[DEV - DONE] Nintendo World Championships 1990 Competition Cartridge NES - PERFECT REPRO

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Goose2k
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Re: [DEV - DONE] Nintendo World Championships 1990 Competition Cartridge NES - PERFECT REPRO

Post by Goose2k »

DRW wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 10:10 pm
Goose2k wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 10:50 am I don't think you could have been any more upfront then you were with it being a repro. There is no victim here.
Are you really that naive?

"Oh look, some random buyer from eBay now owns a perfect, near indistinguishable fake copy of a cartridge that goes for several thousands of dollars and is the most-desired NES-related thing ever. But don't worry, it's not possible to scam people with the fake copy. Because the seller wrote on a forum and in the eBay auction that it's a reproduction."

Yeah, and whoever sees the cartridge instantly gets a screenshot of the original auction transplanted into his brain, or what?
I'm pouring one out for the guy who would buy $25,000+ cart without doing even the most cursory research on it. :beer:
And the counterfeit piece that this guy here was producing and that, for some strange reason, got sold for a whopping 1561 EUR.
Because the bidders were simply so eager to have such a fine "reproduction" for their personal collection, right? They totally didn't pay so much money because they saw this thing as a potential monerary investment, did they?
I won't pretend to know why they bought it. I was personally willing to bid a few hundred dollars on it because I thought it was a one of a kind (ok 1 of 5) cart that I find really interesting. A few hundred dollars on something like this might be a "whopping" lot to some people, in the same way that 1500 is to you (and me). They might also be scammers hoping to con people out of 1000s of dollars. If they are, I'll be mad at them not the creator (that's obviously a much larger topic - individual responsibility vs social responsibility :wink: )
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DRW
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Re: [DEV - DONE] Nintendo World Championships 1990 Competition Cartridge NES - PERFECT REPRO

Post by DRW »

Goose2k wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 11:10 pm I'm pouring one out for the guy who would buy $25,000+ cart without doing even the most cursory research on it. :beer:
That's the thing, isn't it? This cartridge is not some shoddy knockoff that can be spotted as fake with a quick glance. This is such a perfect replication that "cursory" research doesn't cut it anymore and that it might fool anybody but the most experienced inspectors. Especially does this mean that you cannot trust any eBay auction of this anymore.

Goose2k wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 11:10 pm They might also be scammers hoping to con people out of 1000s of dollars. If they are, I'll be mad at them not the creator
Well, it's the creator who produced near perfect counterfeit products in the first place and put it out into the wild for no particular reason and who enabled the scammers to do this kind of fraud.

Also, let's not forget: This is an illegal product anyway.
If I create something that is perfectly legal in itself, and someone else does some shit with it, then sure, it's not my responsibility.
But if someone sells a product that is already illegal to begin with and then the buyer uses this illegal product to do something illegal as well, then yes: I can also blame the original creator.

If I draw an original picture that I came up with and someone sells it as a van Gogh, then only that seller is to blame.
If I recreate van Gogh's paintings in a nearly perfect manner, without writing my name on them and without marking them as reproductions, and then I have the guts to put them on the open market instead of just hanging them on my wall, then yeah: I'm partly responsible if someone gets conned by a nearly indistinguishable replication of a van Gogh painting.
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Fiskbit
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Re: [DEV - DONE] Nintendo World Championships 1990 Competition Cartridge NES - PERFECT REPRO

Post by Fiskbit »

I agree with DRW. If you don't know there are counterfeits of this quality in circulation, you will be fooled by this cartridge and be out tens of thousands of dollars. Your best hope is serial number research, but if you can't find any info about the number, you'll probably just assume it's a previously-unknown cart.

There are some minor differences between the PCBs, but they're not obvious and you have to be looking really closely for them. Making reproductions of such valuable and highly-collectible items that are effectively indistinguishable from the real thing is irresponsible. It's a neat idea and probably a fun project, but should not have been distributed or should have had an obvious indicator.
Pokun
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Re: [DEV - DONE] Nintendo World Championships 1990 Competition Cartridge NES - PERFECT REPRO

Post by Pokun »

Indeed, there's no defending this.

Creating a perfect replica in secret with no documentation of the creation process would be even worse, as there is no way for future generations to track the history of it or know for sure if it's real or not. They can only make educated guesses.
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Re: [DEV - DONE] Nintendo World Championships 1990 Competition Cartridge NES - PERFECT REPRO

Post by tepples »

NWC contains games from three companies known for their fanwork bans: Nintendo, Square Enix, and The Tetris Company. (Tetris in particular is known for asserting "total concept and feel" copyright.) If any of these three companies had been looking the other way at easily discernable reproductions, selling counterfeits like this could cause them to reconsider and lead to a crackdown on all NWC repros.
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