Repro games

[Sumez]

I absolutely believe that convincing fakes can been made, but I'd love (but mostly hate) to actually see one. There are so many little things that can be off. Especially on the PCB.
Had the chance to see one of those MegaDrive bootlegs that have been making runs on eBay up close last year, ones that looked completely like the real deal when you see the auction photos, aside from the artwork being somewhat different, giving it away. However, the build quality was so different from original releases that there's no way anyone should mistake them from originals once you see them in real life.

[Udderdude]

At the very least, if you can spot a fake, even if the seller tells you to fuck off, you can probably get a refund from eBay. They have pretty good buyer protection, I've had to use it a few times when I got burned on some crap I got that wasn't the same as what the seller claimed they were selling.

[Sumez]

Fortunatley I've only ever ended up with a fake once (not counting arcade PCBs which were entirely my own fault) buying from Ebay, and had no problem getting it refunded. Seller definitely knew what he was selling though, it's sad that eBay does nothing to improve the situation. The problem is that as long as they are willing to refund they avoid getting negative feedback.

[orange808]

I don't believe there has ever been a convincing Stadium Events fake. What are you referring to? I think it would only be convincing to someone who doesn't know what they are looking at.

Well, try to keep up.

https://snescentral.com/article.php?id=1090

It was big deal, but I guess us old fucking "scanline counters" are the only ones paying attention.

[pegboy]

I don't believe there has ever been a convincing Stadium Events fake. What are you referring to? I think it would only be convincing to someone who doesn't know what they are looking at.

Well, try to keep up.

https://snescentral.com/article.php?id=1090

It was big deal, but I guess us old fucking "scanline counters" are the only ones paying attention.

That isn't convincing at at all, and it's not just because of the missing text on the chips either. I can spot about several additional things wrong with it and that's without even seeing the back of the board which I'm sure looks like a disaster. And from the tiny bit of the label that is shown I can also see that they did a terrible job of trimming it. If that is the "scary looking fake" I stand by my original statement as that thing is laughable.

[neorichieb1971]

No game should cost what Stadium Events costs. Thats asking for trouble.

There are tell tail signs of a fake. Box and Manual is too good looking for a 30 year old game, the price is too good to be true etc. In order to fake it properly you don't want a perfect cart/label with perfect manual and box.


I just pre-ordered King of Demons from Play-asia. It looks exactly like the original except the copyright is 2018 (well at least it is in the video). The wiki page mentions the developer KSS who made King of Demons. So this may be a re-run of the original print by some of the original team. Thats going to hurt the price of the original quite a bit. The only observational difference I can see is the new name for the developer is an anime team caled Softgarage.

[orange808]

I don't believe there has ever been a convincing Stadium Events fake. What are you referring to? I think it would only be convincing to someone who doesn't know what they are looking at.

Well, try to keep up.

https://snescentral.com/article.php?id=1090

It was big deal, but I guess us old fucking "scanline counters" are the only ones paying attention.

That isn't convincing at at all, and it's not just because of the missing text on the chips either. I can spot about several additional things wrong with it and that's without even seeing the back of the board which I'm sure looks like a disaster. And from the tiny bit of the label that is shown I can also see that they did a terrible job of trimming it. If that is the "scary looking fake" I stand by my original statement as that thing is laughable.

I like turtles.

[Sumez]

There are tell tail signs of a fake. Box and Manual is too good looking for a 30 year old game, the price is too good to be true etc.

I've seen several cases of that being the case for a genuine game My Shatterhand and Illusion of Gaia are ridiculously pristine, and let's not get into most of the stuff I've bought from Japan. None of those games are worth quite enough to get into that level of counterfeiting though.

In order to fake it properly you don't want a perfect cart/label with perfect manual and box.

For something as stupid as Stadium Events I don't see this happening as unlikely

Did anyone ever make convincing manuals btw? While confirming those will definitely require a known original manual to compare to, I imagine faking those will likely be harder than you'd immediately think. Stuff like fonts, original artwork, the alignment of everything, has to be perfect. Technically it could be done with a super high quality scan I guess... But damn that would take a lot of work.

[orange808]

There are tell tail signs of a fake. Box and Manual is too good looking for a 30 year old game, the price is too good to be true etc.

I've seen several cases of that being the case for a genuine game My Shatterhand and Illusion of Gaia are ridiculously pristine, and let's not get into most of the stuff I've bought from Japan. None of those games are worth quite enough to get into that level of counterfeiting though.

In order to fake it properly you don't want a perfect cart/label with perfect manual and box.

For something as stupid as Stadium Events I don't see this happening as unlikely

Did anyone ever make convincing manuals btw? While confirming those will definitely require a known original manual to compare to, I imagine faking those will likely be harder than you'd immediately think. Stuff like fonts, original artwork, the alignment of everything, has to be perfect. Technically it could be done with a super high quality scan I guess... But damn that would take a lot of work.

I wouldn't bother faking the box or manual. Fooling people with a good PCB that can be used to produce multiple midrange rarities would be the easiest way to make money.

CIB attracts too much attention.

Although, pairing a good fake cart with a real box and manual would definitely be a good grift.

[Sumez]

Absolutely, and that's what is happening now. I was thinking more about our speculation in potential future abominations, and neorichieb1971 brought up boxes and manuals.

[BrianC]

I have also seen cases of games that look cheap, but are the real deal. Some of the Majesco reprints for SNES and Genesis come to mind. Some later Intellivision games have this cheap looking white label on them. There's also those Telegames 2600 reprints of M. Network games where one game (Bump 'n Jump) was a poor optimization of the PAL version into NTSC instead of the NTSC version that was used in the original Mattel cart.

edit: Telegames carts are also notorious for not fitting in earlier Atari 2600 systems. They do fit in the 7800 and probably the 2600 Jr..

[MintyTheCat]

I just pre-ordered King of Demons from Play-asia. It looks exactly like the original except the copyright is 2018 (well at least it is in the video). The wiki page mentions the developer KSS who made King of Demons. So this may be a re-run of the original print by some of the original team. Thats going to hurt the price of the original quite a bit. The only observational difference I can see is the new name for the developer is an anime team caled Softgarage.

Thanks for letting me know. I came very, scarily close to buying the original last month I've ordered a copy of this 'game to be played int he month of Halloween'

All this talk appears to be skewed towards mad collecting and doesn't do justice to the processes at the disposal of high-end copiers but then that's most likely the point: all those folks who spent far too much cash as an "investment" want something

For investment there are better options open so just buy what you can afford to enjoy.

[MintyTheCat]

I have also seen cases of games that look cheap, but are the real deal. Some of the Majesco reprints for SNES and Genesis come to mind. Some later Intellivision games have this cheap looking white label on them. There's also those Telegames 2600 reprints of M. Network games where one game (Bump 'n Jump) was a poor optimization of the PAL version into NTSC instead of the NTSC version that was used in the original Mattel cart.

As a general rule I found the PAL releases to be inferior to the JP releases. Also, there's that feel of JP MD carts compared to PAL carts that soapy feel that I love.