Collector's and Classic Editions - BRAND NEW games

[Duddie]

How different is Lancelot compared to the prototype edition released at Orneta '97? Is it a finished version?

It is full, finished version. Map in attachment.

[+davidcalgary29]

Friday bump!

[Duddie]

Quiet thread, David.... Unfortunately

[Duddie]

Bumping it by showing titles 31-40 on tapes (Classic edition). Some of them are very rare and difficult to find, even as a dumps.

[Duddie]

It seems that nobody is interested in buying newly released tapes with games for Atari. It is a pity

[+orpheuswaking]

I think a lot of people have moved away from tapes sadly. I don't know the last time I loaded a game from tape. I generally use Disk or preferably cart if it's available.

[Bill Loguidice]

Conceptually it's very cool, but not necessarily practical because so few people still use tapes, regardless of platform. When a cartridge port is present on a particular system like the one here, I think that's the preferred physical media format these days.

[_The Doctor__]

Duddie, the problem breaking into the US market is one of language on the games. Timing, to a degree and sometimes cassette being the media.

 

Try some big ideas! Keyboard Mylar and cassettes deal! You get awesome games and keyboard mylar shipped together! save shipping and makes this a super deal! also....

 

What would sell better are the cassettes with the audio track being used, most people can recreate a cas file but almost nobody gets the audio track on them... people would love those titles more because of that added value.

 

I do acknowledge that sometimes tape versions were better than cart or even disk version.... many people have the desire to purchase those on a full disk or expanded cartridge version. It would be an extra step.

 

You will find timing a great release for the U.S. market needs to fall at the times when Tax refunds are coming in, or when seasonal holiday bonus' arrive. That's when impulse buys and many have cash to burn...

 

This window is just now opening up for the next two months, I would suggest keep a positive happy tone.

 

Something like, hey I still have some of these and if you run into some cash, I've got a tax season deal for you.

 

When you tell us no one wants it, we think they don't.... I think it is a quality product you are producing and they are highly desirable, just need to target the audience a little. You can combine higher desired with lesser desired titles to move some stock. The complete international multilingual collector edition, US edition, Polish edition, etc etc.

 

Many really do want them, just are low on cash at the moment, or need a reason to do do so, shipping costs are a bear coming into this country unless it's from china which is insane when you think how far that stuff travels. Value plus and combo deal might help when timed to people having cash. Advertise across all forums. best wishes

Edited February 27, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[baktra]

The US Atari market seemed to be one of the first (if not the first one) to abandon tapes. Has something to do with the buying power, I think.

 

UK and BENELUX countries might be a good target for tapes.

Have you considered announcing this at ATARI SECTOR? The user bases somehow overlap, but ATARI SECTOR seems to have more affinity to UK and BENELUX, while AA has affinity to US.

And do ABBUC.DE users know? Chile?

 

Never expect that 'everybody is going to AA' :-)

Edited February 27, 2018 by baktra

[_The Doctor__]

Hey people, maybe you can pick up deals with Duddie! Uncle Sam should be gracing you with some cash soon as he gifts you with refunds of your money, see if Duddie can swing a package deal for you!

 

This is professional production quality goods! Once you get these you will admire them. As a collector, you shouldn't be caught without them.

Game players unite, full original versions!

Edited February 27, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[Bill Loguidice]

The US Atari market seemed to be one of the first (if not the first one) to abandon tapes. Has something to do with the buying power, I think.

 

UK and BENELUX countries might be a good target for tapes.

Have you considered announcing this at ATARI SECTOR? The user bases somehow overlap, but ATARI SECTOR seems to have more affinity to UK and BENELUX, while AA has affinity to US.

And do ABBUC.DE users know? Chile?

 

Never expect that 'everybody is going to AA' :-)

 

The US definitely abandoned tapes before most other regions. Outside of the occasional bargain bin product, I struggle to recall availability of tape-based product after 1985. It was pretty much disks with the occasional cartridge (depending upon platform) by that point.

 

I do know a few homebrews for other platforms do go out on tape, but it's usually as a special edition in addition to cartridge (and disk). I'm not aware of them being particularly popular. It's more for collectors/completionists, since it's obviously not a very practical format these days.

 

In terms of getting more people to buy it, in my opinion, timing has nothing to do with it. People buy stuff all the time. Tax season or no makes no difference with homebrew stuff. People either want it or they don't. It's almost certainly a combination of needing to get the word out to more places and, unfortunately, the media format. Having more info on the actual games themselves, including gameplay videos, would certainly help as well.

 

Also, what would help is answering the questions about NTSC compatibility. Those seem to have been ignored. Although I personally have my bases covered with a PAL machine in addition to the NTSC ones, I don't think that's particularly common with most who are based in the US.

[_The Doctor__]

Most people here also had disk, and almost everyone had a Doubler or happy or some solution going on.. mail order houses, eproms kits, and user group hack sessions made quick work of it. The cassettes only came out for full version with cartoon games like pac man and such. Also for games, education, and language. Music audio track, monologues, and practice examples. Very nice when time correctly... Some titles were only on cassette for a long time due to lack of cart space, no desire to convert, or the disk cart version so abbreviated all the extras were missing...

 

video format pal/ntsc can be issue as well, as some titles may or may not run... it's something to look into

Edited February 27, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[baktra]

The games were developed and published in Poland 1990-1994. This has some consequences:

• NTSC compatibility is a valid question (Poland has been a PAL country, and XL/XE country too).
• Awareness of the games. I doubt most of the titles are known to a "non-expert" US audience (MISJA and ROBBO should be an exception, though). At the time (1990-1994), who really knew about those games in the US?

For me, these late Polish games represent very good to excellent exploitation of the Atari hardware. I consider these games technically very well crafted. Playability is for someone else to evaluate, as I am not much of a player. When I got my hands on the games for the first time (it was in 2002 when I was slowly getting back to Atari), I was definitely impressed.

[_The Doctor__]

I'd buy everything he has if I had my way, but kid's through college and medical bills, real life stuff... probably means all this stuff around me will get buried shortly after I am.

 

Anybody want to show us some videos about these goodies, how you enjoy them etc...

 

Maybe Duddie can do a Keyboard Mylar, Tapes, and player belts deal

 

Just tossing out an Idea for a complete restore it and play deal, full retro!

Edited February 27, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[Duddie]

Good, at least discussion has started! This is what I need. A few words from me:

1. Cartridge version - it requires from me a lot of work to remove copy protection routines from originals. Can be done, but cartridges are much more expensive, I need to invest a lot of money (the smallest batch is 100 pcs. of every title) with no guarantee that it will sell.

2. English language - most of these games do not require knowledge of Polish language.

3. NTSC - only a few do not work, I will prepare a complete list soon.

4. Shipping cost - now I have cheaper way to ship to US or Canada, and most European countries.

5. Diskettes - diskette version as a collector's edition is being prepared, a few titles for a start: Robbo, Misja, Miecze Valdgira II and Artefakt Przodków.

 

As baktra said, these games are state of the art in Atari programming, because they were created when Atari era begun finishing.

And thanks baktra for suggesting Atari Sector!

[Bill Loguidice]

Another thing that might help if you do want to do cartridge is to put multiple games on a single cartridge (if not all). This way you (and your customers) can justify the higher price all around for a multi-cart of these games. Of course, you should probably survey/poll potential buyers before you invest any more resources into this project.

 

I'm not even sure if disk-based versions would sell all that well either, although they certainly have more potential than cassettes. Again, thinking about today's audience, I suspect most people are happily on flash media and many rarely touch even floppy disks. That's kind of why cartridge is ideal if you have reasonable expectations for the size of the actual market for these (say a run of 50 multi-carts to start).

[_The Doctor__]

Or that sio2caswave tape emulation device that's getting some theorizing at the moment... that would be slick!

[+davidcalgary29]

My review of titles 1-10 is now in Excel #5, with NTSC issues noted where encountered.

[+davidcalgary29]

The games were developed and published in Poland 1990-1994. This has some consequences:

 

NTSC compatibility is a valid question (Poland has been a PAL country, and XL/XE country too).

Awareness of the games. I doubt most of the titles are known to a "non-expert" US audience (MISJA and ROBBO should be an exception, though). At the time (1990-1994), who really knew about those games in the US?

 

Many North Americans already are familiar with the games Duddie has released. They just do not know it because of the Polish titles! Operation Blood is, for instance, the superlative side-scrolling shooter Operation Wolf, and Hans Kloss is Impossible Mission (but better). And Bang! Bank is, of course, Bank Panic. Perhaps having the familiar English names in a sub-heading would help sell them.

 

For me, these late Polish games represent very good to excellent exploitation of the Atari hardware. I consider these games technically very well crafted. Playability is for someone else to evaluate, as I am not much of a player. When I got my hands on the games for the first time (it was in 2002 when I was slowly getting back to Atari), I was definitely impressed.

Totally agree. I didnt really bother with Polish games before these because I assumed they would only run on PAL machines...shame on me!

 

I also get the point about cartridges being a preferred format, but new disks are a godsend...my original LK Avalon disks are dissolving into goo in their plastic sleeves. My original copy of Upior literally split in half the last time I took it out!

[Bill Loguidice]

Many North Americans already are familiar with the games Duddie has released. They just do not know it because of the Polish titles! Operation Blood is, for instance, the superlative side-scrolling shooter Operation Wolf, and Hans Kloss is Impossible Mission (but better). And Bang! Bank is, of course, Bank Panic. Perhaps having the familiar English names in a sub-heading would help sell them.

 

I'd have a hard time considering Hans Kloss even a workalike of Impossible Mission in the same way Operation Blood is effectively a clone of Operation Wolf. Hans Kloss is more a similar style of game as Impossible Mission, like a flick-screen action-adventure. But yeah, I agree with the basic point that the "selling" of these would be easier if it was understood what they actually were better (along with the other suggestions).

 

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

 

many of these polish titles might be unknown in the US (allthough BEST sells them for quite some years now and has still a few titles left), but they are very well known in western Europe. Here in Germany Powersoft (M.Roesner, nowadays Proc Atari Magazine), Power per Post (Atari Magazin), PD-World Versand (PD-Mag, S.Roeber), Top-Magazin (M.Roemer), KE-Soft and several other vendors sold them.

 

I even imported a big batch of the LK Avalon, ASF and Mirage titles in 1995 or 1996 for PD-Mag and the owner, S.Roeber still has them and could not sell many of them until today. In the Netherlands ANG-Software sold all these polish games, a few polish titles were ANG exclusives and had been finished by them (e.g. T-34 which would otherwise have been an unfinished product).

 

While many polish programs came without manuals or just the polish manuals (texts) on the disk or tape cover, KE-Soft and others created german manuals or published them in german magazines, like Zong, Atari Magazin, etc. and ANG created english manuals. In other words, we were flooded in the 90s with polish A8 games (on diskette!) and every A8 vendor in Germany had them (on diskette!), so I doubt that many german Atarians will still be interested in these titles - except if they were released on cart. perhaps.

 

(But many german Atarians do also have flashcarts and already created, burned or flashed their own cart versions, so maybe it would still only be the collectors who would buy a new cart. version of these old polish titles from the 90s...)

 

You can find a few of the polish titles at BEST here: http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/xe_game.htm#manufactures

Scroll down half of the page / to the middle of the page until you read this: "A.N.A. Software, Micro Discount, KE-Soft, Mirage and Zeppelin Disk based Atari 8 bit games are Imported from Europe and Distributed by Best Electronics. In Europe there is still Very Active support for the 8 bit Atari Computers! Programmers from Germany, United Kingdom, Poland and the Netherlands are still producing Excellent software! The games listed below are NTSC and PAL compatible."

 

A.N.A. Software is a typo and should be ANG Software of course. (Note: Zeppelin's Fred is the same game as LK Avalon's Fred, Zeppelin's Mission Shark is the same game as LK Avalon's Misja)

Edited February 28, 2018 by CharlieChaplin

[darwinmac]

I have watched this topic for awhile now. To me, I would be more likely to be interested if there was a diskette collector's edition with all (or many) of the games in non-copy protected form. Yes, I know I can buy some of the titles from Best (that would be cheaper for me since I live in the US) but they would still likely be copy protected. I am not a collector, but I like having original versions that have not been cracked so the game is more likely to work as intended. If it was non-copy protected, I could copy the disks to ATR images on my SIO2SD device. While I own a 1050 drive, I prefer using either my Ultimate Cart or the SIO2SD device instead. I mainly use the 1050 to create disks for our Atari user group meetings.

 

The collector's edition would allow me to hopefully minimize the shipping costs from Poland. It was not cheap to ship Lotharek's SIO2SD device to me, but the build quality was worth it. I admit that I have no interest in cassette versions. Even when I used my Apple II after high school, I started after the cassette drive was used in the US.

 

As also mentioned, I would want to know which games would not work on a stock NTSC Atari. It sounds like the instructions would be in Polish. For a graphic adventure game, that would make it very difficult to enjoy if I could not read the text on the screen. However, a shoot-em-up with a simple English sheet that explained the controls would be more than enough.

 

Bob C

Edited March 1, 2018 by darwinmac

[Duddie]

Darwinmac, I am not allowed to remove copy protection - license doesn't allow me to do it. Believe me, it takes a lot of time to create 1:1 copy with copy protection scheme included.... I would also be happy to remove it. Also, additional tasks like removing copy protection, preparing disk version, preparing English version take time. And, I could do it, but I am not convinced that it would increase interest. Retronics is my one and only source of income, although based on my hobby - it must create income. Otherwise I can close this business. Lack of interest generates costs only. If diskette versions (collector) will not generate more traffic in this part of my business, I will stop it, focusing on other projects like dust covers, disk drives, interfaces and other accessories.

[baktra]

Darwinmac, I am not allowed to remove copy protection - license doesn't allow me to do it. Believe me, it takes a lot of time to create 1:1 copy with copy protection scheme included.... I would also be happy to remove it. Also, additional tasks like removing copy protection, preparing disk version, preparing English version take time. And, I could do it, but I am not convinced that it would increase interest. Retronics is my one and only source of income, although based on my hobby - it must create income. Otherwise I can close this business. Lack of interest generates costs only. If diskette versions (collector) will not generate more traffic in this part of my business, I will stop it, focusing on other projects like dust covers, disk drives, interfaces and other accessories.

 

I believe you not only need income, but profit :-).

 

Well, I have never run my own business (except a low-intensity experiment with turbo tapes, but still merely a hobby), so I have no idea what to advise. You are definitely in a very special market. Quantities sold are relatively small, your capacity to manufacture is limited, so you probably need high profit margin items.

 

The question is why someone buys the games when you can download them for free. Is it the well-crafted package with a distinctive look and feel? The original physical media have a spirit for certain users, but practicality suffers (especially the tapes, beeeeep, beeeep, beeeep :-). The printed maps have a great value as they increase playability.

 

I remember someone from Czech Republic proposing selling SD cards with color-printed adhesive labels instead of legacy media... But that violates the copy protection agreement, I think.

[_The Doctor__]

It's a tough one for sure, which is why I keep pushing the 'cool additional items' idea to get stuff out the door. Package deals etc. You are on to something, and the licensing agreement should include all media having been distributed at the time... so long as copy protection is on a disk, I don't see a problem. Something you might have to discuss... modern pc's don't even come with floppies Somewhere in all of this I bet you come up with what will work for you.

 

I am certain as time progresses you will find the sweet spot of what will work for your business needs. You definitely have some great ideas, as you tailor and work it all out I suspect you will find success.

 

Put a note in your ads on ebay, when selling a cover or mylar how great it is to get these others things at the same time to complete your collection or enjoy this thing, adding this a great value etc... you're already getting this so why grab this at the same time!

Edited March 1, 2018 by _The Doctor__