Cartridge Ethics

[ibeenew2]

Provide cart artwork with seal, do testing (or have testers) so its mostly bug free, don't distribute full rom while carts are available. Demos are fine, see Battle Kid, Frogger, etc. If you are going to give out a full rom for all to make carts, why would anyone be paying you royalties?

Production can be quantity or time limited your choice. SO if i had a finished game (not likely this decade!) I would sell on RetroUSB for only 6 months then give everything away. Selling carts is SOOO much more than just soldering and I dont wanna deal with all that hassle of payments/labels/shipping/returns etc.

[clueless]

So what is the criteria for RetroUSB to release a homebrew game?

I have attempted to ask Bunnyboy the same on IRC. He answered some of my questions, but ignored others. He did provide me with a PDF "contract.pdf" document that lists production prices. The top part simply states who the two parties are (developer and producer). The rest details itemized costs for fabricating the costs. On IRC he mentioned "splitting the profits" but he did not clarify when I asked him.

Let's say that a cart would cost $10.00 to build (NROM, 32k/8k, cic, no manual, no box, price approximate, not exact). If the game lists for $25.00 on retrousb, then there would be $15.00 profit per game. What was totally unclear is:

a) if the $15.00 is pure developer profit (BB took his cut out of the fabrication prices)

-or-

b) if the $15.00 is then split w/ retrousb in some fashion.

No mention was paid of the developer paying for the production run up-front. I got the impression (but certainly no confirmation) that he fabricates the carts on demand.


I am unable to find any public URL linking to his PDF, so I won't publicize it here.

It would certainly be helpful if BB would put up a FAQ of how his developer/publisher relationship works.

When I first considered publishing my game on retrousb, I was excited. I've never "published" (a game) before, just commercial financial software. But the more I reflect on my experience trying to learn how its done, the more I feel uneasy about it.

Unfortunately, I have no idea if the other NES cart making publishers are trustworthy (they sell even more legally questionable products than BB). The only source for production quality parts is retrousb anyway. The prices for plastics + PCBs on BB's contract.pdf are a bit less than the "wholesale" prices listed for 1-off purchases on Retrousb's site. So if I (or anyone else) wanted to produce our own run of carts, it would cost us more than if we outsourced it to Bunnyboy.

However, let's not discount the services provided by retrousb. They provide the web site, customer payment management, fabrication and shipping services. Those things consume time and money.

Bunnyboy sets up a unique paypal account per (title or developer, I'm not sure). The developer has read-only access to this account (think of it like an escrow account). Bunny boy releases funds to the developer once per quarter.

Bunnyboy is not easy to communicate with. He ignores PMs, doesn't read nesdev (just nintendoage and irc), may or may not respond to email, ignores most things in IRC.

I know that the above is a big ramble, and might not be 100% accurate. I'm typing it on a shitty dell laptop while traveling on vacation.

Bottom line, I wish for three things:

1) Bunnyboy to be more explicit about the agreement.

2) Bunnyboy would be easier to communicate with.

3) Someone else would offer a competing service.

[tokumaru]

RetroUSB may have its disadvantages, but there's one thing about them that nobody can beat yet: their carts are 100% new material, there's absolutely no dependency on Nintendo-made carts.

[clueless]

RetroUSB may have its disadvantages, but there's one thing about them that nobody can beat yet: their carts are 100% new material, there's absolutely no dependency on Nintendo-made carts.

Yup. Anohter good point.

I think that the fabrication and sales management services are ideal. I can understand wanting an "exclusive" on the ROM during the sales contract period. I wish that RetroUSB would make it easier to understand their contract and be more forthcoming with answering questions from their potential developers.

[Bregalad]

If you are going to give out a full rom for all to make carts, why would anyone be paying you royalties?

Because not everyone has that "I want to spend the least possible / I want to earn the most" mentality. OK this might be the predominant mentality in USA; but this insn't the case here in Europe.

(of course if someone is so broke they can't afford your cart they won't support you by buying one, but they wouldn't have bought one anyway so it's not even a loss of money)

I think it's perfectly legitimate to release a ROM and have cartridges available for sales. If someone downloads the games and like it, they buy a cart to support the developer(s) if they want. This sounds a good deal for everyone to me.
- Everyone can download/try your game for free which makes a LOT of potential players (even people who don't own a NES).
- People who wants to support you will, and you can make a profit. Because they know what they're buying, they're almost always going to be exited/satisfied.

It would be bad, but that simply isn't true. You only prepay if you want boxes (because of the 250 minimum order).

A new game isn't complete without a label, box and manual. Nobody will want to buy a blank cartridge.

Personally I'd consider the box, manual, and probably other extra content such as maps or posters a very good reason to buy a game that could otherwise be downloaded for free.
Of course you'll need a way to get those box/manuals/etc.. made, and you'll probably need a true artist to do the artwork.
(I mean I can draw a few characters for sure, but I'm not good enough to do a really cool box).

[3gengames]

I don't know about you guys, but for developing and putting carts together being a bad thing, I'd love to do that! I'd love to manage my own sales, I'd love to manage the making of the carts, I'd love to hand test each one, I'd love to ship them out.....haha, maybe it's because I'm crazy, but I love producing carts!



But from what I've heard, you also loose rights to your ROM when it's in production, is that true?

[clueless]

I don't know about you guys, but for developing and putting carts together being a bad thing, I'd love to do that! I'd love to manage my own sales, I'd love to manage the making of the carts, I'd love to hand test each one, I'd love to ship them out.....haha, maybe it's because I'm crazy, but I love producing carts!

That's great. However, how would you feel if you were selling 500+ carts per month?

But from what I've heard, you also loose rights to your ROM when it's in production, is that true?

"lose your rights" is a bit vague. You sign a contract stating that the following conditions will apply during the contract period:

1) You won't distribute a full ROM. You MAY release demos with stripped down levels, etc... My beta-test rom has a time limit. Game will reboot after 10 minutes. From what I can tell, that qualifies.

2) You won't allow another production company to produce or sell physical carts.

I am not retrousb, I do not speak for bunnyboy. The following is just my conjecture.

Entering into a production contract benefits both parties. It also obligates both to a set of conditions. Retrousb provides a (valuable imho) service. This is a free market. No one is twisting our arms, forcing us to sign up with Retrousb. If we don't like the deal, then we should not take it. If the deal sucks soo bad, then (in theory) the market will correct it by allowing competition.

Retrousb wants an exclusive on the game during the sales contract. That seems reasonable to me. It also seems perfectly reasonable that the developer wants to sell physical carts to collectors, but allow the full ROM image to be downloaded by everyone. Retrousb won't take that deal, and that is their right. Anyone else is free to open a production company and offer non-exclusive production capacity for sale.

Producing physical carts for sale is labor intensive. The parts are not dirt cheap (at least not in the quantities desired for NESDEV sales). The single greatest problem to production (imho) is economies of scale. We don't have them. So fabrication and sales will cost... the developer in fees and sometimes restricted rights.

[Memblers]

I have attempted to ask Bunnyboy the same on IRC. He answered some of my questions, but ignored others.

Same thing here (I haven't asked recently though). Some questions I would really like to know, but I don't want to keep asking the same questions repeatedly until I get an answer. Firstly because it's extremely frustrating, and secondly because I don't want to annoy.

Like I know how many cart cases I would need to order, minimum, from the factory. But couldn't get an answer on the price. I'm sure as hell not gonna be happy about paying the same the same price as buying them individually. If that was the case I would just let them hold the stock, and order as I need. But there's a major reason I don't want to do that - with all the bootlegs they sell, how do I know they won't disappear or get sued out of existence before I need to re-order? (this seems increasingly likely) Plus I would get stuck with whatever colors are in stock. I'm not going to base my production on a single source for any part, that's a way to get majorly screwed over.

The cost to buying that many cases is quickly approaching the cost of me getting my own mold, and more independence from supplier issues. So I may just do that, I don't expect I'll make my money back but could probably break even eventually (and of course I'm not doing NES stuff to make money anyways, I have a job for that purpose). I'm not wealthy at all, so I can't just drop thousands of dollars on something like this lightly. In fact, I'd really rather just using the existing mold(s).

[ibeenew2]

I think it's perfectly legitimate to release a ROM and have cartridges available for sales. If someone downloads the games and like it, they buy a cart to support the developer(s) if they want. This sounds a good deal for everyone to me.

That is exactly why there are demo roms. I tried battle kid, hated it, never bought it. and just make carts a limited time thing, free rom afterwards.

Like I know how many cart cases I would need to order, minimum, from the factory.

You must not be in irc much this was answered about every week as sivak was pestering about new colors which need a sample to color match. 500 minimum order per color, around $3 a case is the actual cost. That is the same price on the contract which includes no profits on parts. When people were angry about the cost of airball (now the cheapest cib by far he posted the invoices i think on nesworld.

[3gengames]

If my game by some miracle sells anything close too 500 copies over a year, I'd be a happy kid. But 500 a month? Thats when you get a helper. Once you get all the parts together, it's probably about 5 minutes to solder a cart together, then put the case on when you have all the parts ready. And programming the chips....so maybe 7 minutes a cart, I think I could do 500 carts in 3-4 days, I'd probably do a couple more then 8 carts an hour though once I get into the groove. The longest part for me would be sticking the label on the cart.....I get shaky when I do that kind of stuff. If it's not perfect, I'd probably throw it out. XD

[clueless]

Bunnyboy told me in IRC that typical homebrew titles (like the one that I'm working on) sell around 50 copies. 100 would be rare. He did mention that BattleKid did significantly better than that. I would expect BattleKid to be the only exception (so far)

I have ZERO illusions of making any significant sum selling my current game (once I finish it). If I could make enough to purchase a PowerPak, I would be happy.

[3gengames]

Bunnyboy told me in IRC that typical homebrew titles (like the one that I'm working on) sell around 50 copies. 100 would be rare. He did mention that BattleKid did significantly better than that. I would expect BattleKid to be the only exception (so far)

I have ZERO illusions of making any significant sum selling my current game (once I finish it). If I could make enough to purchase a PowerPak, I would be happy.

Agreed. Although the powerpak is a commodity, it does help with making games a lot not having to burn ROM's. All the money I would make would goto buying other peoples homebrews and also making more development stuff. After I have all the development stuff I would need, I'd....well....I wouldn't know what to do with the money at all. I never spend anything, so I am not sure what I'd do. :/

[67726e]

On the note of a powerpak, if you have an EPROM programmer and eraser, you can take the board you need and solder in IC sockets instead of straight ICs. That way you can take out the IC and put it back. You can basically reuse the same IC for your testing. Only con is you need to remove the bar inside of the console and cut a hole in the cartridge front.

[Memblers]

Thanks for the info, ibeenew2. That does make a lot more sense with the boxes, that stuff isn't cheap to make (for what it is). I wouldn't want to pay extra for a box (that will just sit on a shelf or somewhere else), unless I really liked the artwork. I guess a lot people would feel the same way. So it's kinda nifty and miraculous that boxes for NES games are offered at all.

Yeah I haven't been on IRC much lately, so I guess I missed the pestering. $3 is pretty good. I understand freight cost a big part of it, only way to reduce that is to pilot your own boat to China.

Main reason I'm expecting to order a large amount of cases is because I was thinking black plastic. A unique mold would be even better. But I'm gradually saving up the money for either event. It's premature for me to commit yet, but if I'm lucky, I might have to make a deal pretty soon. Because my newest NES board design is designed for cheap production, I'm still very impressed with the mapper I've come up with using a $1.50 in parts - it supersedes the MMC1 and MMC2. I can use this for Garage Cart #2, and not have to do as much hacking of the games - and this kind of quantity discount with production should make it cheaper for me to offer plain assembled boards for people to use. With the upcoming NES-USB adapters, Garage Cart #2 could easily be a game and a development cart.

[Memblers]

Agreed. Although the powerpak is a commodity, it does help with making games a lot not having to burn ROM's. All the money I would make would goto buying other peoples homebrews and also making more development stuff. After I have all the development stuff I would need, I'd....well....I wouldn't know what to do with the money at all. I never spend anything, so I am not sure what I'd do. :/

Save up for Squeedo rev3, and some NES expansion port devices. Lots of interesting stuff could be made for the NES controller ports (USB adapters and such). They've been around for a while but they're closer than ever to becoming standardized.

Something new will come along that will help with your projects, expenses aren't always predictable. I've kept my own NESdev savings account with a bank for a while now. It's not a cheap hobby for me, heheh.