I'm just here for laughs. There's no need for me to defend myself from the likes of an ignorant, angry child The guy can't even read the product descriptions, so he just blurts out any old nonsense that he wants. It's seriously laughable!
When are you due back in court? You also have not addressed any of our concerns about whether or not you give any royalties to the people who actually make the rom hacks you use for your repros. Or were you just gonna send them a copy like you were supposedly going to do for Jim Valentine? Please elaborate on what I am not reading correctly, and also the nonsense I'm just blurting out. I'd like to hear an actual response from you rather than just "IGNORANT, ANGRY CHILD." I know you're smarter than that—I mean, look how good you are at photoshop.
Whilst I'm not on wiggy's side here, saying that the ROM hack creators deserve some kind of royalties is dumb, I just puts them in the same line as wiggy himself by taking money (although they did make their own game) for a game that was made of the back of someone else's. TL;DR no one should be making money from this unless your work is completely original
Most rom hacks I know of are made by people who have a passion for games and make their hacks available for FREE online to anyone who wishes to play them. Most repro makers I know of don't charge $349 for a repro and usually create a repro cart as a service for someone who can't create a repro cartridge themselves. A lot of these repro makers also make repros to order. The difference I see with RCG is the mass commercialization of repros. Taking someone's free rom hack and making a commercial product out of it. I mean, it's one thing to make a $40 rom hack cart (I can make starfox 2 for under $20) for someone so they have a way to play a game on their actual hardware, but to make a $349 dollar commercialized "rare" version of the same thing is a little different to me. I think it would be unethical to not offer the creators anything at all at that level of production. I mean, like what, $20 for every game sold? Maybe less? $10? Something? Unfortunately being unethical seems to be rewarded these days. I'm sure the guy who did the art for the manuals got paid, why shouldn't the the guy who made the rom hacks be compensated? If there was no rom hack there would be no game to make a repro out of. It would be great to give these guys an incentive so they keep creating good games for Mr. Wiggy's production company.
Because you know, those assets don't belong to anyone other than the owner of the game, the only reason people dont get mad a romhack creator is because of the fact they dont charge for "rearranging" the content on an already existing game.
Ughh, that should disgust any real Zelda fan. No one will pay $700 for any *rare* Zelda game short of some unseen prototype.
You can't sell other's work. ROM hacks are released for free, if they were doing the wrong like RCG is I can understand. Maybe he had permission, but considering how much stolen artwork is used too I wouldn't be surprised.
Stolen artwork? The guys selling "normal" repros are making a killing. $40, $50, or more for a loose cart is a joke. I could churn out that sort of thing all day long. The cost is nearly nothing. Those guys are not providing some sort of "service" to the community. They're making EASY money. Really, REALLY easy money. I could easily make the run (50) of Hyper Metroid carts in a single day if they were just loose, gray carts. It would cost me about $6 per cart in materials. Figure I sell em for $40 each, that's $2K in sales, and about $1,700 profit. For ONE day of work. It took my staff (of 4) and I a month to complete that project. We always reach out the ROM hackers and translators. ALWAYS. If they don't want us to use their work, we don't (and that's never been an issue) As far as reading, the metroid carts employ 100% brand new acrylic shells made on site. They are not painted shells. Read next time. The info is in the screen cap you posted.
OK, besides this Metroid cart, you always just spray paint things. And is the Metroid cart crafted out of black acrylic...or is it spray painted? Anyways... I understand what you're saying, but still.. with those legend of link carts you took in almost $50K Don't try to act like you didn't make a killing on those... 30 special edition carts - 349 x 30 = $10,470 100 regular carts - 299 x 100 = $29,900 No wonder you don't wanna mess with gameboys anymore.. That's one project.... You are free to do whatever you want, and I'm free to think it's shitty.
If you think that $50,000 gross is a killing then clearly, you are not a business owner. It's especially not anything to gloat about when you have a staff of 4. After taxes, insurance and ei premiums, that's going to barely cover the cost to keep one employee on staff, even at a modest wage.
We're only talking about one game here....As you can see from his comment above they can turn these things out pretty quick. I doubt his "staff" of 4 even work every day. They probably only come in when it's spray paint day or label/boxing day. It's not like they're just there on the clock every day. I'm sure his over head is not as high as you're thinking. What insurance would he need for a business like this? Someone might get hurt from spray paint inhalation?
I think that the vast amount of cheap plastic you see on the shelves at wal-mart have given you a warped view of how much it costs to make things. Just go to your local printing press and ask them how much it will cost for you to print a professional quality pamphlet and poster set like you see here and make sure you tell them that you only want 3 sets. While you're at it, go see how much it would cost you to get a few cheap pieces of acrylic laser cut, or better yet, price out the laser cutting machine yourself so you can do it in house! Don't forget the time it took you to design the pieces in autocad, including all the prototypes you made that were just a little bit too small or just didn't fit right. He's not making a killing on this by any means.
Nice double post.. Anyway, why don't you explain instead of trying to insult me about not being a business owner. Which is bullshit. I did own my own company. It was a motorcycle shop that specialized in Harley Davidson motorcycles. Not only did we have the shop, but we also had a huge mail order operation for motorcycle parts. We had a million dollar insurance policy because we were working on people's expensive Harleys and had mechanics who could get hurt while working on and test riding the bikes. I don't see why a couple guys making reproduction video games need an insurance policy... Maybe on the shop in case of break ins? In that case OK, but they're not dealing with possible workmans comp cases or heavy machinery accidents. I wonder if he even does payroll, or just pays his guys some cash.
Of course you're free to think it's "shitty". Your ignorance is what's in question, not your uneducated opinions. You do NOT understand/know what we do, how we do it, what it costs, why we do it, and what profits made from it. Your assumptions are ignorant at best, libelous at worst. Those production numbers are entirely incorrect. We didn't produce nearly that many. Not even close. Even if they were, gross sales do NOT equal net profit. Do you understand the difference between the two? We need an insurance policy to both cover our equipment and potential injury. We use quite a few tools which could very easily hurt you. In fact, one of the guys took out a chunk of his finger a couple of months ago. Again, you have no clue what you're talking about. This will go nowhere, as you are convinced that you know what's going on, no matter what I say. You just make up whatever nonsense you want, and then post it as though it were empirical data.
You are not one to talk about ignorant assumptions.. Weren't you the one who ignorantly assumed that Valentino was cool with your pirate carts? Hows that going, btw? Care to speak on it? So how many LOL carts did you actually make? Everything I've read says 130. Even if you took in over 40 thousand dollars gross off of this one game, you pocketed a nice profit from that. My problem is not you making money, but the unethical shit you do to make money. You just make pretty pirate carts that are built around other peoples work. You say that the game is such a SMALL part of your product, but in reality, it's not. If there was no rom hack or game, there wouldn't be something for you to rip-off into a cart. So it's kinda insulting to the people who made the games when you say that—you're basically saying their work is nothing. Yeah, I'm sure RCG has a group insurance plan for its "employees".. what a load of shit
I've wasted enough time here. Bye. By the way, thank you. I couldn't? I answered your question. I told you that it was NOT feasible for me to make a mold to cast a set of Xbox buttons for you. Nothing personal, it just makes no sense to ask for a price quote when someone has told you that they don't have the time to do the job. Writing up a price quote for that would take some time. I can't just pull that sort of thing out of thin air. Please use the EDIT button, and not triple post. - Moderators didn't mean to double/triple post. Phone is acting as though it's not making or updating posts. Will use desktop in the future.
No not really. I asked if you were to find the time... More like a response of "Sure, if I do find the time I'll let you know". Simply not replying just seemed you didn't want to even make the effort. That's the vibe I got from the lack of interest or response. Sadly it took trashing to bring the answer close to 2 years later, and that's why I viewed it negatively. I didn't take it personally either, it just felt like poor customer service - stuff like that spreads like wildfire. Which was the reasoning for my tone. I sell things on the side and do freelance work - I know repeating yourself can get annoying, but if someone is willing to hand over money for a service at least keep in touch. Not everyone may have had the same education as you and may need to have things reworded. I explain IT related things to seniors all the time. So I can say this, I'm not one to argue or to make your day horrible but from a potential customer it somewhat shot you in the foot. At least I got my answer again, and can take back any comments you felt were unnecessary.
