Now that the thread has died out, I just want to thank everyone for doing a good job with keeping the flaming down to a minimum in this thread; I really thought that it would end up locked at some point.
I know nothing has changed as a result of this thread, but it was important to me to make sure that anyone that wanted to voice their opinion to the rest of the community got a chance to. This happened, and I feel like it went down pretty decently.
I'd still like to see Police Academy one day...how far into development did that one get?
I've heard rumors that this game was not only complete, but 100% ready for a retail release. Who knows how much of that is true though. Here's a cool link with info from the original programmer: http://thewarpzone.classicgaming.gamespy.com/woita.html
Although it doesn't exactly jive with the interview, I heard a story about someone seeing pallets of the game ready to ship. I can't for the life of me remember where I heard that from, and even then it would be total hearsay. It's fun to imagine though!
Unless there was some kind of major licensing snafu, I find it REALLY hard to believe that a game that was already prepped for shipping would never get to store shelves. All of the major investment had already taken place. That would literally just be throwing money away.
Unless there was some kind of major licensing snafu, I find it REALLY hard to believe that a game that was already prepped for shipping would never get to store shelves. All of the major investment had already taken place. That would literally just be throwing money away.
All the proof you need that it can happen can be found with Cheetamen II. Finished game, boxes and carts finished, sitting in a warehouse ready to be boxed up and shipped out. I know, Tengen was a bigger player in the game, but it is conceivable.
Just because they had boxed ready-to-release games does not mean that Cheetamen II was "finished"
From what I understand that game is beyond terrible, and I would assume that once a reviewer checked it out, no store in their right mind would want to be associated with it.
I didn't realize that Police Academy was a Tengen release. It's entirely possible then, that it was scrapped last minute due to their patent infringement case with Nintendo. That would certainly constitute a type of "MAJOR licensing snafu"
I see ad part of that interview he said he either has protos or other stuff. I'm sure dreamtr would be the one to answer, but was he ever interested in selling or releasing protos?
Oh I know, I was just making a joke about it being police academy I mean other than Steve Guttenberg, who cares if something gets released on this game?
I'm less than halfway through the thread, but I thought I'd throw in my two cents anyway, given that I've been dealing with this issue for nearly a decade now.
I agree, now, that someone who puts in the effort to obtain something one of a kind has a moral (not legal, moral) right to do with it as they please. This was not my viewpoint in, say, 2001, but I was also very young then. I mean literally, just out of high school. I'm surprised people like Jason and Adam still put up with me, I was an idealistic jerk.
So, I'm not going to argue against the mentality and morals of anyone who managed to get a game before I did. There is nothing I can say. I'm not upset, but I am disappointed - not in anyone in particular, but in people as a whole.
I love games, and to me, that love goes beyond money or protecting "investments." To me, it is worth spending time and money to preserve my art form of choice, and I don't need anything in return. This line of logic makes absolute sense to me, and I'm disappointed that I seem to be one of the few that feels this way and actually puts his money where his mouth is.
I like money, I suppose, but I'm a man of relatively simple needs, and I don't need any supplemental income from my video game preservation hobby. I wish I were in an ideal world where more people thought the way I do, but I've learned over the years that it's not true, and I'm mostly at peace with that now.
No it isn't, it's 100% unique, unless you count the quick play mode as a crappy port of the arcade game. I got that from the dude in Spain, I forget his ebay handle? I also got Sunman and Secret Ties from that guy, good times. Probably the best single haul ever.
No it isn't, it's 100% unique, unless you count the quick play mode as a crappy port of the arcade game. I got that from the dude in Spain, I forget his ebay handle? I also got Sunman and Secret Ties from that guy, good times. Probably the best single haul ever.
Sorry, mixed up my facts a bit. It was ported to other home consoles though, so my point that it is different than WoW in the sense that it was released on another format is still valid.
All three from one dude in Spain? Damn man, how did he get a hold of them in the first place? That would be a find that is tough to beat by anyone's standards.
No it isn't, it's 100% unique, unless you count the quick play mode as a crappy port of the arcade game. I got that from the dude in Spain, I forget his ebay handle? I also got Sunman and Secret Ties from that guy, good times. Probably the best single haul ever.
Sorry, mixed up my facts a bit. It was ported to other home consoles though, so my point that it is different than WoW in the sense that it was released on another format is still valid.
No, still wrong. Hit the Ice on the NES is a hockey-themed RPG, which is not available anywhere else. The other console versions are just ports of the arcade game, the NES version is completely different.
just to qualify for us newbies: are there multiple unreleased/undumped protos of a single game or just one? I don't get the argument that the proto drops in price (5k to $300 for argument's sake). Wouldn't you dump the game, (let's say it's DTR) and then create/sell repos? or if that's too much work, 'licence' it out to bunny and take stake in the sale? what exactly is the flow of money?
isn't proto price subjective (like art)? We collect for the sake of collecting, but we do value our collection by it's (fluctuating) fair market price?
I COULD believe they had pallets of games ready for retail and that they never got out. If they did I'm pretty sure they were destroyed, say for a few maybe if an employee was stupid or very ballsy to steal some, and I'll tell you why.
1) if they had pallets ready and it was canned do to licensing issues they couldn't resolve, the games would be destroyed because if a retail game was sold, the producer would be in a world of shit and lawsuits, which would probably be a bigger loss that the cost of the product. Remember these companies were buying parts, etc buy the millions, and the individual unit cost would be no where near what the legal ramifications would have been.
2) lets say they weren't destroyed immediately and sat in a warehouse for some time. At some point someone would find them, realize that they weren't marketable or sell able, and disposed of them then because of the same reasons in #1 or that the space they were occupying was worth more that the pallets sitting in that space.
3)Game companies are in the business of moving units, and making profits. If a game doesn't sell, they either liquidate it to who ever will buy it, or dispose of it. They won't usually hold on too years worth of unsold merchandise. The warehouse space is worth too much, storing useless merchandise for years is not profitable to them. They will just destroy the units and make room for the next game. Nintendo has it's garage sales, and really that's just the stuff that gets lost in the cracks for a while. I can almost guarantee that they've trashed much more stuff than they ever made available at the garage sales.
If you wanna find that pallet of unsold nes games, you're better off looking up smaller distributors that don't run their businesses as efficiently. That's where the unopened cases of games come from.
^^^ That all goes back to the only plausible reason for Police Academy to be release-ready and never see the light of day having to be a major licensing fuck-up (or in this case a lawsuit).
I wouldn't blow off the production costs, though. Yes they would have been less than the legal damages, but they would still have been millions of dollars, assuming a few hundred thousand copies were made.
yes, but developers and such lose money all the time on releases(mostly on titles that don't sell through). If they can liquidate and get some sort of money back to help offset cost, they will do that as fast as they can before the game becomes unmarketable at all. after that, they will just dispose of them, and write off the losses.
They're not in the business on sitting on units. they want to move them as fast as possible and make room for the next one.
I believe this is even more the case in the present day, as CD/DVD costs are super cheap in the amounts they make them now. the unit cost is even easier to swallow
I think you're missing what I'm saying. What I'm getting at is, in the 80's/early-90's the price of producing this stuff (cart/packaging/everything) was 10-30x more expensive than disc based stuff today. If not for the company-destroying lawsuit they would have at least had the game on the shelf for a month or two SOMEWHERE.
I'm sure your right that far more disc-based stuff gets trashed at the end of the retail run...but then again, maybe not. There are so many online wholesale outlets, that once things pass bargain bin status, they can readily sell the rest online for at least their cost (less than $0.50/unit, probably).
Unless Tengen has a really cruddy legal department/guy/temp, this program would have been approved in an ironclad contract far before any production order was made. The IP holders couldn't just turn around after the expense had been paid to make pallets of these and say "Eh, we looked at it again, and forget the whole thing" unless there were holes all through the agreement.
Comments
I know nothing has changed as a result of this thread, but it was important to me to make sure that anyone that wanted to voice their opinion to the rest of the community got a chance to. This happened, and I feel like it went down pretty decently.
Good job to all : )
I'd still like to see Police Academy one day...how far into development did that one get?
I've heard rumors that this game was not only complete, but 100% ready for a retail release. Who knows how much of that is true though. Here's a cool link with info from the original programmer:
http://thewarpzone.classicgaming.gamespy.com/woita.html
Although it doesn't exactly jive with the interview, I heard a story about someone seeing pallets of the game ready to ship. I can't for the life of me remember where I heard that from, and even then it would be total hearsay. It's fun to imagine though!
Unless there was some kind of major licensing snafu, I find it REALLY hard to believe that a game that was already prepped for shipping would never get to store shelves. All of the major investment had already taken place. That would literally just be throwing money away.
All the proof you need that it can happen can be found with Cheetamen II. Finished game, boxes and carts finished, sitting in a warehouse ready to be boxed up and shipped out. I know, Tengen was a bigger player in the game, but it is conceivable.
From what I understand that game is beyond terrible, and I would assume that once a reviewer checked it out, no store in their right mind would want to be associated with it.
I didn't realize that Police Academy was a Tengen release. It's entirely possible then, that it was scrapped last minute due to their patent infringement case with Nintendo. That would certainly constitute a type of "MAJOR licensing snafu"
I agree, now, that someone who puts in the effort to obtain something one of a kind has a moral (not legal, moral) right to do with it as they please. This was not my viewpoint in, say, 2001, but I was also very young then. I mean literally, just out of high school. I'm surprised people like Jason and Adam still put up with me, I was an idealistic jerk.
So, I'm not going to argue against the mentality and morals of anyone who managed to get a game before I did. There is nothing I can say. I'm not upset, but I am disappointed - not in anyone in particular, but in people as a whole.
I love games, and to me, that love goes beyond money or protecting "investments." To me, it is worth spending time and money to preserve my art form of choice, and I don't need anything in return. This line of logic makes absolute sense to me, and I'm disappointed that I seem to be one of the few that feels this way and actually puts his money where his mouth is.
I like money, I suppose, but I'm a man of relatively simple needs, and I don't need any supplemental income from my video game preservation hobby. I wish I were in an ideal world where more people thought the way I do, but I've learned over the years that it's not true, and I'm mostly at peace with that now.
5. Hit the Ice: Famicom port
No it isn't, it's 100% unique, unless you count the quick play mode as a crappy port of the arcade game. I got that from the dude in Spain, I forget his ebay handle? I also got Sunman and Secret Ties from that guy, good times. Probably the best single haul ever.
5. Hit the Ice: Famicom port
No it isn't, it's 100% unique, unless you count the quick play mode as a crappy port of the arcade game. I got that from the dude in Spain, I forget his ebay handle? I also got Sunman and Secret Ties from that guy, good times. Probably the best single haul ever.
Sorry, mixed up my facts a bit. It was ported to other home consoles though, so my point that it is different than WoW in the sense that it was released on another format is still valid.
All three from one dude in Spain? Damn man, how did he get a hold of them in the first place? That would be a find that is tough to beat by anyone's standards.
5. Hit the Ice: Famicom port
No it isn't, it's 100% unique, unless you count the quick play mode as a crappy port of the arcade game. I got that from the dude in Spain, I forget his ebay handle? I also got Sunman and Secret Ties from that guy, good times. Probably the best single haul ever.
Sorry, mixed up my facts a bit. It was ported to other home consoles though, so my point that it is different than WoW in the sense that it was released on another format is still valid.
No, still wrong. Hit the Ice on the NES is a hockey-themed RPG, which is not available anywhere else. The other console versions are just ports of the arcade game, the NES version is completely different.
How about the argument that the ROM has been available for years like Free Fall? Does that work?
*Goes off to download a copy of Hit the Ice and hide from Frank*
My COPYNES works now, maybe I will become a dumping fiend!
Sounds good to me!
isn't proto price subjective (like art)? We collect for the sake of collecting, but we do value our collection by it's (fluctuating) fair market price?
I COULD believe they had pallets of games ready for retail and that they never got out. If they did I'm pretty sure they were destroyed, say for a few maybe if an employee was stupid or very ballsy to steal some, and I'll tell you why.
1) if they had pallets ready and it was canned do to licensing issues they couldn't resolve, the games would be destroyed because if a retail game was sold, the producer would be in a world of shit and lawsuits, which would probably be a bigger loss that the cost of the product. Remember these companies were buying parts, etc buy the millions, and the individual unit cost would be no where near what the legal ramifications would have been.
2) lets say they weren't destroyed immediately and sat in a warehouse for some time. At some point someone would find them, realize that they weren't marketable or sell able, and disposed of them then because of the same reasons in #1 or that the space they were occupying was worth more that the pallets sitting in that space.
3)Game companies are in the business of moving units, and making profits. If a game doesn't sell, they either liquidate it to who ever will buy it, or dispose of it. They won't usually hold on too years worth of unsold merchandise. The warehouse space is worth too much, storing useless merchandise for years is not profitable to them. They will just destroy the units and make room for the next game. Nintendo has it's garage sales, and really that's just the stuff that gets lost in the cracks for a while. I can almost guarantee that they've trashed much more stuff than they ever made available at the garage sales.
If you wanna find that pallet of unsold nes games, you're better off looking up smaller distributors that don't run their businesses as efficiently. That's where the unopened cases of games come from.
I wouldn't blow off the production costs, though. Yes they would have been less than the legal damages, but they would still have been millions of dollars, assuming a few hundred thousand copies were made.
They're not in the business on sitting on units. they want to move them as fast as possible and make room for the next one.
I believe this is even more the case in the present day, as CD/DVD costs are super cheap in the amounts they make them now. the unit cost is even easier to swallow
I'm sure your right that far more disc-based stuff gets trashed at the end of the retail run...but then again, maybe not. There are so many online wholesale outlets, that once things pass bargain bin status, they can readily sell the rest online for at least their cost (less than $0.50/unit, probably).