Fundraiser for N64 Superman 64 (Bizzaro edition) to be released

There are videos of someone playing through the beta on youtube and it looks alot better, not that isnt saying much. It doesnt look like there are those "training" levels were you fly through those rings. and also the controls seem to be more responsive/tight

 

I've got zero problems with fundraisers (if the amount is reasonable, and this one is). It's paying for a pretty good service - tracking down the game, paying out of the pocket to secure it, then preserving it forever. If the fundraiser doesn't happen, either the owner is insanely generous and loses hundreds of dollars, or they keep the title to themselves while it's lost to the depths of time.

You know that there are countless betas & unreleased games that will never make it to the public because either the owner doesn't think anything of what they have, or the owner is someone who loves keeping it to themselves. So when I see someone making an effort to let more people play something, I really appreciate it and I jump at the opportunity to help!

Exactly, that's why I'm especially surprised about the backlash. Yeah not everyone loves fundraisers, and of course Superman 64 is terrible, but when has the main point of playing betas been to have better gameplay? Most of the time it's to see cut content and some interesting insight into the development process.

And to hear that Superman, the game that is absolutely famous in the gaming world for being bad, was much more enjoyable and far less glitchy months before release?? That's totally bizarre, and fascinating as hell. I'd think more people would be interested in preserving it, but ah well.

 

Fun, yes. Do I want to pay every entrepreneur who thinks he can buy a game expressly to get his money back via a fundraiser? NO!

The funny thing is when people say, as do you, "why should I give this game away for free?" Well... many people have done EXACTLY this! Segafreak, Legit, Borman.... now, I'm not saying you should, of course. I'm just saying that there are those among us who HAVE bought games purely because we wanted them. These people wanted the physical item for their collection. Perhaps the value to them was more than just money. They got the game, they played it, they documented the differences. And then, perhaps because they'll never sell the physical item so it doesn't matter, they released a dump of the game for free.

It's nice that the community gets to enjoy the game either way, for sure. However, you have to remember that the game is still copyrighted and it is technically piracy to distribute. As many of us are content creators ourselves, we do have to consider whether anyone would mind us releasig their IP. Of course, the answer is usually that it won't make much difference.

Ultimately, the physical cartridges are yours and yours to do with as you please. If you choose to have them sit on your shelf looking pretty, that's fine. If you want to release them for free - great! And if you want to ask for money, then that's fine if people are willing to pay... just don't get pissy when there isn't much interest, or if people get a bit peeved that you seem to be doing it to get your money back or possibly make a bit of a profit (again, not saying you are - just saying a lot of people won't know the full details). And moaning that this is the last one you'll ever do because people aren't grateful enough is pretty pathetic. You're releasing a pile of wank... what do you expect?!

As for the carts making $150 on a good day - no. They make that easily.

http://page2.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/b141686420 - 16,500 Yen ($176)

http://page10.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/m105173596 - 40,501 Yen ($432) for 2

http://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/164150646 - 48,500 Yen ($517)

And how much did Brandon.F sell the dumped Glover for? I know at one point he listed it with Turok 3 for $600. Why he valued Superman more, I don't know... but whatever!

http://www.assemblergames.com/forum...-N64-Protos-Diddy-Kong-Pilot-Alpha-V64-Jr-Z64

 

I have released stuff for free in the past, SNES and N64 prototypes (Top Gear Rally 2 and Top Gear Hyperbike) but don't automaticly think that everything comes for free... but it's great that you have absolutely no idea of who I am or what I do, but you draw comparison to others yet you have no clue of what you're talking about, sorry but that's a fact.

As for the yahoo auctions you refer to... most of the stuff is not regular flash carts and the others I believe contains UNDUMPED material (that's the difference)

I don't think I at any point have written that people are ungrateful, I'm not "pissy" about the lack of interest... you seem to make up a lot of stuff here and it amazes me that you keep on going at me here..

Jesus, you made your point once... now quit please

 

The idea and spirit of a fundraiser is provide someone with a good achievable concept for an item that needs funds to make it a reality.

This is NOT a fundraiser, you already have the game in question. It is therefore entirely wrong and immoral to treat this as a fundraiser - what do people get who pay in for this - a copy of the game if they pay enough, but what if they pay less? If you don't get enough free money given will you refund the donators or put it into buying a lot of beer?

You might have the ROM but you don't own the rights to the copyright so can't sell it or even distribute it without consent of the copyright owner. Giving a copy to someone who gave funds is accepting payment, so anyone who paid for it will have thrown their money away, or been conspirators to piracy distribution.

 

Why would you bring legality into it? Let's face it, 90% of what goes on on he forum isn't exactly legal... I'd say it's more of a grey area.

Also, why even post in the thread if you have no intention of contributing to the cause. As entitled as you are to your opinion why shit the thread up with just that, YOUR opinion.

Lastly, this is a fundraiser in every sense of the word. He is 'raising funds' for the release of the data he has in hand.
He hasn't tried to flog it as anything other than this!

I don't quite understand where all the negativity is coming from in this thread. It isn't the first fundraiser of its kind and it won't be the last.

I do think the site needs to take a different stance on fundraisers though (I will be posting a thread with my views shortly in the feedback forum).

 

I will of course refund every donation if the fundraiser doesn't succeed, sorry I didn't mention this earlier but I figured it was obvious :-/

 

A fundraiser is to provide suitable funds to do something, not to pay for something already in possession; by definition of the term. Why not be honest about it - ask people for x amount of money for a copy of a ROM image, in effect selling it, which is what he is doing, and not releasing a copy to any contributors until he has pocketed enough, so people can't "steal" the item that ironically he doesn't own rights to sell in the first place. Fact not opinion.

 

Your definition is correct - In this instance he is raising FUNDS in order for him to release the ROM.

Regardless of whether or not he has the cart in hand in is irrelevant. What is the difference between raising the funds to purchase the cart and releasing the data and buying the cart initially with his own funds and reimbursing said money with funds raised? None would be the answer.

Should I run a fundraiser in order to secure this data from Nesworld then release it? Would that meet the definition requirements?

Again, if you don't intend to contribute to the fundraiser why post anything at all? Which leads me back to this being YOUR OPINION!

 

This. Personally I think there are too many "Fund Raisers" where the owner keeps the game or historical manual archives and sells a download. If one truly loves gaming and preserving betas, release it without trying to make a buck out of it. If an actual physical game or manual being put up then go ahead and ask for the tons of money.

 

If the fundraiser amount is less than that of the original purchase how is he 'trying to make a buck out of it'?

Reading between the lines he paid approx. $600 for it and the fundraiser is for $350 leaving a difference of $250. Once the data has been dumped the value of the cart plummets instantly to that of the hardware only so in this instance he would have $250 invested in what, if re-sold, would be considered a blank development cart.
IMO I would say that is very much towards the top end of what you could sell a blank N64 dev cart for.

So again, please explain to me how he is trying to make a buck on it?

In an ideal world, yes, all data would be released for free and we would all get to play all the nice things we want to play without having to incur any monetary cost to do so but that's just not the way this works.
Nesworld works hard to earn the money which he used to buy this cart, he has a family, a mortgage, bills etc... he can obviously afford to buy the cart and keep it as a collectible if he deems fit (if you didn't know already, he has a large N64 proto collection) but on this occassion he thought enough interest would be there for people to chip in and get the data released so everyone could appreciate it so instead of pissing and moaning about the fact that he isn't working all week to subsidise your 'gimme all your data for free' attitude maybe you could think about it logically and either contribute to the fundraiser or spend your time posting somewhere else!

(This post isn't aimed directly at you even though I have replied to your post, just everyone with this view in general).

 

People seem to think that there are massive profits to be made. There are some who abuse the system, but they are quickly called out for it. Look, the majority of us lose money, sometimes hundreds of dollars at a time, in releasing stuff. Trust me, if you saw my bank account, you'd see that Im certainly not making money.

 

Like I said, I don't expect everything, or indeed anything, for free. It's good that you have before. I really don't care who you, or anyone here, is - we're all collectors. If people want to help others out, that's great - but don't play the big man because you have a load of prototypes, or because you helped people. Help people because you want to, and I'll respect you for it. Have a decent collection, show us it without the one-upmanship, and that's great. And yes, I know you run NES World... but so what? Many of us run websites and don't think it makes us a big deal.

Likewise, if this is the copy I referenced earlier and you did pay the $1,000 asking price, then sure, you're taking a hit on it and that's most generous of you. However, it still doesn't change my opinion of this particular fundraiser... much as it's nice to see the differences, haven't they already been shown in a video?

They were just recent examples - doesn't really matter what's on it, these carts sell for that. The last one I recall on eBay was around £120, blank.

Nope, stating fact....

What I see there is "I have loads of cool stuff but I'm not going to show any of you because you're not acting the way I'd like" - not the way to go.

Did you need to announce that this will be your last fundraiser? Not really, no. You could have just not done another. That was just an attempt to say you have other good stuff. That doesn't impress me one bit. We all have interesting items, but we don't feel the need to make subtle hints about it.

Like I said, my problem isn't with you personally, it's with the way these fundraisers happen all too often for something that's less than impressive. Once upon a time, it was for rare "lost" titles like Sonic Xtreme, Geist Force, Propeller Arena and the like. Now we're scraping the barrel, rather - not necessarily with this fundraiser alone, just in general getting betas of released games. I agree with (I think it was) Kiff, that we should perhaps be a bit more stringent on fundraiser selections. In the past, it had to be OKed by Kev, but this seems to have been relaxed.

And, as I said, it would be cool if the gameplay was vastly different, perhaps more playable back then - but you haven't confirmed this and you refuse to make a comparison. That said, I appreciate that you put some video links in your post on NES World, but I would have to register to view them. If you want to come over here to ask for donations too, perhaps include the links in a manner that is viewable to members here?

 

It sounds like I somehow have pissed you off even before making this fundraiser. Yes I run nesworld but what does that have to do with anything, I don't think I've made a big deal of it... so I'm using my website name as my nick, I didn't know that was a problem... but I use nesworld almost everywhere... You compared me to other users pretty much stating that "other share but you don't" which simply isn't true. When you're confronted with that "you don't care" instead you then drag my website into this saying I think I am big deal? ... that just shows that no matter what I write I can't win, you'll just make up something new.

That is true... but I took different approach. Sometimes things should've been handled differently, looking back at them. Point taken...

Now that I do not believe... see the second quote...

Excuse me but the fundraiser is run on nesworld, the post here and elsewhere was simply to gather some interest. I didn't refuse to make a comparison, and I believe you're refering to my post on nesworld where a user asked if I could tell about the differences... and I replied the following "I haven't done a full comparison, nor do I wish to" ... WISH TO!

(quote begin)
pretty much boils down to "no rings"
I haven't done a full comparison, nor do I wish to, but it's said to be very different.
http://www.rarewarecentral.com/superman-64-beta"
(quote end)


This has gone way out of hand, can a mod please lock this thread now?

 

Damn retro, why are you getting so worked up on this? Why haven't I seen you arguing all these same issues for other fundraiser threads? I don't get why you feel the need to direct all this sudden hate towards this one specific fundraiser. It feels like you're just starting to randomly pick at anything just so you can complain.

Really? All these years of fundraisers I'm sure you've seen, and suddenly today, you think everything is pretty much pointless once video has been put out?

I know this game has a rep as one of the worst out there, but besides that I don't get why there's all this effort to completely ruin this fundraiser. I agree there seem to suddenly be one too many fundraisers these days for little things(that one recently for like $25 just for some patch or whatever. That was just ridiculous), but this game is a much earlier iteration of what become the final game. Besides unreleased titles, I thought people love seeing these things get out there? There could be far worse, and I just don't see how this one became the straw that broke the camels back for you.

 

Man, this got ugly FAST.

I've got a dev cart with Superman on it. Wonder what build it is. Honestly, I've never played it past the title screen and I've never touched the original. Guess I should take a look at it (or not).

 

Martin, don't close anything and let's continue this thread. :highly_amused:

Some people will always complain about community dumps and everything around ... nthego:

You do what you want, people agree or don't agree, this is their problem, not yours. The only thing to do is just not answering the blabla of those people. Just don't care. :cool-new:

At the end you have a fantastic website with plenty of things that is seen anywhere else. :very_drunk: :love_heart:

And many people are thankful for that, I m sure :friendly_wink:

 

@ Retro - you posted quotes attributed to me I didn't post! lol

 

I for one appreciate that you're willing to do a fundraiser for its general release. Also, it's not the quality of the game or the subject that's of primary interest here; this is a unique ROM, and in this case being so radically different from retail is an interesting snapshot of development, undevelopment, and corporate mischief.
I can understand you not doing a detailed analysis of the two games yourself. That takes time, equipment, and to be honest it was already done by RWC. People really should refer to that article.

In general they aren't bad; with any luck fundraisers offset the drop in resale value, and at the same time it's far less likely that the ROM disappear entirely. The more hands it's in, the less like a single case of bitrot or a fried harddrive leads to its permanent obliteration.
Try to ignore the trolls.