM caused that

[lucifershalo]

I think the best is to have the rom file included in the purchase

 

AND,

 

The possibility to buy cart only , and buying manual and overlay (if any) if needed

 

We are thinking in going into this way since a year

And we first start it with the Pong/Space Computer Boxset

 

And YES, I'm thinking to offer cart only for Pong and Computer Space

as a a guy (I made a topic about that)

who cant store boxes anymore

I love the idea of being able to purchase cart and manual only!!....

I would buy more games, then

[tep392]

 

And early buyer started to complain about the fact you increased the production each time.

 

 

So a few greedy collectors will dictate the availability of games to keep the prices of their trophy's up? As a programmer, I want as many people to play my games as possible. It's about the games man! I hope at least the ROM is available. I'm glad we have people like PacManPlus, who publish the ROM's before the carts are even made. I guess the Atari community is about the masses, not the classes.

[youki]

Not a question of "as programmer" what i wish, it is just a question to respect a kind of contract passed with buyers.

[tep392]

Not a question of "as programmer" what i wish, it is just a question to respect a kind of contract passed with buyers.

 

I don't think that kind of contract is beneficial to the community. It's sole purpose is to artificially inflate resale value of homebrew games. This can actually encourage piracy by making it a lucritive market. It also discourages new people from collecting for the machine because it makes collecting prohibitively expensive. None of this is good for the hobby.

[ColecoDan]

In the end it is still your game and you can do whatever you want with it.

I paid big bucks for it because I came into the scene after the time of the original release but that doesn't mean I would be mad at you for doing a re-release.

I think the ones that were mad probably were collectors and may even be many of those people that supposedly have prototype games that nobody has seen because they won't share them.

I can guarantee no matter how mad they get they will still buy your next game because your games are awesome and they won't be able to stay away.

 

If you are in fact doing a sequel to it then I say you should also do a re-release at that time as well. Designing different art is always helpful in keeping the original peoples games still special.

 

You are a great guy Youki for trying to keep those people happy but I say that was a long time ago and they had their time to make their money if they wanted to do that. They can still make money if you re-release with different art or without a CIB and different sticker so that the tons of other people can enjoy your tremendous work and ramp up desire for your future projects.

[AtariBrian]

 

So a few greedy collectors will dictate the availability of games to keep the prices of their trophy's up? As a programmer, I want as many people to play my games as possible. It's about the games man! I hope at least the ROM is available. I'm glad we have people like PacManPlus, who publish the ROM's before the carts are even made. I guess the Atari community is about the masses, not the classes.

Agreed . The Atari scene is much more about playing the games imo . Most roms are available before the game is out on cart .

[65Gamerguy]

A question if I may.

 

Besides the forum here and each game developers web pages, is there really any actual advertising done?

 

I don't mean ads on TV or anything like that. I ask this because I don't really see much except for what I read here, and through e-mails, and occassionally on youtube. It is kind of a situation where you have be in the "in crowd", to find out about new games and a lot of people don't know.

 

There have been many awesome games created by many of you that people don't know anything about, and I think that is a damn shame. Granted some are sold out but if we could get the word out and enough people are interested, maybe that would push the issue of possibly making a second run of games. Or if nothing else it would increase the interest in new upcoming games, and hopefully increase sales of future games.

 

Is there some way we can possibly do more, as a community, to promote any and all games?

 

I am open to any ideas and will do what I can to help out.

[Manoau2002]

 

The movie line "if you build it they will come" comes to mind. The more games made the more exposure the Colecovision scene gets. Growth for the most part will be slow. As mentioned above Ghost N' Zombies sold 60 copies in its original run. Pixelboy mentioned that Princess Quest and Quest for the Golden Chalice have currently sold 100 copies each. My own youtube channel has grown from 3 subscribers when I started making colecovision homebrew videos a year ago to 15 subscribers today.Growth will be slow but it will happen. Keep making games. Keep making videos. Keep promoting these games in blogs and on websites. Mention it to friends and co-workers and to people you meet at retro gaming shops.

[youki]

About advertising :

 

My games are reviewed in some magazine like Retrogamer and the homebrew's dedicated "Revival".

 

I post some news on some selected forums and generally the news is propagated extremely fast around the web.

 

At least in France, the interrest for homebrew in general and also the colecovision really raised.

 

Mainly since, thanks guy like Pixelboy and Collectorvision , we proved that we can have homebrew that seems to be professionnally published.

 

Lot of even didn't realise it is "homebrew". It is that help the homebrew scene to growth , all is about QUALITY. And i think it is what we should try to keep and avoid to publish that should not be published...

 

The Atari Scene is different, there is lot of things, but the quality is from my point of view not at the same level.(at few exceptions)

 

Intellivision scene seems to try to follow colecovision's homebrew way now.

 

And last point, for me, to no distribute the roms , helps to develop the homebrew community and keep alive our consoles!. Even if i understand that it can be frustrating.

 

the things is that we would need a new cheap colecovision console widely diffused (like atari flash back , or the new megadrive...). Something we few built in game and a cartridge port .

[AtariBrian]

About advertising :

 

My games are reviewed in some magazine like Retrogamer and the homebrew's dedicated "Revival".

 

I post some news on some selected forums and generally the news is propagated extremely fast around the web.

 

At least in France, the interrest for homebrew in general and also the colecovision really raised.

 

Mainly since, thanks guy like Pixelboy and Collectorvision , we proved that we can have homebrew that seems to be professionnally published.

 

Lot of even didn't realise it is "homebrew". It is that help the homebrew scene to growth , all is about QUALITY. And i think it is what we should try to keep and avoid to publish that should not be published...

 

The Atari Scene is different, there is lot of things, but the quality is from my point of view not at the same level.(at few exceptions)

 

Intellivision scene seems to try to follow colecovision's homebrew way now.

 

And last point, for me, to no distribute the roms , helps to develop the homebrew community and keep alive our consoles!. Even if i understand that it can be frustrating.

 

the things is that we would need a new cheap colecovision console widely diffused (like atari flash back , or the new megadrive...). Something we few built in game and a cartridge port .

Can you explain further by how the quality of Atari not being at the same level ?

[ianoid]

In response to the above question, I agree, but perhaps for different reasons. 2600 homebrews are a mixed bag of hacks and puzzlers, some of which are great, but overall they dilute the large pool of releases for that system. There are reasons for that, but then it comes down to the fact that the CV releases on par are of higher quality. I'm not favoring one or the other. In fact, I think Intellivision releases have also been of high caliber in general as well.

 

As far as CV releases, I'll buy anything you guys put out since it's always so well done. But I do believe that print runs of 200 are viable. The hard part has to be fronting more money and having space to store them. Then there's the patience to find the buyers. The first 100 may sell in the first 2 months, but then second hundred could take 2 years. Multiple print runs is a solution but it may also duplicate effort.

 

I applaud Retroillucid and Collectorvision for their efforts, which are no small undertaking.

 

I will make one request/comment that is pure opinion. I am less in favor of MSX ports to CV unless they are super significant. Like I'd love to see Metal Gear or Wizardry, but most of the rest I buy more out of knee jerk reaction than real interest in MSX. I know MSX ports can be popular, but I actually prefer unique titles and arcade ports to MSX code ports. Those MSX games in some way dilute the quality of releases for CV somewhat.

[youki]

Can you explain further by how the quality of Atari not being at the same level ?

 

there is lot of production on Atari 2600 (mainly thanks to bbAtari Basic) , but in this bunch of productions only few really deserve a cartridge release. In addition lot of these productions have only Cart , not CIB. Only few Atari 2600 Homebrew have the level in term of quality of best games for the console. (it does not mean they arenot fun!) . But not all are as good than Boulder Dash for instance or a to not take an home rew, Jungle Hunt. In fact very good productions are a little bit lost in the mass.

 

On Colecovision we have not (yet) that mass effect. May be it will come with BasicVision. But for now it is not the case. Personnaly i also regret all that MSX and SG1000 port we have ... but some seem to love them .

Edited October 1, 2013 by youki

[goldenegg]

And last point, for me, to no distribute the roms , helps to develop the homebrew community and keep alive our consoles!. Even if i understand that it can be frustrating.

 

 

I can understand multiple reasons for not distributing roms, but I don't understand how it helps develop the community. All it does is limit the number of people who can enjoy the games being produced, making the community one that's restricted to a core group of people.