Has the Homebrew Bubble Burst
Has anyone been keeping up with the price of homebrew games? Just for my observation, it seems like the glory days are over and prices and interest have started to fall off. Anyone notice anything similar? Different?
What do you think is the future of the homebrew martket place?
What do you think is the future of the homebrew martket place?
Comments
Except Mega Man 2 and X. Everyone should pay $100 for those, super limited to just eleventy thousand.
1) Too many produced, not feasible for a full set.
2) Hard to know what is quality as opposed to just a cash grab.
3) For NA specific stuff, NA traffic is down, so obviously the NA homebrew scene is going to hurt.
4) No nostalgia for them. Thus most buyers are either supporters of the seller or want to play the game. The "collectors" will change interest over time. People tend to collect things in demand, and when they fall out of being in demand, a lot of people move to other things.
Is it because kids are back at school, so the economy's focused on school stuff right about now?
I don't think interest is down, people just don't want to pay retro-collectible prices for a cart that's not even 10 years old.
I'd be interested if any devs could speak to the interest levels. I felt like for a long time, people weren't interested in the game play but rather the print run and if the print run wasn't super limited, so the game could be sold at a huge mark-up later, then most people weren't interested.
I think defaultgen and jonebone nailed it about not wanting to pay retro prices for new games,no nostalgic value. They can very in quality as I seem some piss poorly made and developed games. They don't count to an official full set, and impossible to keep track of a list of just homebrew games for a full set of those.
I've seen bootleg homebrews of games already made. There was an etsy seller selling Haunted 85, 86, and slew of other homebrews, same with aliexpress. This is saturating an already limited market with fakes in area where I don't think most people are worried about games being faked and just wanting to play them for cheap.
Homebrew games seem to be getting bigger print runs, or willing to reprint, unlike a lot of early homebrews with small one print run. I think it is also system dependent. Keep in mind I don't follow some of these as close as used to. But Atari 2600, Colecovision, Intellivision, homebrews seems to hold a bit a value and sell pretty well with many in the $100+ range.Maybe its because its smaller market, but made up of more hardcore and less casual fan base like NES?
I don't know if they could move to a cheaper price point. To manufacture the packaging (which I know certain outlets do)... with a cardboard box with artwork, the label artwork/sticker, printed manual... then the cartridges, even if you are recycling cartridges (which I imagine they do sometimes, sometimes they are new molds in different colors). I would liken it to pressing vinyl records. It's extremely costly, way more expensive to produce (especially dealing with packaging, labels, etc.) now. A small run of 300 is around 1200$. 10 years ago before the vinyl crash it was 1000$ for 1000 records. Vinyl has kind of come back from a collector standpoint, but the prices are now double what they were. You don't have a machine like Nintendo pressing it for you.
It's an extremely risky endeavor paying to press X amount of copies, when you might get stuck with 50 that are sitting around.
From a development point of view... let's face it. You are dealing with NES hardware and assembly code. It's much more feasible now to make a "retro" style game that works with an X-Box controller (especially as a one man team - being the programmer, artist and doing the music), actually plays well (like Super Mario 3 smooth) with a similar visual and color pallete, and sell it on steam and various digital online outlets for 5.99-15$. These are still projects that take years - even if you are programming in C#, you are still making sprites and tile sets... the incentive for the developer would only be that they wanted a game that specifically played on a 30 year old system... and as mentioned before - there is no nostalgia attachment. The investment in all the packaging etc. is out the door as well because GOG.com or Steam, or even the main consoles "online stores" - they are viewed as 5-10$ "retro indie titles".
I can imagine it's a small and specific market for buyers.
All the current top "retro indie titles" - a lot of people are buying on the Nintendo Switch. They just plain play better, you can save your game without writing down passwords, etc. etc.
They just plain play better
Those is fighting words. First off, most of those aren't 8bit, or even 16bit. Second, people who are buying those games aren't against buying NES homebrews, in fact I believe they're intersecting sets. Further more, playing a game on a Nintendo Entertainment System compaired to a Switch doesn't even begin to have the same feel considering nostalgia, CRT, controller etc etc.
As someone who has over 50 NES Homebrews, I know I slowed down my purchases once the limited craze hit it's peak and even started selling off the inflated high dollar items like Star Keeper and XMAS 2011/10.
I also wonder if it has something to do with less new comers entering the NES market.
That's not to say people aren't still producing great quality homebrews, cause THEY ARE!
But there's alot of garbage out there too.
Games that are pure shit, and just created for greed...
That said, I have some 40+ NES homebrews, and I'm always in the market for new ones. I like supporting authors by getting the bare cart.
As for the Limited Editions, those are pretty much dead. I may still continue to do them in some fashion (if I ever do another game) as a "Thank You" to team members and have a very limited public release (5-10 copies) for those who want to support the project financially. Just to give you all some idea on what it pays to be a developer right now, I have pretty much broken even on Tailgate Party. I haven't looked at the numbers, but if there is any profit, it's under $500. This is with 30 Limited Editions and around 110 Regular Edition copies that are out there. So, the incentive to keep working on stuff is at a hobby level for me. And with the way my life is going right now, hobbies aren't even on my radar at the moment. Another result is that I have a very large inventory of unused materials as I had to over purchase, such as boxes, sleeves, manuals, labels, etc not knowing what sales numbers would be like. What a waste of money, probably $1000 in unused material just sitting in my living room. Fortunately, I have made just enough to cover that cost.
As for costs, I am more than happy to show what goes into 1 boxed copy for others considering this hobby as a self producer.
Cart+board - $13
Label\Box\Manual\Styrofoam - $15 (Estimated because this was a bundled cost)
Shipping - $7
Packing Material - FREE (I reuse my bubble wrap I saved over the years. Other purchase this)
Art\Music\Taxes - $4-$6 (I never really looked much into this so its estimate, this is much lower than what most spend here)
Fees (Credit Card, Paypal, Etsy) - ~3% on Paypal only, ~8% on Etsy, ~13% on Ebay so roughly $1.50 - $6.50
This doesn't include free copies given to helpers\friends. As you can see, a boxed copy costs me around $40-$45 to produce and ship. With my current price point, I net about $10-$15 per copy. As you can see, selling only 100 copies doesn't really support the hobby, especially since about 30% of my RE sales are as a direct result of going to Expos, which costs money and I never turn a profit from those trips. I usually cover most of the costs, but never profit. To be honest, LEs used to be what made your money on a game, not any more. If it weren't for the LEs, I would have lost a lot of money.
So, I hope that gives everyone a look into what goes into a game. Just imagine 100's of hours for that sort of return and with demand falling off, we could start to see more developers moving on as well. It will be interesting to see what the future brings, but as the NES generation ages, I think the Homebrew scene will start to taper off a bit. One other opinion that I have observed, NES brewers are only hurting themselves with all of this self-production and having so many sites where you have to go to find games. If we would all work together to sell games at a single location, then I think that would only help sales. Just my opinion, so it's probably wrong. I just know AtariAge does this and it makes it very easy to see what is being currently sold. It also helps get Brewers' projects to a few Expos each year, like the setup they had in PRGE. That was very impressive and super organized.
I think the initial rush bubble has popped and was ruined by the influx of "junk" games that were produced as a money grab only. I know that I have stopped buying those games as they are terrible and just eat shelf space and plus I sort of feel duped by these poor quality games. To be honest, there is a fair share that are worse than $1-3 Apps and Steam games. Why spend $40-$60 on that? However, there is still a small demand out there for quality titles. The result of this bubble popping is that developers are starting to really put time and effort in to larger projects with a lot of polish. Sadly, this usually costs time and money and doesn't allow for prices to move very much. There are 5 aspects that cost time and money to develop a game: programming, design, music, art, and production. Very few Brewers can do all 5 at a very high level but many farm out some of this. However, others (such as myself) can't do everything and have to pay. I can program, some designing, and some production. I can even do some basic graphics. However, to get that "Licensed" look and feel, I have to pay for a lot of the work and prices are only rising on labor and materials.
As for the Limited Editions, those are pretty much dead. I may still continue to do them in some fashion (if I ever do another game) as a "Thank You" to team members and have a very limited public release (5-10 copies) for those who want to support the project financially. Just to give you all some idea on what it pays to be a developer right now, I have pretty much broken even on Tailgate Party. I haven't looked at the numbers, but if there is any profit, it's under $500. This is with 30 Limited Editions and around 110 Regular Edition copies that are out there. So, the incentive to keep working on stuff is at a hobby level for me. And with the way my life is going right now, hobbies aren't even on my radar at the moment. Another result is that I have a very large inventory of unused materials as I had to over purchase, such as boxes, sleeves, manuals, labels, etc not knowing what sales numbers would be like. What a waste of money, probably $1000 in unused material just sitting in my living room. Fortunately, I have made just enough to cover that cost.
As for costs, I am more than happy to show what goes into 1 boxed copy for others considering this hobby as a self producer.
Cart+board - $13
Label\Box\Manual\Styrofoam - $15 (Estimated because this was a bundled cost)
Shipping - $7
Packing Material - FREE (I reuse my bubble wrap I saved over the years. Other purchase this)
Art\Music\Taxes - $4-$6 (I never really looked much into this so its estimate, this is much lower than what most spend here)
Fees (Credit Card, Paypal, Etsy) - ~3% on Paypal only, ~8% on Etsy, ~13% on Ebay so roughly $1.50 - $6.50
This doesn't include free copies given to helpers\friends. As you can see, a boxed copy costs me around $40-$45 to produce and ship. With my current price point, I net about $10-$15 per copy. As you can see, selling only 100 copies doesn't really support the hobby, especially since about 30% of my RE sales are as a direct result of going to Expos, which costs money and I never turn a profit from those trips. I usually cover most of the costs, but never profit. To be honest, LEs used to be what made your money on a game, not any more. If it weren't for the LEs, I would have lost a lot of money.
So, I hope that gives everyone a look into what goes into a game. Just imagine 100's of hours for that sort of return and with demand falling off, we could start to see more developers moving on as well. It will be interesting to see what the future brings, but as the NES generation ages, I think the Homebrew scene will start to taper off a bit. One other opinion that I have observed, NES brewers are only hurting themselves with all of this self-production and having so many sites where you have to go to find games. If we would all work together to sell games at a single location, then I think that would only help sales. Just my opinion, so it's probably wrong. I just know AtariAge does this and it makes it very easy to see what is being currently sold. It also helps get Brewers' projects to a few Expos each year, like the setup they had in PRGE. That was very impressive and super organized.
Yep.
The appstore-like influx of junk hasn't even started yet. NES Maker is just coming out, meaning anyone with a computer can put out a pointless game in a weekend if they don't want to put effort into it
And they all will be flashed to expensive UNROM512 boards even though they are the size of NROM.
The appstore-like influx of junk hasn't even started yet. NES Maker is just coming out, meaning anyone with a computer can put out a pointless game in a weekend if they don't want to put effort into it
And they all will be flashed to expensive UNROM512 boards even though they are the size of NROM.
I don't know what that's supposed to mean. The graphics will be limited, but 512 is much bigger than NROM. And, a clever user will be able to adapt it to another mapper.
The appstore-like influx of junk hasn't even started yet. NES Maker is just coming out, meaning anyone with a computer can put out a pointless game in a weekend if they don't want to put effort into it
And they all will be flashed to expensive UNROM512 boards even though they are the size of NROM.
I don't know what that's supposed to mean. The graphics will be limited, but 512 is much bigger than NROM. And, a clever user will be able to adapt it to another mapper.
I'm just saying that games that could most likely be flashed to a cheaper mapper, such as NROM, will be flashed to a more expensive mapper, UNROM512, since that is the default mapper for the software, thus making the cost for these simple games even higher. I have no issues with UNROM512.
Where have you been for the last three years Kyle?
I'm a slow learner
I don't blame anyone for not wanting to put the time and effort into it. I was steadily listening to the homebrew podcast Beau and Khan do for a while (which I'm woefully behind on, urgh), and a huge takeaway from that is the sheer time and effort it takes to make a quality homebrew (which people have already pointed out in this thread, too). I'd second/third/fourth/whatever the notion that the decline is pretty concurrent with NES interest drop-off in general, too. They go hand-in-hand, obvi.
Speaking from my own circumstances, I have a handful of releases (probably about 10 or so) and would love to have more, but for a while, a combination of finances and diverted interest kept me from going whole hog on new releases, even in the face of quality titles. It really is a niche market, so I guess it was bound to face challenges.
Oh, I also think there's something to what was noted earlier in the thread about how fractured the marketplace is for homebrews, too, compared to something like AtariAge. I'm actually surprised the community (supportive as it is) hasn't banded together more, like to sell primarily through retrousb, for example. Or even to have a direct NA marketplace (a la AA) that isn't just disparate threads in a subforum.
That's good to hear. Personally, I'd hate to see the niche fall off due to lack of resale value.
That's your problem right there, all tied up in a pretty little bow. The reason the homebrew market is dying is because they went the Beanie Baby route: trying to "manufacture" items to be collectable. You just can't do that; it usually works for a little while in the short run, but it never ever works in the long run. "Limited Edition" homebrews are limited for one reason only: because the person releasing them is purposely limiting the amount of copies he is going to make available, and that's just balls. I've been sitting back here the last couple of years with my mouth agape at the prices people are willing to pay for LE homebrews right out of the gate.
For after-market items such as homebrew NES games, there is only one good reason to make them: love/desire/enjoyment of designing a NES game. Likewise, there is only one good reason to buy a homebrew NES game: love/desire/enjoyment of playing NES games. If the producer thinks he's going to retire on releasing a NES game in 2018, or a buyer thinks he's going to retire on flipping LE NES games now or in the future, then I really do feel sorry for you, and I truly believe that the sentiment put forth in the statement I quoted above is the biggest problem in this hobby. It's just gotta be about the profit margin, doesn't it? "If I ain't gonna make a profit on this here homebrew once I'm done playing it, then gosh darnit, I ain't buying that there game!"
You know, Action Comics #1 doesn't say "Collector's Edition" on the front cover.
Stadium Events doesn't say "LIMITED EDITION!!!!!" on the front of the box, and neither does any real collectable...