MICROMANCERS

And there's another thing: We are all grown-ups now with some income. I don't think there are many students around the MSX system nowadays (only grumpy old guys All current MSX users I know: they just buy the stuff they want, old and new games. And hardware. when I went to a retro computer meeting (pre-corona) I saw people buying stuff from each other, instead of double disk drives busy with copy jobs like in the old days. Ok maybe someone dumped their game and hacked it. So what? The availability of a dumped rom will, from my experience, not withhold people to buy your original product. And there's another thing: no matter how good your efforts are (games, hardware), there will always be people mocking it. So what? Nothing new here. But, yes of course the most important thing is that you have fun doing what you're doing. And if there are some people bad-mouthing your efforts, I can understand that some people can be sensitive for this and think, wtf for who am I doing this stuff? But, every community probably has some people around that like to stir up things, I think that's not something that only happens in the msx communities.

But they have to devide the profit over multiple person.
So still: A nice little extra, but "in it for the money" is something I don't believe.

I don't understand this fools who come to criticize a home-made game because it looks like another game. It's very common to want remake a game that we liked in our own way as hobbit. Overmore you must also stop taking your desires for realities and announcing hypotheses as real facts.

100 cartridge cases cost around $370. 100 boards cost about $320 with the gold-plated contacts (otherwise I don't buy even if I like the product). Count around $80 for ROMs. Which is about $700 for just the components of 100 basic cartridges by buying in china at the cheapest. We must add at least $60 if we put a mapper and more than double with a good copy protection (which will be almost useless). This is without counting the packaging nor other miscellaneous costs.

As for me, I only buy if I like it. I am not earning enough to buy more and no time to profit from too much shopping. I keep the copies when I find them but it does not affect my purchases. The copies remain on my disk just for info. From what I see protected games make some people want to copy it. It becomes a challenge. Then people make exchanges with friends, we can't stop that. Don't say you've never done this.

If he can't P here he have to P on other places it seems.

You can never make a homebrew game just for the money because, believe me, those are the worst paid hours ever.

Regarding the personal benefit, we can never know how much it really is because:

-We don’t know the production cost. Do we know the price they paid for the cartridge board, components and case? And the price they paid for a high quality packaging? Do we know if, for instance, they paid a professional artist to make the box art?.

-We don’t know how many people are involved in the project to share the benefit.

Anyway, all that is irrelevant for the final user. The only important questions for the final user should be:

-Does the game worth the money you are paying??

-The price for all games should be the same, regardless of their quality??

About piracy, I agree it’s something you can’t avoid 100% (although you are in your right to implement a copy protection), but what really hurts is people boasting in public that they have cracked the game and distributing it openly. That’s laughing in your face.

Nevertheless, there's no drama at all... we are grown-ups and take our own decisions. The same way we are free to decide enrolling in development, we are free to decide quitting for whatever reason... and who knows what will happen in the future?

Wishing the best to all friends behind MICROMANCERS! You made a superb work!