The reason for making more carts is to be able to sell them for less.
I made Sudoku and I'll be honest and say theres a lot of better games out there.  I'd have a problem paying much more than $20 for a copy of it.  I'm cheap.   I figured other people were cheap too.

So I made a lot of copies so I could make things cheaper per cart.  At around that time I started collecting CIB games, so I wanted to make my game CIB.  Thats the expensive part.

My costs for making 95 Sudoku carts was  $2685 CDN.  My total money taken in was: $2636 CDN.   


I spent about a month attempting to make mods to the game for the un-numbered release.  I know it looks mostly the same except for the puzzles,  but I really really suck at music coding and it took me forever to add in that crappy intro music.   Plus there were some weird programming glitches that Brian helped me with and we eventually got fixed.   

And Brian, thank you for helping introduce my game to a much wider audience.


Al

Martin wrote on 28. May 2008 at 14:46:


That's correct.    

I dont see the need to release my next game in "limited" form because it will be implicitly limited (assuming its CIB).

 What I mean is, the minimum box order is 250.  As Brian has indicated he has not been able to sell 250 of his CIB games, so he would never place another box order.  Therefore those un-numbered released on his site are limited.  

 If a game is sold loose (like Sudoku or Chunkout 2) it has no upper bound.  However I've talked with Brian and we are going to terminate sales of Sudoku (we haved set a hard date yet but its probably whenever sales have dried up for it).  

And as an after-thought.   I would probably be releasing Sudoku again on a multi-cart.  I just havent written any other games so obviously it will be a LONG time from now.

Edit.  One other thing.  I imagine Sivak's motivations were similar to mine in that we admire "Garage Cart" which was sold numbered and in small doses and at cost.   The problem is,  at the time of Garage Cart the demand for carts was "24".  Nowadays its closer to 150. (just guessing on the numbers) so he just picked the wrong number.   it might not have been  greed, hype or anything else.  We're all still learning.  That being said, I dont know the guy.


Al

Stan wrote on 28. May 2008 at 20:51:


Why does it bother you that two people who are not you wish to exchange goods you do not value for money which is not yours?

Why does it bother you that someone engages in their hobby "only for himself?"

In all seriousness, did anyone on the planet ever, at any time, get into NES collecting for altruistic reasons?  Unless your hobby is feeding orphans or running a water pump in some third-world village, you're probably in it for yourself.

Nobody benefits from my owning or not owning a homebrew NES cart except myself and the guy selling it.  You're part of the community.  Do you care whether or not I own a limited edition of Glider?

Wow, thanks professor, here's my answers to your "points."

1. Why do I care?  Here's why.  When people do this, who are primarily new collectors or so-called 'flash-in-the-pan' because they don't stay around long enough (I've been around for a LONG time, the date on my profile here doesn't even hint at how long I've been doing this, I've seen tons of collectors who blew money blow out and screw it up for everyone else later on), they grossly inflate prices on things that don't really deserve it, making it impossible for those who actually care about keeping the community solid to gather items.  See next point.

2. Altruistic?  YES.  Why?  Because, aside from actually playing the games and doing professional reviews for a site I work for, one of my main reasons for doing this and tons of other people (especially older collectors, and this is the main reason they stuck around and don't buy and then sell later when they 'get out of it') is to PRESERVE THE HISTORY OF THE NES.  It may sound silly, but it's just like someone trying to record the history of a dying culture.  There's no real reason for it, but it's a good idea.  So I care about it because all of this money being thrown around makes it more difficult for the people who actually know about hardware, catalog differences in programs and such, get access to these things.  Let's face it, most of the people paying all this money aren't responsible with their funds, they're just doing it for the idea of collecting, and they eventually sell, causing more price inflation and difficulty.  For the NES scene, unfortunately, the bulk of 'collectors' are like this.  Why?  See next point.

3. Go to stores like Hot Topic and you'll see that the history of the NES is big business, it's turning into what happened eventually to Barbie collecting (no I never got into it nor even cared), comic book collecting (though this has changed over the past few years to some extent) and so forth.  It's turning into a hell of losers and idiots who just spend money because it's essentially in fashion to like this stuff.  The bulk of people paying ridiculous prices don't really have the funds to do it, they just don't have enough responsibilities to be more reasonable, so they waste what they gather quickly and then once something serious happens, which seems to be buying a house and kids for the most part (the last 5 or so 'collectors' fell into one of these two categories), they sell everything.  Why did you bother in the first place?  Did you even play them?  Did you use what you had to do anything for the history of the system?  No, you just spent a bunch of money,  inflated prices and pissed everyone off.  See next point.

4. That's one of the things that makes me so angry.  When I started getting into this, playing old NES games WAY back after the Genesis and SNES came out, people thought it was stupid and lame.  People wondered why I was hording NES related items and such.  I did it because I cared about preserving my memories, sure, but I also was interested in the history of the system, programming specs and so forth.  It was a hobby.  Then, suddenly, right around the end of the 90s or so, all of this becomes 'retro' and 'cool' and people who never even grew up with the NES start to 'collect' for it, get one of the numerous guides that eventually sprung up and waste their parents' or their money on it because they have nothing else to do.  The community used to consist of a fairly small group of dedicated enthusiasts who cared about keeping things reasonable as well as informing people about the NES.  Once the internet became daily life, these things changed and it got ridiculous.  Why do you think Ken dissappeared from the scene?  I'm surprised sometimes that Martin is still around after everything he's seen.  I personally go in and out of these NES depression phases where I see things getting a little better and then something stupid, like gold Airball happens to remind me that the bulk of NES collectors now are idiots.  So, perhaps I'm a little old-fashioned about the idea, but I just care about this hobby and it's changed a lot since I started, way before I even had the internet.

5. As for homebrew, what don't you understand?  I SUPPORT IT.  What I don't support is turning it into a business.  You can't possibly make money off this in the form of a business unless you charge larger amounts of money over a long period of time and take advantage of people.  Homebrewing is a hobby, that's it, it's not a business.  There's no law against this, sure, I can't argue that, but I can argue that you're ruining it for people who actually care, and most of them bailed out over time because of crap like this.  There's something about the NES scene too, you really don't see this elsewhere.  The Atari 2600 homebrew scene, for example, is quite vibrant, but whenever you see private programmers selling 'special edition' cartridges, they sell them at just a little over cost to everyone, not in limited numbers really, just with a box.  The newest one, in fact, only costs $80 or so.  That' reasonable considering the time and effort put into it, $350 is not.  Start making these worthless cartridges for the NES, putting them on eBay, and all you're doing is playing the market.  No one can possibly say this is their livelihood, because there's just not enough turn around for it to be a viable possibility unless you start milking people and the idea of it.  So that's what I don't like.  It's just for extra cash to waste on more stuff, and this ruins the idea of what homebrewing is in the first place, a hobby.  You can't artificially create 'rare' items, it's worthless.  But sadly, the people who are buying them don't seem to realize it, but they will years later.  That's taking advantage of them, the community and the very idea behind it.  How does buying them promote anything other than the person who is selling them's car tires?

So that's why I care.

I see your point.  That's the problem, and this is the same issue with the current housing market crisis.  People aren't reasonable with their money.  If they were, we wouldn't have problems like this.  You SHOULD forsee costs in the future, because that's living responsibly, and since a bulk of NES 'collectors' are young and don't think about this, it gets stupid.  However, as you pointed out, you don't HAVE to do that, you don't have to do anything, but you should.  That's the difference.  You don't have to put off your hobby, I'm not saying that, what I'm saying is people need to be more resonsible with their money in this hobby so EVERYONE gets a fair share of what it's about.  Spending like this, ruins that, I think you can see that.  I only brought up my time spent in doing this because I'm making a point, things have changed for the negative.  They may get better, but it's only going to get better when people know why it needs to.  What I said above is why.

I vote to pee on them!

Stan wrote on 29. May 2008 at 22:43:


Seriously want to do this again?

$15 donor cart from ebay (looks like the hardest part)
$13 4MB flash chip
$2 PCB (assuming its not from donor, otherwise $0)
$5 box
$1 label
$1 manual

$37 total, sell for $90, profit of $53 per cart.  As shown previously I made $85 on gold Airballs.  Carl makes more money from just 2 Total Carnage carts than I did on 5 gold Airballs.  If he sells only 10 carts its more profit than I will ever make on 250 Airballs.  Did you just pick something random again because your previous example completely failed too?  


If Total Carnage is reasonable for a normal release, how many people would complain at $60+ for cart only Chunkout 2 or $90+ for CIB Glider?

I'm not even referring to you, and you know that.  You know what happens in this scene because you've seen it.  You're an example of a good collector, as is bunny.  I don't mind when you guys spend because you're actually doing something with it.  And no, I don't focus on Sega now, I've just found the scene there to be what I think such a thing should be.  Interestingly, they've learned how to create a more solid base of security in these issues because of seeing mistakes that happen in the NES scene, and I don't just mean here or even at NA.  I mean in general most SMS collectors are a lot more honest, respectable and realistic.  I'm not sure why, I don't have a reason for it, that's just how it is at the moment.  It doesn't have to be anything, I'm not saying you have to buy this or that, just that you should do it a certain way.  You don't HAVE to, you just should because it makes a solid, honorable community.  That might seem silly to some people, but it's just an extension of how I try to run things I do every day.  But yeah, as I said, for that game up there, whatever they pay for their cost, $90 is reasonable because Jaguar games sold for about that much back in the day, makes sense to me.  I don't see them shelling out spray-painted 'gold' versions for $500 to idiots.  I didn't check what they pay or anything, just glanced real quick and considering how awesome Total Carnage is in the first place, that's a good price.  I'm not sure why you bothered to figure out their cost or where you even found that data, I'm just saying that considering what you get, that's reasonable to me.  They're not making that much considering how many they probably sell.  There are like five people that collect Jaguar in the world.  I don't see why you have to do the whole limited thing, that's my point, it just seems fishy and wrong to a lot of people, not just me, I just seem to be really the only one that keeps going on about it.  I would say $50 for a loose Chunkout is a reasonable offering considering all that goes into it, and why not?  It makes sense to me.  But if you have 80 of those and then make 5 gold ones, which don't mean anything in the first place, it's just wrong.  Plenty of other ways to get 'cost,' like raise the price on the regular release or just say, 'well, this is my hobby and I like it, I don't mind spending the money on it.'  There's really no reason to do any of this other than for that very reason, and if you change that reason and start to make it more of a business, it gets lame.