That's some really dumb thought process going on there. Particularly you seem to think you'd be rich for "going after" people selling pirated goods but you don't do it because you're too cool.
Substantial profit relative to effort, sure. Rich I doubt it. One corrupt enough to consistently get sellers to refund without taking the item back isn't much better than them.
The only reason people sell those pirate Sapphire reprints is because they want to pass them of on eBay as the "real deal" to suckers who think they are buying the original. Plus, if they admitted they weren't licensed, eBay would pull the auction. So they pretend they are legit and the number of people getting ripped off by the scammers just increases. Eh. I would disagree there. These sellers are preying on the unsophisticated and purposefully trying to scam people by passing off pirated copies as legit. Never mind the fact that unlicensed software isn't allowed on eBay. Most will overlook "fan repros" when they're clearly labeled as such. It's the same reason things like rare comic book reprints have markings to clearly indicate they are reprints and not the originals. These Sapphire copies in particlular are sellers who are trying to pass off unlicensed reprints as originals in order to make a quick profit. I wouldn't shed a tear for them if they didn't get their pirated goods back as they never should have been offered for sale in the first place. Besides, in some locations it probably wouldn't be legal to send them back to the seller. It is likely that eBay would tell the buyer to destroy the items after the refund was issued.
I like the idea of a decent homebrew project seeing a release with nice packaging, but to do it without the permission of the original projects author is a real weak move. From the pics I've seen he appears to have done a reasonable job with the artwork. If this had happened in collaboration with the pce dev guy behind the conversion it could have been a really great thing. I would have considered buying one for a sensible price and been happy in the knowledge that both parties were seeing a reasonable profit for their efforts. If I understand correctly, the guy has instead taken it upon himself to release an unfinished version without the involvement of the original project author and is making a huge profit margin. Having worked in various production management roles I personally have over a decade of experience in CD manufacturing and I know exactly what a product like this costs to make, it's not super cheap with all those print parts but 49euros for each copy is insanely greedy all things considered. Selfish opportunism at it's worst
LMS, I don't believe any of those discs are actually pressed, other than the original "CARE4DATA" Sapphire bootlegs. The rest I am fairly sure are CD-Rs with inkjet printed artwork.
Really?! Damn. So it's not even like he's had to make any real kind of investment up front, and nowhere on his anime4ever page does he warn buyers they're gonna get a CD-R with inkjet artwork. It would be nice to see a similar but identifiably different release direct from the pce dev guy, pressed up properly and using the final version of the game. Hopefully word would then get around that this version was inferior and people would avoid it.
Yeah its true, only the Sappire booty was pressed on a real CD. The rest of his "re-prints" "unofficial releases" etc. is on CD-R only.
Seems like there are more Nes to PC-engine games then this one. Interesting http://pcedev.wordpress.com/downloads-and-links/
Yes, I mentioned that before, though I didn't provide any links. They are neat to check out if you have a flash card.
Does anyone know what the diffrence is with the beta burned on his CD vs the acutal release? Is it really buggy or something?
Actual release? The Mega Man PC-Engine CD project was not finished, only a beta was ever available to he public. There is a HuCard version though that is available. There are likely bugs in the beta, or room for improvements. Don't be sorry, you posted the links to the other games. That's certainly adding to the thread.
