Topic: CV Chorus of Mysteries in Cinemassacre

[Beaumont_Belmont]

I love Mike to death but there are times he seems to come across as a whiny baby, criticizing stuff he is totally ignorant about--like why it's so hard to program in new levels. And just about every other word he says seems to be "fuck".

That's true about stuff he might be ignorant about, but what would be the point of playing a hack/mod if you're just going to play the same stages as in the vanilla game?

[Lelygax]

 For the same reason that people plays "Demakes" and "Remakes". If someone likes the game it can be cool to replay it with some new things, even if its only visual changes.
 They did it with games like Super Mario All-Stars (SNES) and everyone (or almost) liked it.

[uzo]

Remakes and 'demakes' are across different generations of graphics and styles though. A simple rom hack cannot achieve that.

I don't think they're really comparable.

[Lelygax]

Well, its only a example. What Im trying to say is that its cool to people that wanna play the game again.

[Beaumont_Belmont]

I'll probably end up dusting off my gray NES and tracking down Chorus of Mysteries, then. It looks interesting, and after finishing Dracula's Curse, I'm pretty sure I can handle ANY difficulty. famous last words

[Mobius]

I remember seeing this. Immediately the first thing I thought of were the Dungeon forums 

[Sindra]

Hmm....

I can't help but be a bit put off by this. Redrum, the creator of Castlevania: Blood Moon is a pretty good friend of mine and a few of the other older Dungeonites, and I can't help but feel it's not right for his work to be packaged and sold by other people, when as far as I know, he's not getting any of a kickback for the hard work he put into this major overhaul of a game that turned out pretty damn good for being fanmade. I'm sure the same can be said for Dr. Mario and Optomon who did Chorus of Mysteries.

How is it that these gentlemen who put hard work into these games see no profit more than likely due to legal rights of Konami still being proprietors of the original raw materials of the games, but others are able to go as far as burning them to NES cartridges and packaging and selling them for their own profit?

I don't want to give my money to those people just because they gussied-up the game packaging. I want to give my money to the dedicated fan-creators. (as I would hope everyone else would)

[Inccubus]

I believe the technicality here is that the NES hardware is no longer under any form of copyright independent from the software that's on them. So as long as they claim that they're only charging for the hardware and label they can get away with it. While I get where you're coming from, the creators of these hacks knew going into their respective projects that they would not be entitled to any form of profit as long as the original code is owned by someone else. Would make an interesting court case.

[uzo]

I can't help but be a bit put off by this. Redrum, the creator of Castlevania: Blood Moon is a pretty good friend of mine and a few of the other older Dungeonites

Ditto. I figure it was just a guy who took a rom loaded cartridge and slapped a fancy sticker on them for sale. A neat idea mind you, but I doubt Red is getting any kick back from it. Too bad though, since it's pretty much capitalizing on his work. He should get at least some kick back. Then again there is the legality of it as a rom hack in general, and whether Red can even be entitled to any revenue since it's basically copyright infringement in itself.

A sticky situation for sure. You'll never stop people from doing it though, as long as there is a demand for such things.

[TheCruelAngel]

Yeah, the Nintendo hardware fell out of copyright protection a few years ago and why we see so many weird NES compatible hardware solutions on the market now (like what's up with that handheld one?).

As a creator, I think the most important thing for something like this is someone enjoying it. Yeah it was a lot of hard work and time, and it would of been sweet getting some kick backs for it, but it started out as a labor of love and a hobby. If Redrum is getting credit for the work he put into making the game, I think it's alright (not fair, but alright). I mean, if I hacked Actraiser into some weird Dracula conquering Europe game where I had to go and destroy all of the "heroes" or whatever, it would be because I though the idea was cool and that people would like to play it, making money off of it never being part of the equation (though it does make for an interesting resume piece...).

Not to discredit anyone's concerns on the matter of financial compensation, but copyright of the original code (there is such a thing) and trademarks for the IP make it sticky as to whether Redrum would have to face legal ramifications if money were made off of it. However, if Redrum did not want his work put on cartridges and sold, I think he still has enough legal pull to get them to stop distributing his work completely.

Um...where was I going with this again? Oh well! Long story short; while monetary compensation for your work/hobby is nice I think the most rewarding is people playing it and enjoying it.

[Sindra]

As a fan creator in my own right, I can understand whole-hardheartedly that...even though you never do something for monetary compensation....it stings like hell when someone else makes cash on your hard work. It's like a slap in the face and almost negates the fact you do it out of love for the series.

[TheCruelAngel]

Wow, not giving credit is just low and I can understand getting upset about that. I mean, why would anyone think that it was OK to just use someone else's  work without their consent?

Completely asinine I tell ya, and I'm sorry to hear about it. 

[Inccubus]

Yeah. That is shitty. They should give proper credit AND also place a disclaimer that it is made without the consent of either the creator's of the original game or the hack authors. Not to mention they shouldn't be allowed to sell the repro cart for any more than what they would for a blank one since it is illegal to charge for a hacked game without the original copyright holder's permission.