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Is there ANY possibility of a Boulder Dash Re-issue


p.opus

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Is there ANY possibility of someone knowing how to hack the joystick ports, switches, and video output of my 2600 to be remotely accessed online so that people can play my copy of Boulder Dash on the world's first 2600 cloud gaming computer? :D

 

It is no longer online, but many years ago, there was a site where one could play Q*bert live on a real 2600 (via webcam). The lag was sufficient to make the game almost unplayable, but it did work.

http://mikebeauchamp.com/projects/ -- look for Atari Online (near the bottom of the page)

 

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Nathan Strum, on 28 Jul 2016 - 2:43 PM, said:

 

I think there should be a re-release, specifically to upset the collectors. ;)

My thoughts exactly. :twisted:

 

I'm do see both sides of the argument here -- the collectors would be upset if the game got re-released (notice I say IF) cause they had been promised it would be a limited run and it hurts the value of what they have now and makes it less rare. And that's a valid response to have. Something that was rare now becomes less so.

 

But for the gamers out there who just want to play the game, a re-release would be great -- even if in ROM format, which I agree would be the best thing to do with the FSS stuff taken out. They don't care about money and value and all that, they just want to play it.

 

I'm a gamer and not a collector so you can tell what side I fall on. :-D

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There's just no way of making everyone happy here; but we have stuck to our word and have not re-released.

FSS is not to blame, and I don't think Thomas or I are to blame. We gave a promise. We have kept that promise.

Move on, nothing more to see here...

d246faa5b7aa07334b591bbf01103508.jpg

 

 

What about selling the final version rom to FSS who in turn can licence it to ATGames for however and whatever they want? It would definitely be a highlight of a future version of the Flashback.

Then again, lawyers will eat your souls as part of the process but then the people that want to play it would have an option

Nice concept, but I am skeptical if ATGames can handle the emulation side of any Melody enhanced homebrew. To my understanding, stuff like Space Rocks, or even the original bitd Pitfall II, absolutely will not run on any ATGames clone. Perhaps Bill can chime in on this?

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Classic Game Publishers' current agreement to co-publish Boulder Dash® Vol. 1 for Intellivision with First Star Software, Inc. ends August 15th, 2016.

Boulder Dash® Vol. 1 for Intellivision has received rave reviews from the press and players alike; and, as a limited edition, at $70. each is much rarer than many other Intellivision games such as 'Space Patrol' which can now only be purchased for $200 or more ... if you can find it!

If you haven't purchased a copy (or two) yet, don't miss out on a very high quality port of this million unit seller!

Sales will end on August 15th, 2016; so, get your serial-numbered copy(s) of this sure to be rare collectible today!

Buy it at:

https://www.naberhood.com/boulder-dash-newpost-31813-0-72671300-1469768770_thumb.jpg

Edited by Games For Your Intellivision
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Why can't they just keep editions "open" and earn dividends over the years as people buy the carts? Suppose First Star gets a flat $10 per cart sold. That could rack up over time.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am glad they made it, but artificially limiting production by cutting off sales after a given number (2600) or a given date (Intelli) only leads to frustration for those who missed the boat, and extremely high prices on the secondhand market.

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There's just no way of making everyone happy here; but we have stuck to our word and have not re-released.

FSS is not to blame, and I don't think Thomas or I are to blame. We gave a promise. We have kept that promise.

Move on, nothing more to see here...

 

 

Out of curiosity, who was promised what? It didn't involve a dark lord or anything, did it?

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Out of curiosity, who was promised what? It didn't involve a dark lord or anything, did it?

 

We seem to go through this in cycles and the same questions come up again and again.

 

Let's call the gang Albert Thomas Andrew "ATA" and First Star Software "FSS". So, ATA eventually convinced FSS to allow a release. Then we went into negotiations. FSS required a per-unit up-front payment of royalties. Royalties were significant, and ATA had to decide just how much money and risk they could afford. ATA did some back of the envelope calculations and figured that 250 units would just about allow us to break even AND that the royalties for 250 units was what we personally could dig up out of our bank accounts to get production started. We did manage to get FSS to agree to 1/3 royalty payment up-front and remainder after some sales (AFAIK/remember) so that made things easier. However ATA had also to up-front cost for all material and production costs, including the building/population of special-purpose hardware. It wasn't a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but it was money I, at least, could not personally afford. And, then there was risk; how long would it take to recoup any outgoing expense in terms of production and royalty pre-payments? How long would it take to sell the copies. Would we even SELL all the copies? Unknown. So, we set the bar high but not too high in terms of numbers. Enough to allow everyone who had expressed interest in a copy to get one, and then some. The thing was on sale for around a year, so the demand was not huge, and clearly our 250 number was almost exactly right. It was as many as we could afford to make, given the up-front costs, and it was enough to give everyone a fair chance to purchase. It was NEVER pitched as a limited-edition collectable - at least that was never the intention behind the 250 units.

 

Now as to the reason for not making any more, we would once again have to go through that process of negotiation with FSS and paying up-front royalties and production costs. That's one thing. And then there's the promise we made partly to help with sales of those original 250 units, but partly to reassure buyers that their high purchase price was not going to be undercut by some sort of cheap follow-up production (because it wasn't) - we said that those 250 units were all there were, that was it. Essentially, get it now or you will never have it. And so, having said that, it has mainly been MY requirement that we stick to our word. I/we promised that those 250 units were all there were, and so that's it. But aside from keeping my/our promise, I'm personally simply totally uninterested in taking a financial risk once again and putting up money up-front to cover another production run. It was expensive, and inconvenient. The game has been programmed, published, sold. That's the process, and now it's finished and buried and dead.

 

Those people who ask "why doesn't FSS allow it", or "why are ATA making an artificial collectable" or some such assumption about the motivations or hows and whys simply don't understand that there is *personal cost* in terms of money and risk and time and ethics for everyone involved to get another run "out there". That's a cost that some of us (me in particular) don't want to take on. It's not about gouging the community, and it's not about some sort of spite. It's just the way things are, and all the whinging in the world or throwing assumptions attached to accusations isn't going to change that. It was an amazing and remarkable serendipity that ATA and FSS managed to pull together and get those 250 copies out there and have a successful release and product I'm personally very proud of. But that was now years ago, and although I'm really pleased that people still have interest in the game, I'm rather tired of the assumptions and accusations people continually make about FSS or ATA because they can't get buy copy for their collection.

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I just wish there was a way this was playable for those who missed a copy when it was available and don't want to pay the $$$ on EBay, but I understand that's a FSS issue. But I've always been a cheerleader for ROM's of homebrews to be available at some point when possible either free or for sale, and I'm pleased to see more publishers doing that. I just feel like games are gaming, not for hoarding, and everyone should have access to them. Still, I totally understand what Andrew et all are saying.

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I just wish there was a way this was playable for those who missed a copy when it was available and don't want to pay the $$$ on EBay, but I understand that's a FSS issue. But I've always been a cheerleader for ROM's of homebrews to be available at some point when possible either free or for sale, and I'm pleased to see more publishers doing that. I just feel like games are gaming, not for hoarding, and everyone should have access to them. Still, I totally understand what Andrew et all are saying.

 

There is a perfectly playable demo available, exactly the same code as the cart, with several fantastic levels included.

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We seem to go through this in cycles and the same questions come up again and again.

[...]

 

If people would not be interested in the game they would not ask about it: so this is a very positive signal! :-)

 

 

First of All: Thanks for let us take a look in the traps of releasing this game!

 

I can understand your point of few very well, and have to say sorry for maybe start another cycle of the same questions.

 

I did never had the intension of acusing you (ATA) for no more releases. In my point of view only FSS is the problem (in fact: law, rights and money). But OK, if they don't want they don't have to!

 

To see it a bit more clear from distance: the 2600 version of boulder dash is not so playable as other versions (like the C64). Thats because of the lack of hardware capabilities of course (not the programmers fault). So this is a very stripe-down version of the original game and IMHO this is a brilliant tech-demo for the 2600 and nothing more.

 

If somebody will play Boulder Dash seriously, then many other versions are available... so I think FSS could release this version to the public... that would be my wish but seems to be not the reality.

 

But anyway, I can live with it! :-)

Edited by MacrosCode
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