Should Atari 2600 bootleg games have a rarity?

[krisjohn]

For example, unknown Taiwan company releases their version of Frogger. It's simply Frogger with their bootleg label on it. They don't own the rights to the game, and it's sold on the gray market. This game would not have a rarity.

 

I disagree. A certain number of them would have been made, regardless of whether or not anyone knows what that number is. I would argue that all the carts in that production run would be practically identical while being substantially different from any other version of Frogger and therefore have their own rarity.

[Alex]

I'm not stating my opinion, just trying to clarify what the idea is behind answer #2. It seemed from your previous post that you weren't clear on what we meant, so I was giving an example. It seems then that you would choose answer #1.

[Curt Vendel]

Its certainly an interesting topic. On one hand its the same game, just repackaged... however I've seen collections where people have gone out of their way to collect every label variation of a game ever created and many of the knockoffs have not only unique labels, but also unique cases that a particular company made for their carts, so I'd say I'd sway towards a yes on this... its gonna be a lot of work to fill in all of those carts, but hey thats the fun of it.

 

 

 

Curt

:wink:

[Buyatari]

If you are going to assign a rarity to every bootleg ever made then you need to seperate them somehow from the rest. There are quite a few out there. I think it needs its own section.

 

All bootlegs were produced in much smaller quantity than their released conterparts. If previously unseen bootlegs of Donkey Kong and Frogger turn up on ebay tomorrow should we automticly rate these 10s. If we do a search for all NTSC games with a 10 rating should Beagle Brothers Basketball turn up in the same search as Magicard?

 

Hey anyone want to trade me Quadrun for this bootleg Frogger? Its rarer.

 

Most collectors who strive for a complete NTSC collection won't try for each bootleg ever made. Placing them there just bogs up finding information.

 

I have always classifed Atari games in this manner. NTSC released , PAL released , Prototypes , Bootlegs and homebrews.

 

Adam

[buddpaul]

Absolutely yes.

[King Asmo]

I like BuyAtari's suggestion. How about we change the categories to:

 

NTSC Released

PAL Released

NTSC Bootlegs

PAL Bootlegs

NTSC Prototypes

PAL Prototypes

Unreleased

Homebrews

 

(you could divide the last two into NTSC and PAL as well)

 

It would make the lists a lot easier to navigate because they are smaller. I'd suggest that for searching, tho, the default option be [ALL] otherwise we'll get a lot of messages asking "Why can't I find game X on the lists?".

 

I still think all bootleg games should be given a rarity, because some are definately easier to find in the wild than others.

 

KA

[san-d-2000]

Pirates are certainly collectible!

Feel free to take a look at my website,

which mainly contains pirate cards.

 

-Sandy

[King Asmo]

You've got a nice tradelist there.. but do you have a wantlist?

 

KA

[Burgel]

I believe all carts should have a rarity assigned to them. However, to avoid confusion, perhaps pirates/bootlegs should have a seperate rarity scale. Maybe use letters instead of numbers to clearly show they are pirates/bootlegs.

 

Burgel

[Albert]

If you are going to assign a rarity to every bootleg ever made then you need to seperate them somehow from the rest. There are quite a few out there. I think it needs its own section.

 

One thing is certain. No matter what happens, at a minimum we will be tagging all bootleg carts as such. We will then allow people to exclude/include bootleg games when doing a search in the database. And of course this flag will be noted on the profile page for each game. In addition, we intend to link each bootleg game back to the original game, so you can clearly see the lineage.

 

..Al

[Thomas Jentzsch]

One thing is certain.  No matter what happens, at a minimum we will be tagging all bootleg carts as such. We will then allow people to exclude/include bootleg games when doing a search in the database.  And of course this flag will be noted on the profile page for each game.  In addition, we intend to link each bootleg game back to the original game, so you can clearly see the lineage.  

Great, that's exactly what I've been asking for all the time. If you need help to find the technical "lineage", I'm sure CloneSpy will be very helpful.

 

Or maybe Marco has made some progress with is list?

[Albert]

Great, that's exactly what I've been asking for all the time. If you need help to find the technical "lineage", I'm sure CloneSpy will be very helpful.

 

Unfortunately you actually need binaries to use with CloneSpy. And that is one of the problems, Alex and I don't have a large collection of foreign carts. However, we do presently have access to a large assortment of them and we are going to dump them before they are returned. But this process will take some time. So don't expect any miracles overnight. We also want to dump them to take screenshots.

 

Or maybe Marco has made some progress with is list?

 

I don't know, I'll let him answer that.

 

..Al

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Unfortunately you actually need binaries to use with CloneSpy.

Sure, still CloneSpy might give some useful hints. I'm assuming that all the Good2600 names are correct, which IMO is not always true (e.g some PAL games are NTSC).

 

And that is one of the problems, Alex and I don't have a large collection of foreign carts.  However, we do presently have access to a large assortment of them and we are going to dump them before they are returned.

I could send you a 6MB file, containing about 1700 different dumps that are recognised by Good2600. But I guess that won't help to much, because you can not verify if the names are correct and cart scans would still be missing. Right?

 

We also want to dump them to take screenshots.

Could you check your dumps with Good2600, to find out, if there are any unrecognized/unknown binaries? I think Voch (Stella property file maintainer) will be interested too.

[jahfish]

every cart should be rated, whether it's a brasilian cart or a homebrew ...

 

we might just differenciate between the normal releases.

 

we can even differenciate between carts and games, so titles like frogger and pitfall who were copied in masses would become one of the most produced ones. Atariage could actually have the unrarity list (very interesting topic).

 

 

european carts like quelle are not rare, most appers regularly on ebay, a few titles are a bit harder to get, but prices won't go over 10-15$ on ebay. i remember a bid fight for one title going up to 80$, but that should confuse the actual rarity value ...

 

rainbowvision carts were the same thing in australia, but those are less often on ebay and allready end a bit higher at 5-10$, some of those are really hard to obtain .... it is way harder to get those together ....

 

there's tons to discuss actually ...

 

pirates: some turn up more often, some maybe just once in your lifetime, like my weird mirrored donkey kong end label with also a strange black blue front label

 

i think that on these, it would be enought to rate them:

 

common in xxx - rare from xxx - strange find (to update to one of the previous categories when more info is available)

 

 

for the brasil carts .. well ..... very hard to say

 

i'd say a standart more or less heavy used cart comes around 5$ when you have seen the label previouly. seeing one always gives you the feeling that you'll find one again. boxed ones are hard to get in brasil, so these will be a whole bunch higher, specially when in good condition .... then again polyvox and dactar carts are extremely common, those are usually included in any set you buy ... the CCE titles split up in some common ones and some that are hard to get .... so the last 3 companies could get a normal rating since these were more or less officially released, while the rest is bootlegs and self-compiled (multi-)carts from video rentals and atari clubs. these rathermake sense to be collected one of each label mostly, since only the game names are changed for most of those "pirates"

 

and finally for the homebrews, i would differenciate where the cart comes from (private or hozervideo ... etc) and if it was limited, or is easily orderable. some people try to sell thing as rare carts for more money and advertise them as old hard to find stuff when you just need to send a mail to randy (see rescue bira bira on ebay.de, or the jerryG dukes sold for 150$ on ebay this spring). so it makes sense to have clear informations about those, since a lot of ebayers will use the list as reference ...

 

we might do a "european jury" of 10 people to leave their vote for the rarity of their local carts, as well as an australian one, and even an "international heavy hunter group". (yes marco, you canb belong to that group too)

 

 

ok, time to submit my vote for #1

 

follow me, my friends :wink:

[ubersaurus]

Woo, Thrust Special Editon=rarity 10 ;p

[bloatedmonkey]

and finally for the homebrews, i would differenciate where the cart comes from (private or hozervideo ... etc) and if it was limited, or is easily orderable

Well put. Homebrews don't necessarily need a rarity number, but it's usefull to know that, for example there's only 21 of the treasure-chest Venture II's like what's on ebay right now. That kind of info is useful for someone who wasn't around when a homebrew was released.

 

If you want, for foriegn games that are harder to pin down, you could use a different set of number symbols to distinguish them as "this is what we think", vs "this is what we know".

[ianoid]

All carts can have rarities, but value is often completely different. So, even if you make the rarity of QB Special Edition a 9, it doesn't matter, since it's only worth $50 or whatever the original price is/was. Sure, people will pay more, but that doesn't mean it's worth that much. It's a fundamental misunderstanding people make.

 

Anyway, I think DP's approach has been very reasonable- they may call a foreign cart a 4, but still make it's value reasonable. Rarity is regional. I think most foreign people want to protect that from public consumption. Alot of stuff is seriously common that we pay way too much for in the US, or other places distant. It's like the Zellers scam. They are mostly uncommon, a few are rare, and maybe a few are even harder. Why wouldn't the Canadians want it to seem like they are really hard to get? They get to use them as tradebait and EXTREMELY RARE WOW! eBait. Yikes.

 

So, if you are going to make them have a rarity, I suggest you use carefully selected international collectors (such as myself), rather than strictly locals. Locals tend to overrate their rarity to maximize value in cash and trades. Of course, in the process of figuring things out, I've overpaid for alot of stuff, just like everyone else.

 

Something to keep in mind. Few locations in the world are rolling in Atari games. I know a few friends (for example, Spydy in Australia) who seems to find dozens of games every week. The only reason I know is because almost everything he finds is worth listing on eBay (HES stuff simply isn't anywhere else, except rarely in Europe.) So everyone thinks their games are harder to find. This is because of the conglomerate of brag posts, eBay sales, and overall availability of games makes it seem like everone finds stuff all the time. In reality, we all struggle. There may be 5 Montezuma's Revenges on eBay in any given week, but if I found one this year (among the few hundred 2600 games I might buy on a good year- including mostly commons), I'd be totally psyched. Still, I constantly get attitude from foreign collectors about how tough their stuff is, when I know it's the same as mine. Some things are much harder.

 

So, for example, CCE carts (most of them) and Quelle (German) carts are really common, and shouldn't get much rarity beyone 2 and 3. People find those carts all the time.

 

Actually, for the European stuff, you can get a slight cross section of what a person typically owned by looking at some of the setups they sell. Few setups with more than 5 carts DON'T have a Quelle cart.

 

Anyway, that's my 61 cents. And I hate reading long posts from most people.

 

Oh, and by the way, if anyone is still paying attention, I need a copy of Gunfight. Who made that one again? Looks like a neat game. BTW, Mr.Roboto kicks ass!

[krisjohn]

All carts can have rarities, but value is often completely different. So, even if you make the rarity of QB Special Edition a 9, it doesn't matter, since it's only worth $50 or whatever the original price is/was.

 

Maybe we need an "estimated circulation" number, rather than a possibly vague "rarity" code. Then a separate estimated value (or last know sale price) field.

 

More likely I think you'll find that classic game collecting is still in flux. Vast (but rapidly shrinking) numbers of games are released into the wild every week by people who don't believe they have any value at all. And original regional distribution still hasn't smoothed out. Remember, I might have access to a heap of HES titles, but I don't have access to a heap of US-only releases.

 

Just thinking out loud now, but what if AtariAge provided a cart cateloging database service? If all the members entered their collections into the one database, you'd end up with very accurate rarity figures. I know I'd finally key-in my collection if I I knew it in would help the community.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I think limited runs of homebrew games shouldn't get a rarity. Instead just add the number of produced/sold carts.

 

Why do we need a "guessed" rarity, when we know the exact number?

[King Asmo]

Zellers scam.. but Ianoid.. I thought we were *friends*!!

 

<runs off sobbing>

 

KA

 

If I ever write an Economics textbook, I'll get you to give definitions of price, worth, and value.

[jahfish]

I think limited runs of homebrew games shouldn't get a rarity. Instead just add the number of produced/sold carts.  

 

Why do we need a "guessed" rarity, when we know the exact number?

 

 

thrust plus: 50 produced

 

quadrun: 10000 produced

 

oh my god, i'll trade my copy for a qadrun or two

 

:wink:

[Thomas Jentzsch]

thrust plus: 50 produced

 

quadrun: 10000 produced

 

oh my god, i'll trade my copy for a qadrun or two  

Hmm, we know that the 50 Thrust+ will be in collectors hands (and therefore should not get lost), but we don't know the exact number of Quadruns that are still existing.

[Lost Monkey]

It's like the Zellers scam. They are mostly uncommon, a few are rare, and maybe a few are even harder. Why wouldn't the Canadians want it to seem like they are really hard to get? They get to use them as tradebait and EXTREMELY RARE WOW! eBait. Yikes.

 

I hope you realize I was joking about the Zeller's rarity...

 

But this brings up an interesting point...

 

Is a title any less rare JUST because it is only "uncommon" in a certain area?

 

Even though I have found almost all of the Zeller's carts in the wild ( and several multiples), I have never found many official Atari releases such as "Secret Quest", "Sorcerer's Apprentice", "Miniature Golf", "Hunt and Score" or "Pigs in Space" - going on 15 years of collecting. The point is, "rarity" varies TOO MUCH from area to area to determine the rarity based solely on whether a title is common in certain places.... The entire collecting "world" should be taken into account.

 

Perhaps krisjohn's idea of "estimated circulation" isn't a bad one...

 

Or... determine rarity on a region by region basis...

 

Examples:

 

Spectravision: Bumper Bash

Rarity: USA - 9

Canada - 4

 

Spectravision: Chase the Chuckwagon

Rarity: USA - 8

Canada - 10

Europe - N/R

[Marco(2)]

Give the collectors what they want, no problem with that.  

 

But please classify those clearly as bootlegs (= hacks) so that somebody, who is interested in the content and not the package, get's his information too.

 

What ever is wrong with the name "pirates"?

 

As a collector I wouldn't want to step on any programmer's toes by getting involved in the hacking vs programming discussion

 

Cheers,

 

Marco

[Marco(2)]

every cart should be rated, whether it's a brasilian cart or a homebrew ...

 

The only homebrew that gets a rarity and value in my book is Cubicolor. The rest is best left to players, programmers and hackers, who cannot be bothered about rarity ratings and other nonsense.

 

We might do a "european jury" of 10 people to leave their vote for the rarity of their local carts, as well as an australian one, and even an "international heavy hunter group". (yes marco, you can belong to that group too)

 

I AM the international heavy hunter group

 

Cheers,

 

Marco