The Cave fund

[Fighter17]

I'd like to then know how Renault managed to buy out Nissan a while back. Based on non-foreign investment in Japanese established companies allowance, that right there is clear indicator of the opposite, unless it had something to do with Bankrupty filling, or near of on behalf on Nissan.

The only funny thing is that the CEO of Nissan is a guy who came from Brazil and later moved to the Middle East. Today almost every Japanese guy is kissing his ass because that CEO saved Nissan from bankruptcy.

More on the guy:

http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinside ... 101491.htm

[Dandy J]

(I have a reason for asking this, which will be revealed later.

okay so what's the big idea

[elvis]

Bill Gates verbally went on record stating the money was on the table if Nintendo wanted it. On the condition that Nintendo scrap the cube project. Hiroshi Yamauchi took it to the Nintendo board and it was rejected on the grounds that Microsoft would take the company in a direction it was not willing to take.

It doesn't matter what Bill Gates says. He is not above the law, no matter how many billions he has.

Bill Gates can *OFFER* all the money he likes. Anticompetative laws don't take effect until things officially go ahead and proposals are put on paper.

The same thing happened a while back with the IBM/Lenovo sellout. There were talks for months about it, but it didn't get voted on by various competition authorities until money was actually put on the table some 9 months later.

Talk is talk. Money is money. The two aren't the same thing. As they say, a verbal contract (or in this case, "verbal record") is worth the paper it's written on.

[edit] spelling

[icycalm]

(I have a reason for asking this, which will be revealed later.

okay so what's the big idea

oh god, the pressure

[gameoverDude]

If I had that sort of money, I'd definitely invest 5 million to help them keep away from medal games. What's 5 million out of 156 anyway? It couldn't hurt. If it turned out that Cave quit the shmup scene or went under - I'd still have $151M left.

I'm wondering just what the said "reason" is. Reading the thread title worried me a tad.

1. Buy DoDonPachi Campain (a piece of cake with 156mio $ )
2. Send it to Guru for dumping
3. Send the roms to the Mame-Team
4. Finally, all people can play that damn game....

Good one.

[JigsawMan]

Imagine you were a multi-millionaire. In US currency, let's say. And just so you happened to also be a Cave fan. I mean, you might say that multi-millionaires are old, short, fat, bald people that would never play a manic shooter, but what if you were a relatively young person--late 20's let's say--who had just inherited your late father's fortune?

I would consider giving $1m it to a random internet person on a shmup related forum who's name begins with Jigsaw and ends with Man. That would be a good thing to do... A very good thing. Your Karma would be like +50 - total Lawful Good Paladin Style.

[icycalm]

Well, I've had more time to reflect on this, and thanks to the comments of several people in this thread my thinking on this matter is now changed.

I've gone on a domain-buying spree lately. The other day I was reading something on IGN and I got so pissed off I went out and bought "gamejournalistsaredumb.com" I still haven't done anything with that. Then I went back to playing some DDP again, after a break of almost two years, and I got this idea.

I was seriously about to buy the "thecavefund.com" domain and start asking people for donations.

I mean, if you could possibly take a step back and try to look at things from a new angle, you'd probably agree with me that what's happening is absurd.

I've logged in hundreds of hours on DP, DDP, Guwange and Esprade on MAME, and Cave hasn't seen a single dime from me for those games. If I went out and bought used copies of the DP and DDP ports, Cave still wouldn't see any of that money.

I had a freaking awesome time playing those games. I WANT to show those people my gratitude and give something back to them. Sure, I've bought all the PS2 ports, and quite a few soundtracks, figurines and all that crap.

But is that enough? How would you feel if you woke up one day and found out that Cave had gone out of the shmup business? (And I am addressing all the fans now, whoever doesn't thing Cave's shmups are godsent can go home now.)

I'd feel a bit depressed, to be honest.

And yet, for the reasons mentioned, it seems donations are not the way to go.

There is another way. Rob nailed it on the head. I am going to go away and think about this some more.

[Rob]

But is that enough? How would you feel if you woke up one day and found out that Cave had gone out of the shmup business?

(^joke)

There is another way. Rob nailed it on the head. I am going to go away and think about this some more.

Uh oh, what'd I do?

[EOJ]

I've logged in hundreds of hours on DP, DDP, Guwange and Esprade on MAME, and Cave hasn't seen a single dime from me for those games. If I went out and bought used copies of the DP and DDP ports, Cave still wouldn't see any of that money.

I had a freaking awesome time playing those games. I WANT to show those people my gratitude and give something back to them.

Why don't you just mail them $50 (roughly the price for a hypothetical PS2 port) for each of those games along with a letter showing how much you appreciate their games. I'm sure they would thank you, and you could feel less guilty about playing the games in Mame.

[icycalm]

That was the idea.

But instead of just mailing my money, I would also mail them the money of others who felt like me.

So it would have been a more considerable sum.

edit: Hell, I might still just do it myself.

[EOJ]

Right, just do it for yourself. I doubt you'll get many people to join in on this anyway, and you might actually get a response from them. If other people want to do it, they could sit down and write a letter too, enclosing a donation.

[zakk]

Let Cave run their business. It's up to them to make money and stay in business. Maybe they do it by not making shooters anymore, who knows. They've had a good run, and if they choose to end it, so be it.

They've seen their money from past games. They'll see their money from current and future games.

They're a publically traded company; they are obligated to at least pretend to make money for their shareholders. They've clearly branched out, Cave-online, a bit more marketing for their newer games, soundtrack releases, figurines, Superplay DVDs etc. And yes, that means to make some easy money they put out some medal and mahjong games, they'd be silly not to. Will it mean the end of their shooting games? Remains to be seen. Clearly they were keeping themselves afloat somehow all these years so..

So really now. What triggered this entire topic and a sudden..emoness here. Did you read the last investor report or something?


edit: having a "group" of people email them money? It's mostly meaningless. Random donations are not a sustainable business model, and therefore don't accomplish anything other than soothing your misguided guilt over emulating 10 year old games.

[Twiddle]

So really now. What triggered this entire topic and a sudden..emoness here. Did you read the last investor report or something?

Obviously no mention of shooters might have spooked him but with the new hardware announcement at AOU I don't see why there's worry

[elvis]

I've logged in hundreds of hours on DP, DDP, Guwange and Esprade on MAME, and Cave hasn't seen a single dime from me for those games. If I went out and bought used copies of the DP and DDP ports, Cave still wouldn't see any of that money.

I had a freaking awesome time playing those games. I WANT to show those people my gratitude and give something back to them. Sure, I've bought all the PS2 ports, and quite a few soundtracks, figurines and all that crap.

But is that enough? How would you feel if you woke up one day and found out that Cave had gone out of the shmup business? (And I am addressing all the fans now, whoever doesn't thing Cave's shmups are godsent can go home now.)

I'd feel a bit depressed, to be honest.

You are my new hero.

I've been saying the same thing for years, and always felt like it fell on deaf ears. Hearing (reading) someone else say (write) the same thing makes me feel that little bit better.

I love MAME, and I love emulation. But it shows exactly how physical game publishing DOESN'T work in this day and age. In a niche market like shmups, a company like Cave probably has one paying customer for every 10 people who play their games. And that sucks. What sucks more, is the huge amout of people who do play their games for free don't have any way of repaying them. Australian Joe Sixpack with his PAL PS2 can't go out and buy a copy of Mushihime Sama. Why? Because SONY won't let him, not Cave. And that sucks.

I'd love to see self-published PC ports of Cave games, by Cave, released on the Cave website for a decent price. I'll shell out $50 per Cave title to buy every game I already have in MAME. I like Cave games - old and new, and I *WANT* to pay for them. But outside of my PS2 imports, there's no way for me to put my money where my mouth is, and make sure the dollars get to Cave (and not some second-hand PCB salesman).

Anyways... I've ranted about this before. See my post at the bottom of this page (and continuing discussion after it):
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... d&start=30

If anyone has a solution, I'm all ears. Bring on legal pay-for ROM downloads, and internet-distributed pay-for shmups (with English pages too, please Cave). I've got cash, and I'm not afraid to use it!

[EOJ]

Australian Joe Sixpack with his PAL PS2 can't go out and buy a copy of Mushihime Sama. Why? Because SONY won't let him, not Cave. And that sucks.

Well, he can still buy a copy of Mushi if he wants to, there are tons of import stores that would happily sell him one. As well as a JP PS2 to play it on. And Cave could license their games abroad if they wanted to, but they refuse to market them as $10-$20 budget titles like others like Skonec and Alpha System have agreed to. Cave seems to care very little about the western gaming market, and why should they really? Most westerners who are really into their games buy them anyway, so Cave gets their money (whether they're aware of it or not).

[oxtsu]

Cave doesn't need our charity/guilt. They are more profitable in Japan arcades with shooters than any other company - IKD is still there - they brought on S.Yagawa in the last year or so and gave him free reign with Ibara. I think it's safe to say they are not going to do a 180 in their business focus anytime soon.

[elvis]

Australian Joe Sixpack with his PAL PS2 can't go out and buy a copy of Mushihime Sama. Why? Because SONY won't let him, not Cave. And that sucks.

Well, he can still buy a copy of Mushi if he wants to, there are tons of import stores that would happily sell him one.

The Average Joe Sixpacks I talk to who enjoy playing import titles at my place are far too weary to buy import titles online. These are your average goons who will only ever buy games from EB off the shelf.

I'm seeing more and more 505gamestreet titles popping up here, plus PAL releases of titles like gunbird. And I'm seeing people buy them.

But my point is: traditional physical CD/DVD publishing sucks. Online publishing is much cheaper for the developer. We sit here with our broadband connections talking on a forum about how hard it is to buy games. Where are the download-and-play titles? Why am I wasting my internet connection on plain text?

[EOJ]

Where are the download-and-play titles?

I take it you're pre-ordering a Wii?

[elvis]

I take it you're pre-ordering a Wii?

Did that last week.

I'm peeing my pants in anticipation for the PC Engine titles. Great console that didn't see the light of day over here.

[eretsua]

Well, I've had more time to reflect on this, and thanks to the comments of several people in this thread my thinking on this matter is now changed.

I've gone on a domain-buying spree lately. The other day I was reading something on IGN and I got so pissed off I went out and bought "gamejournalistsaredumb.com" I still haven't done anything with that. Then I went back to playing some DDP again, after a break of almost two years, and I got this idea.

I was seriously about to buy the "thecavefund.com" domain and start asking people for donations.

I mean, if you could possibly take a step back and try to look at things from a new angle, you'd probably agree with me that what's happening is absurd.

I've logged in hundreds of hours on DP, DDP, Guwange and Esprade on MAME, and Cave hasn't seen a single dime from me for those games. If I went out and bought used copies of the DP and DDP ports, Cave still wouldn't see any of that money.

I had a freaking awesome time playing those games. I WANT to show those people my gratitude and give something back to them. Sure, I've bought all the PS2 ports, and quite a few soundtracks, figurines and all that crap.

But is that enough? How would you feel if you woke up one day and found out that Cave had gone out of the shmup business? (And I am addressing all the fans now, whoever doesn't thing Cave's shmups are godsent can go home now.)

I'd feel a bit depressed, to be honest.

And yet, for the reasons mentioned, it seems donations are not the way to go.

There is another way. Rob nailed it on the head. I am going to go away and think about this some more.

don't let your feelings of guilt get in your way. sending them a letter expressing the joy (and maybe your guilt) you've got out of playing their old games might be a good idea. you might even get a reply. sending money to them to pay-off your feelings seems like a bad idea to me. what i mean is what are they going to do with 5,750YEN (about $50, US)? that's not even enough to buy the whole staff a drink. so it may even end up in the pockets of whoever opens up the post at cave headquarters, and i reckon that she wasn't part of the creative team of any of the shooters.

on top of that i think that your feelings of guilt for emulating their games are misplaced. in fact i think you should feel kind of happy about the fact that you are MAME-ing their games. you're playing the games and enjoying them! that's their primary fuction (next to making money). furthermore they are no longer in the arcades and there for make no money anymore for cave and/or arcade opperators. buying and sticking only to playing the inferior ps1 and saturn versions of their games is also somewhat pointless. none of the money for the 2nd hand games goes to cave. even if you found a new & sealed copy of DDP for the saturn it would be an ebay-seller who's making a big profit on it, not cave.

I've logged in hundreds of hours on DP, DDP, Guwange and Esprade on MAME, and Cave hasn't seen a single dime from me for those games.

would you have invested that much time (and the equivalent of credits!) if you hadn't mame'ed it but only played it in the arcades? just curious.

if i was cave i would be very happy about the fact that more than a decade after all of my hard works & effort people are still enjoying my games and dedicating so much of their time to them.

I had a freaking awesome time playing those games. I WANT to show those people my gratitude and give something back to them. Sure, I've bought all the PS2 ports, and quite a few soundtracks, figurines and all that crap.

but if you really want to give them something in return for your MAME-ing then, i guess, you could perhaps treat the whole of the staff to a classy dinner in some fancy dinner. i'm curious if they would accept it.

[icycalm]

To eretsua and everyone else who thinks my feelings come from guilt: that's not it. You are missing the point. I have a trillion roms in my hard drive and never felt like sending anyone any money. I am quite comfortable pirating games if the companies that publish them do not care to offer me legal (non-interlaced) alternatives to enjoy their work.

In any case, all the old 2D companies are gone. If I send money now to Data East or Taito (=Squeenix), or anyone else, it will be a waste of money.

They are beyond help now, all those companies. They are gone.

Cave is still here.

They won't be here for long.

(elvis, that's an interesting thread you linked. Too many threads, too little time.)

[Dave_K.]

This thread is scaring me. Has Cave announced that they are going out of business or has their stock dropped like a rock or something? All the donations in the world cannot help a company that is failing business wise. They have to get their act together on their own, and figure out new avenues of revenue potential.

IMHO you'd be better off collecting donations to help START a company that makes 2D shmups. Maybe one in the US!

[cigsthecat]

I can't believe all this nonsense was just a bizarre cry for help...for a japanese videogame company that you have nothing to do with.

[Valgar]

lol, IKD hasn't done anything but make STGs, even without CAVE he could still find a way to keep doing it.

[icycalm]

Yeah. Just like all those people who worked for the OTHER shmup companies have.

lol indeed.

I can't believe all this nonsense...

oh and fuck you. No one is forcing you to read all this "nonsense". Just leave your house and go do something useful.

[BulletMagnet]

I can't believe all this nonsense was just a bizarre cry for help...

Something tells me your reaction would have been different had it been "The Raizing Fund."

In any event, Cave seems pretty popular among fans of the genre in general, so I doubt they're in much danger of going under or anything like that (though their recent medal games and whatnot make me grimace)...granted, I'd love to see more ports and whatnot from them (and others), and would gladly pay for them rather than freeload on MAME, but I've also more or less accepted the fact that we few fans who sit here half a planet away from them really can't have a heck of a lot of effect on what happens over there. All we can do is support whatever does come our way and hope for the best.

[zakk]

To eretsua and everyone else who thinks my feelings come from guilt: that's not it. You are missing the point. I have a trillion roms in my hard drive and never felt like sending anyone any money. I am quite comfortable pirating games if the companies that publish them do not care to offer me legal (non-interlaced) alternatives to enjoy their work.

In any case, all the old 2D companies are gone. If I send money now to Data East or Taito (=Squeenix), or anyone else, it will be a waste of money.

They are beyond help now, all those companies. They are gone.

Cave is still here.

They won't be here for long.

(elvis, that's an interesting thread you linked. Too many threads, too little time.)

Ok look. Here's how it is. Do you have any concrete info that Cave is 'going away', or are you just being an internet drama whore? Because if you have any real info here, you could have just SAID IT instead of starting a dumb thread. If you have some info, spill it. If you don't, shut the fuck up. And no, the investor report that says they're making mahjong and medal games doesn't count as new info, we know that already.

[icycalm]

Ok look. Here's how it is. Do you have any concrete info that Cave is 'going away', or are you just being an internet drama whore? Because if you have any real info here, you could have just SAID IT instead of starting a dumb thread. If you have some info, spill it. If you don't, shut the fuck up. And no, the investor report that says they're making mahjong and medal games doesn't count as new info, we know that already.

Why are you even posting in this thread if it's pissing you off? This thread has had 86 replies and almost 2000 views. Those who posted here were interested in the discussion.

What are you doing?

You seriously expect me to answer your inane questions, when you are asking them in such a rude way?

Here's a hint: IF YOU DON'T LIKE A THREAD THEN STAY THE FUCK OFF IT DUMBASS.

THIS is how it is.

[zakk]

Ok look. Here's how it is. Do you have any concrete info that Cave is 'going away', or are you just being an internet drama whore? Because if you have any real info here, you could have just SAID IT instead of starting a dumb thread. If you have some info, spill it. If you don't, shut the fuck up. And no, the investor report that says they're making mahjong and medal games doesn't count as new info, we know that already.

Why are you even posting in this thread if it's pissing you off? This thread has had 86 replies and almost 2000 views. Those who posted here were interested in the discussion.

What are you doing?

You seriously expect me to answer your inane questions, when you are asking them in such a rude way?

Here's a hint: IF YOU DON'T LIKE A THREAD THEN STAY THE FUCK OFF IT DUMBASS.

THIS is how it is.

Have you actually read all 86 of those replies? You notice you're starting to respond with 'omg fuck you don't read it if you don't like it' a bit more here? You think maybe there's a reason for that?

So what you're really saying is you're only interested in replies from people who won't call you on the bullshit this thread is? Interesting Cave you live in (hahahah a pun)

I generally avoid dumb threads. I attack idiotic threads. So here we are.

[icycalm]

Well, I avoid idiotic threads, but I attack idiots.

Come to Tokyo and I'll show you.