But with regards to using translations and whatnot without permission, who doesn't? That's pretty much the motto of 99% of repro makers out there. The way I look at it, if you put all that work in and released it for free, then why does it matter if someone else is using it to create a salable product?
Taking a fans hard work that is meant to be free and selling it without their permission is just low. You could apply this to covers, music remixes, fan art. ..It's just not cool.
Sure, some people don't mind what happens with their work, but you would have to ask them obviously.
He clearly puts a TON of work and time into these games himself.
Probably a small fraction compared to the work some of these people put into their projects.
It's not like the guys out there who slap a label on a crappy snap together SNES cart shell and sell em for $50+, having spent about $15 and put in virtually zero time or creative effort.
I don't see how that makes it ok. The fan who made the project isn't going to tell his friend, "Some guy stole my hard work and is charging 50 bucks a pop for it. But he threw in some bobbles and nice art prints so its all good."
As far as over-priced goes, hardly. You truly getting what you pay for with his products.
I’m not saying that it makes it ok so much as I’m saying why does Tobias get so much flak, when people have been doing the same thing for years. I never heard any bitching and moaning about Timewalk when they were around, and they sold more snes and nes repros than most anyone else.
Here’s the thing. The translators/ROM hackers put that stuff out there for free. Nobody is “stealing” from them. The theft is from the original IP owner. There’s demand for physical copies of these games which are otherwise unavailable, so they should only expect that people will try to satisfy that market. I’ve made my fair share of repros and I’ve been given my fair share of shit by people because of it. Some people just hate the idea altogether. Some people just love em regardless.
I will tell you this, I did (or at least made an effort to) get the permission from the translators/hackers for at least the last 4 repro packages we made. Mother 25th, legend of link, Marvelous, & Hyper Metroid. Two of those guys wanted absolutely nothing from me and we’re just happy to have the hacks put on to carts. One guy just never got back to me after several attempts. And one guy made me think that reaching out to these guys probably isn’t worth it, yet we still worked out an arrangement and the project went forward.
As far as a “small fraction” goes, I beg to differ. I know exactly what it takes to do what Tobias does. It’s easy to knock it without experiencing and understanding it. Besides, that’s really what’s being sold in a repro package anyway. You can just burn those ISOs to a CD and play em on your Turbo Duo for the cost of a CD-R. Anyone can do it. So what are people really paying for?
The packaging/presentation. People want it to look and feel like a retail product, and boy does it ever.
