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That Tobias f--k went after Xak III and SO II as pressed CD-ROM releases!

Started by NightWolve, 02/20/2015, 09:20 AM

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PCEngineHell

But you knew you were buying high priced illegal boots. It didn't take much to figure out what it was going to lead to. Only the naive would have thought no harm, no foul. And Bernie, you don't strike me as the naive type... I like you, I honestly do, but I'm calling it like I see it. May come off as harsh, but this topic came up plenty before, and the possible outcomes were mentioned prior of what would happen if this kind of shit was supported.

bob

Prof, im really not up on the whole backstory, but were you a part of any of the actual work that was stolen?  I didnt know if your efforts were exploited along with NW?

PCEngineHell

#202
Quote from: galam on 03/01/2015, 07:02 PMProf, im really not up on the whole backstory, but were you a part of any of the actual work that was stolen?  I didnt know if your efforts were exploited along with NW?
No, but I was part of one of the original parties he worked to dupe on the Sapphire thing, as was Quoth09 and a lot of others. I should go into detail on this, but needless to say you can see me and others posting in really old threads about it from back in 2005. I used my original account in that thread, which goes by my actual name. Tobias went as far as to fake a letter from Hudson Soft to convince us his copies were legit. He was dropping a few of us pm's too showing us his "evidence" of the such and his reassurances that he obtained the Sapphires by legit means and was basically just trying to share the wealth.

I actually went out of my way to try to confirm one way or the next whether they were legit or not by contacting Care4Data and Hudson soft, but it didn't yield much results that were totally helpful, so in the end gave Fudoh the benefit of the doubt. In the end Fudoh busted himself by suddenly having more way more copies to sell, and some of which that had defects. Between that and his Mega Man and Space Fantasy Zone shit, it became pretty obvious at that point that he had went out of his way to scam the PCE scene.

Joe Redifer

Yep I'm sure he's gotten tons of orders now as I clearly specified where to get 'em.  Actually we've been planning on doing a show about repros sometime as we each have a couple of others from other people. I have Alien Soldier. I think that's it. Oh wait no I also have Sapphire (and I have ZERO SHAME in owning a bootleg of that). Dave has more than I do. Tobias said there's no obligation to cover 'em. He sent the Xak 3 set without even telling me what they were. So I see this thread fire up and I'm like "Hmm. Well shit." Then the package arrives. But if some of you wanna witch hunt, whatevs. I'm glad I can provide you with things to do with your free time.

Here's a still of some video I shot weeks ago illustrating the difference between real and fake. No clue when we'll do the episode proper.

joeredifer .com/crap/bonk3.png

Emerald Rocker

I believe Bernie.

Prof: I missed the whole Space Fantasy Zone story.  Is this related to the sealed SFZ's that were "discovered" around the same time as the Sapphire bootlegs, or is this something more recent?
Official member of the PCEFX 4K Post Club

esteban

Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 03/01/2015, 12:45 PM
Quote from: esteban on 03/01/2015, 11:03 AMJoe's comment was misinformed, and did not actually represent the proposal.

...blah blah...

READING IS FUNDAMENTAL
My post was a joke at Joe's expense, but let's get SeRiOuS -- there's not much difference between a disclaimer that says "translated by so-and-so" and a disclaimer that says "<the translation> is freely available at blank.com".

Please re-read what you yourself wrote.

I love you Esteban, but... DAMN
Actually, there is a difference.

Please read the anecdote in this post:

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=18596.msg395650#msg395650

Oh, heck, I'll just repost it (emphasis added for the wayward reader)...

QuoteI agree that a notice on the title screen is actually a good idea for actually *educating* folks.


Let me share a history lesson with everyone here:

Back in the day, lots of DIY punk bands wanted to get their music into as many hands as possible for a fair price. So they charged a fair price via mail order and trusted independent distributors. HOWEVER, lots of greedy bastards (record shops) sold the records at "regular" price, which allowed the record shop to make more profit from ignorant customers.

SO, the bands would put disclaimers on the actual record art "This EP IS AVAILABLE FOR $3.00 from" or "Pay no more than $3.00 for this EP"

This seemingly futile disclaimer actually worked for *some* customers. Many customers are ignorant and remain ignorant. Other customers don't care. But, I guarantee, at least a handful of customers *did care*, and *educated themselves* and stopped filling the pockets of the profiteers.

I was one of those ignorant customers.

Not for long, Thankfully.

Because of a stupid disclaimer.
The point is—even if we only reach a handful of  folks, it will prove to be worthwhile.

:)
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PCEngineHell

Quote from: Emerald Rocker on 03/01/2015, 07:41 PMI believe Bernie.

Prof: I missed the whole Space Fantasy Zone story.  Is this related to the sealed SFZ's that were "discovered" around the same time as the Sapphire bootlegs, or is this something more recent?
Those dumb things just started popping up on ebay and what not a couple years after Sapphire, 2007-2008 or so I think. I think Tobias was using proxy sellers of some sort to get them listed under different accounts on ebay outside of selling them directly from his own website. I know a couple peeps from here ordered them as time went on. For the life of me I cant remember who though. I think the things were professional labeled short strategy cd-rs with a fancy package. I dont recall either SFZ or Rockman being a pressed disc like Sapphire was. Honestly not worth the asking price.

I also don't think he advertised that they were cd-r's on his normal sales page either. It's something a forum member ended up telling me. Maybe it was Nat. I honestly cant recall who for sure. Fudohs original sale page is still archived for viewing.

wayback://sapphire.anime4ever.de/

esteban

And I still love you, Emerald Rocker. :)

Also: Folks, the point of this thread is to EDUCATE.

If you bought stuff from Tobias, don't get your moist panties in a bunch.

We simply hope that you THINK TWICE before buying from him...we honestly feel that you should not support him and we have explained why. 

The rest is up to you.

Knowing is half the battle.

You gotta know when to hold 'em...

Who put the bop in the bop-shoo-wop-dee-bop?
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PCEngineHell

Ok yeah just checked and it was Nat who did a large post about the SFZ he got off Tobias/Fudoh from his website.


https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=5143.0

Emerald Rocker

Prof: Thanks for the explanation and link.  Now I understand what the Mega Man stuff was about, too.

Quote from: esteban on 03/01/2015, 08:13 PMAnd I still love you, Emerald Rocker, but DAMN, you just love being the naysayer.
I'm a little confused because -- based on your post -- we agree, but that's ok.  I still love you too.
Official member of the PCEFX 4K Post Club

SamIAm

Quote from: Joe Redifer on 03/01/2015, 04:03 PMMy comment was not misinformed, it's right on the money. You guys are saying "Put your name or a disclaimer on the title screen so people won't rip off your translation." I'm saying that if someone DOES rip off your translation and removes your name from the title screen, the translation on said rip-off could still be proven as yours. It would be uploaded to Rom-hacking.net under your name, for example, and the translations would be the same. You guys read into my comment with things that I wasn't even remotely saying. Not surprised with the people in this thread, though.

I thought I was pretty clear but I guess not.
I don't care about him pressing copies with or without my name attached. I care about him selling copies of our translations. I don't want him to do that, period. That's the point. I don't care about my name. I might not even add it to the credit scroll at the end.

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 03/01/2015, 03:39 PMWhile I'm not a coder, a hacker, a translator, a bootlegger, or a customer, I think SamIAm's strategy is far too scorched earth.
I like your idea of not nuking a save, but rather disabling it somehow and re-enabling it with a proper version. I don't know how easy that is to do, however.

I also like adding another message to the forced crash screen.

As for the initial warning message, the one that we would make to cause a crash if it's ever erased by Tobias, I don't think there's any harm to adding a 5 second message to the startup-loading sequence when most games need a few seconds to load anyway. This could be displayed while it is loading.

QuoteMaking them fight jacked up bosses or deleting their save isn't going to do anything but piss them off. They aren't going to plow half way through the game, get completely fucked by malicious code, then suddenly be converted by the experience of having wasted 20 hours and $60 and then start all over again by locating the patch, appying it, and then playing through the first half of the game again.
No need to waste 20 hours; how about having the crash happen after one or two?

Anyway, pissing them off so they don't buy from Tobias is the point. It's just a matter of striking the best balance. We want to piss off as many people who buy his bootlegs of fan-translations as possible, while minimizing the number of them who would completely give up on playing the game via other means.

Remember, the whole crash idea only happens on the off chance that Tobias goes in and actually tries to remove our message saying not to buy from him. The idea of him doing that really pisses me off.

Dicer

Quote from: esteban on 03/01/2015, 08:13 PMAnd I still love you, Emerald Rocker. :)

Also: Folks, the point of this thread is to EDUCATE.

If you bought stuff from Tobias, don't get your moist panties in a bunch.

We simply hope that you THINK TWICE before buying from him...we honestly feel that you should not support him and we have explained why. 

The rest is up to you.

Knowing is half the battle.

You gotta know when to hold 'em...

Who put the bop in the bop-shoo-wop-dee-bop?
I got the free CD's, so I did my part to bring the machine down...

Joe Redifer

So if the goal is to get him to NOT use your translations period, why have a time bomb? Why not just have it not work right away? Or rename the save file to "HOPE_U_DIDNT_PAY_4_DIS_1 or XAK3_ENG_IS_FREE_01 or something.

SignOfZeta

Quote from: Joe Redifer on 03/01/2015, 04:03 PMMy comment was not misinformed, it's right on the money. You guys are saying "Put your name or a disclaimer on the title screen so people won't rip off your translation." I'm saying that if someone DOES rip off your translation and removes your name from the title screen, the translation on said rip-off could still be proven as yours. It would be uploaded to Rom-hacking.net under your name, for example, and the translations would be the same. You guys read into my comment with things that I wasn't even remotely saying. Not surprised with the people in this thread, though.

I thought I was pretty clear but I guess not.
What are you talking about? Nobody is trying to hide their identity here. Yes, it can be easily learned, nobody cares.
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SignOfZeta

Btw, in reference to the Sapphire bootlegs; by the time I caught on to them it seemed, at least to me, that as accurate as they were there was no way they were real. I bought one because they were only $35 at the time. As I said before, I have zero problem with bootlegs. I would go so far as to say they are essential. Organized piracy that disguises itself as legit just to screw noobs is a problem though. $35 ...that's not the greatest price, but it's a lot better than what he eventually started selling them for.  More importantly, several eBay auctions passed for legit but we're really these bootlegs. We're talking about $300 or more, because noobs didn't know. Back then seeing any copy of Sapphire was not a common site so when something really accurate looking showed up they had no reason to be suspicious.

It's amazing how much more greedy and brave he has become. He sends out "press review" copies of fucking PIRATE shit? That's some guts right there. Amazing.
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esteban

Quote from: Joe Redifer on 03/01/2015, 11:03 PMSo if the goal is to get him to NOT use your translations period, why have a time bomb? Why not just have it not work right away? Or rename the save file to "HOPE_U_DIDNT_PAY_4_DIS_1 or XAK3_ENG_IS_FREE_01 or something.
Think about a logical series of events.

NOTE: This may never happen.

(1) Let us assume that Tobias hired someone to hack out the DIY/fan disclaimer on the title screen.

(2) Let us assume that Tobias would check the game (by briefly playing it) to ensure that altering the title screen did not break the game.

(3) A few of us think that it would be MARVELOUS if Tobias then proceeded to spend his hard-earned Euros to press the disc.

(4) Tobias would have to deal with the ensuing drama, should any arise, if his commissioned version of the game was broken.

PLEASE NOTE: This should answer your question. If not, look at step #2 and #3...Tobias probably wouldn't press a disc if it was immediately obvious that it was broken.

(5) We can never really stop profiteers, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun!!! If you honestly did not understand the humor and sweet comeuppance of the "Anti-Tobias Checksum" ...well, try to smile  and/or laugh once in a while. I thought it was a creative, amusing way to thwart Tobias. :)
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SamIAm

Quote from: Joe Redifer on 03/01/2015, 11:03 PMSo if the goal is to get him to NOT use your translations period, why have a time bomb? Why not just have it not work right away? Or rename the save file to "HOPE_U_DIDNT_PAY_4_DIS_1 or XAK3_ENG_IS_FREE_01 or something.
There is no way to stop him from using the same version of the patch that we are going to distribute freely, which will actually work. It has to actually work, or there is no point in making it.

esteban summarized the rest of the idea pretty well. Tobias or whoever can alter a warning message, whether it's before the title screen or the name of the save file or whatever. The idea is to make the game check to see if he has done this, and if he has, to break at a point deep enough in the game that Tobias will not notice until he's already pressed and shipped lots of copies.

If he notices the forced crash before he presses his bootlegs, he has a shot at hacking that out, too. We don't want that.

Joe Redifer

Do you seriously think he doesn't keep an eye on this thread?

SamIAm

Quote from: Joe Redifer on 03/02/2015, 04:16 AMDo you seriously think he doesn't keep an eye on this thread?
Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. It's possible to rig up the patch pretty heavily, though, and it's only really important that he doesn't know the fine details. After all, it's one thing to hack out a bit of text at the game's first loading screen; it's quite another to isolate and neutralize multiple cross checks within the game itself. If he's afraid of ruining his bootleg of our translation and doesn't touch our message that says he's a funky buttlover, we win anyway. That's actually preferable to screwing over wayward gamers. Not to mention deterring/screwing over other bootleggers in the future.

NecroPhile

Let me get this straight: Tobias could find a hacker competent enough to remove whatever warning notes you'd add but he'd never find one good enough to disable the time bomb?  Such hubris.

As for ol' Sapphire, the only people that heard his story and believed it were fooling themselves.  None of Tobias's story ever made a lick of sense.
Ultimate Forum Bully/Thief/Saboteur/Clone Warrior! BURN IN HELL NECROPHUCK!!!

SignOfZeta

Quote from: guest on 03/02/2015, 11:38 AMLet me get this straight: Tobias could find a hacker competent enough to remove whatever warning notes you'd add but he'd never find one good enough to disable the time bomb?  Such hubris.
I don't think this is unrealistic at all. The warning message could be easy as hell to find, especially if it was just text written with an existing font. The other stuff could be made much much harder to find. In fact, even after reading this stuff, there is no real way he could know for sure the game wasn't rigged to explode. If three or four booby traps were installed and he found them all, there is no way of knowing for sure that there isn't a fifth one.

At this point, as far as I've seen, he has yet to alter code at all. He'd have to join up with someone who is a good PCE hacker, one with loose morals, which could be tough to find. The PCE hacker scene isn't exactly enormous.
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Opethian

don't you think he played these games to the end before getting them pressed to disc? lol
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Joe Redifer

Keep in mind that the hack would have to check for the COLOR of the font as well. For example let's say the text is white on a black background and he just changed the text to black. So it's still there, ya just can't see it. There'd have to be a lot of redundancy checks and whatnot. Like: Check in level 1 to see if text code is still there. Then check in level 3. Because you'd only translate level-based games, obviously. But you get my drift. It'd be a lot of hacks to remove. They should all be written differently so he couldn't find 'em by searching via hex.  Also hack in an ADPCM voice that sez "Dis translation iz 4 free kna mean my nig?"

SignOfZeta

It would not be hard. It seriously would not be hard. You just run a hash check on whatever section of code you want to stay put. The entire intro sequence, for example.

The message itself doesn't have to actually be in the check, that only needs to be on the CD once. If you write the check in a number of significantly different ways then they won't stand out significantly when some bag is looking for the code in the ISO. Put one right before the first boss fight, one at the end, one in the save screen, etc. The only way to find them all would be to basically have a really good programmer play all the way through the game and debug the entire thing for ages until he's thwarted by every check and fixes them all one at a time. This is certainly possible, but it's way beyond the normal Tobias way of doing things (file the numbers off, make up a story, octuple the price, profit). At the very least it would require this sponge to do some work.
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JoshTurboTrollX

Quote from: DragonmasterDan on 02/27/2015, 10:25 AMI know the Midwest Gaming Classic for example apparently passed a rule in recent years banning the sale of repros. But a few years back there were 3 or 4 vendors selling mostly or primarily repro carts. A lot of them had the same common popular cartridges quite a few of which were fan translations and hacks of existing games.
2014 was the first year that we banned the sales of repros.  I think it was mostly due to a fear of lawsuits since Nintendo had their Pokemon booth about 50 feet away from some bootleggers trying to sell NES fantranslations and SNES Earthbound booties for $65 a pop.  lol
Jossshhhhh...Legendary TurboTrollX-16: He revenge-bans PCE Developers/Ys IV Localizers from PCE Facebook groups and destroyed 2 PC Engine groups: one by Aaron Lambert on Facebook, then the other by Aaron Nanto!!! Josh and PCE Aarons don't have a good track record together! Both times he blamed the Aarons and their staff in a "Look-what-you-made-us-do?!" manner (extortion!), never himself nor his deranged, destructive, toxic turbo troll gang!

BlueBMW

It's like a lock on a door...  even a very small deterrent will prevent most thieves from bothering
[Sun 23:29] <Tatsujin> we have hard off, book off, house off, sports off, baby off, clothes off, jerk off, piss off etc

CGQuarterly

Are there any of these fan translations where the original game is unusually expensive?  Xak III is about a $20 game, and Startling Odyssey II is even cheaper.  Why can't someone use some contacts in Japan to buy up as many copies of the game as they can find and ship them over here.  Then Nightwolve or whoever can have pressed & patched "backups" of the game made complete with custom disc label art.  Then they sell the original game to people, and it includes a back-up for "free" (charge people for the cost of the pressed disc, plus your time for performing the service if you see fit).  This way they are not providing a pressed repro copy of the game to anyone who does not have the right to a backup copy, and they are offering consumers the option of both buying a legitimate copy of the game and a patched disc directly from the people who did the translation (or an approved third-party.)

It just seems to me that as long as some of these people who do the translations are completely unwilling to make some type of physical product available to those who want something other than a CD-R, there are going to be people like Tobias who are happy to fulfill that need.

CGQuarterly


Psycho Punch

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 03/02/2015, 03:54 PMIt would not be hard. It seriously would not be hard. You just run a hash check on whatever section of code you want to stay put. The entire intro sequence, for example.

The message itself doesn't have to actually be in the check, that only needs to be on the CD once. If you write the check in a number of significantly different ways then they won't stand out significantly when some bag is looking for the code in the ISO. Put one right before the first boss fight, one at the end, one in the save screen, etc. The only way to find them all would be to basically have a really good programmer play all the way through the game and debug the entire thing for ages until he's thwarted by every check and fixes them all one at a time. This is certainly possible, but it's way beyond the normal Tobias way of doing things (file the numbers off, make up a story, octuple the price, profit). At the very least it would require this sponge to do some work.
This. Joe talks as if this is something from another world, but in fact it's relatively easy, just make a function to check the areas with the warning text, the nametable and custom palette for the special screen in ROM, and that's it. You could even add hidden, compressed routines to check the integrity of the checksum code itself, triggered by something random like a particular enemy being spawned, a sample scheduled to play, etc. See: Mr. Gimmick's BLACK HOLE, Earthbound.
It's literally a JMP/JSR $ChecksumRoutine thing to start the verification, what, 3 bytes? And the code itself is likely to be small and will definitely run independently from the "original program"...

Of course it would be even better if Tobias didn't knew at all about this but there's no way that someone like him would bother hunting for all the anti modification routines, he would either half ass it or not press the game at all.
This Toxic Turbo Troll & Clone Warrior calls himself "Burning Fight!!" on Neo-Geo.com
For a good time, reach out to: aleffrenan94@gmail.com or punchballmariobros@gmail.com
Like DildoKobold, dildos are provided free of charge, no need to bring your own! :lol:
He also ran scripts to steal/clone this forum which blew up the error logs!
I had to delete THOUSANDS of error log entries cause of this nutcase!
how_to_spell_ys_sign_origin_ver.webp

Bernie


CGQuarterly

Quote from: Bernie on 03/02/2015, 06:22 PMI doubt he will do translations anymore after all this. 
I agree.  The fact that he so quickly changed his plans and offered the discs up for free when it certainly looks like he had everything already printed up and ready to go suggests that he is wary of pissing off the community (although not wary enough to avoid selling those translations in the first place).  I would bet that he sticks to repros from now on.

I really don't understand the guy.  The attention to detail and little extras that he includes with his boxed sets (and the completely redone artwork and manuals) would lead you to believe that this is someone who REALLY loves the Turbo/PC Engine.  But the same guy pressed copies of Sapphire and tried to pass them off as real, sold the Rockman translation without permission, and was about to sell two more translations without permission?    I don't get it.  If the guy is a total scumbag then why isn't he just making straight-up bootlegs and selling those?  The little bookmark things, the commemorative coin.  Those aren't selling the set.  They're just little extras.  So why is he doing stuff like that if he's just a bootlegging thief?  But then if he isn't a bootlegging thief, then why is he stealing people's work?  His behavior totally contradicts itself.

Gentlegamer

I had wondered that myself, he obviously has the ability to make very professional looking product and has shown to have few scruples, why not just straight up counterfeit and sell on ebay?
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esteban

Quote from: CGQuarterly on 03/02/2015, 06:50 PM
Quote from: Bernie on 03/02/2015, 06:22 PMI doubt he will do translations anymore after all this. 
I agree.  The fact that he so quickly changed his plans and offered the discs up for free when it certainly looks like he had everything already printed up and ready to go suggests that he is wary of pissing off the community (although not wary enough to avoid selling those translations in the first place).  I would bet that he sticks to repros from now on.

I really don't understand the guy.  The attention to detail and little extras that he includes with his boxed sets (and the completely redone artwork and manuals) would lead you to believe that this is someone who REALLY loves the Turbo/PC Engine.  But the same guy pressed copies of Sapphire and tried to pass them off as real, sold the Rockman translation without permission, and was about to sell two more translations without permission?    I don't get it.  If the guy is a total scumbag then why isn't he just making straight-up bootlegs and selling those?  The little bookmark things, the commemorative coin.  Those aren't selling the set.  They're just little extras.  So why is he doing stuff like that if he's just a bootlegging thief?  But then if he isn't a bootlegging thief, then why is he stealing people's work?  His behavior totally contradicts itself.
He is clearly a bootlegger who takes pride in the product...mostly because it allows him to charge a premium price. You gotta hand it to him, he knows his customers (be they collectors or PCE fiends): finicky bastards who love attention to detail, the concept of a "deluxe edition", the occasional unique item (PCE coin) and an overall pleasing aesthetic.

He knows that this will appeal to us (fanatic PCE fans, collectors in general).

...BUT THERE IS ALSO PART OF ME THAT FEELS THAT HE WOULD LOVE FOR SOME CUSTOMERS TO THINK THAT THESE RELEASES were legitimate, "special editions"....legitimate products that are licensed.

 

I think the overall aesthetics of his offerings are quite nice, actually. I thought he was the designer behind them, but someone has suggested that he actually commissions the design work. Either way, he chooses excellent design work.
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SamIAm

He can probably unload bootlegs faster if he sells them directly from his own site, and so he has to create some sort of facade about doing it out of pure love for the games.

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 03/02/2015, 03:54 PMIt would not be hard. It seriously would not be hard. You just run a hash check on whatever section of code you want to stay put. The entire intro sequence, for example.

The message itself doesn't have to actually be in the check, that only needs to be on the CD once. If you write the check in a number of significantly different ways then they won't stand out significantly when some bag is looking for the code in the ISO. Put one right before the first boss fight, one at the end, one in the save screen, etc. The only way to find them all would be to basically have a really good programmer play all the way through the game and debug the entire thing for ages until he's thwarted by every check and fixes them all one at a time. This is certainly possible, but it's way beyond the normal Tobias way of doing things (file the numbers off, make up a story, octuple the price, profit). At the very least it would require this sponge to do some work.
This is exactly right.

As the saying goes in encryption, any knot that can be tied can be untied. But it would not take much time for one of our better hackers to load this thing up with several checks that would be enormously time consuming to deal with and would require a really skilled programmer.

And there are a couple of other sneaky tactics that I won't even bring up here.

PCEngineHell

Quote from: CGQuarterly on 03/02/2015, 06:50 PM
Quote from: Bernie on 03/02/2015, 06:22 PMI doubt he will do translations anymore after all this. 
I agree.  The fact that he so quickly changed his plans and offered the discs up for free when it certainly looks like he had everything already printed up and ready to go suggests that he is wary of pissing off the community (although not wary enough to avoid selling those translations in the first place).  I would bet that he sticks to repros from now on.

I really don't understand the guy.  The attention to detail and little extras that he includes with his boxed sets (and the completely redone artwork and manuals) would lead you to believe that this is someone who REALLY loves the Turbo/PC Engine.  But the same guy pressed copies of Sapphire and tried to pass them off as real, sold the Rockman translation without permission, and was about to sell two more translations without permission?    I don't get it.  If the guy is a total scumbag then why isn't he just making straight-up bootlegs and selling those?  The little bookmark things, the commemorative coin.  Those aren't selling the set.  They're just little extras.  So why is he doing stuff like that if he's just a bootlegging thief?  But then if he isn't a bootlegging thief, then why is he stealing people's work?  His behavior totally contradicts itself.
I've run into bootlegs of 3DO and Neo Cd stuff that was of pretty decent quality. It really just depends on who is doing it. Even in the bootleg world there are people who take pride in their presentations. Also, it helps their products sell better.

Gentlegamer

We need to invent a single use encryption key that is distributed by the translation makers that can patch a single disc. Let the translators distribute it on an individual basis to the community and keep out leachers and bootleggers.

But then again, I'm sure that would get cracked like everything else.
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Arjak

I don't know what good it will do (probably none), but I have just sent the following e-mail to Tobias:

QuoteTobias,

I am writing this email as a result of a controversy that has arisen regarding your latest releases through PCEWorks. There has been a lot of bad blood going around about your recent releases of fan translations of Xak III and Startling Odyssey II because, from what I've heard from the translators and hackers themselves, you had no permission from or previous discussion with them before you created a product based on their work.

I really enjoyed your Turbo Duo box set, as I do not wish to have to take out a bank loan to own and enjoy even just ONE of these four games, and seeing how the only alternative was to burn some CD-Rs and hope for the best, I was very willing to buy your product.

However, the fact that you apparently made no attempt to contact the people responsible for these translation patches before attempting to profit from their work (Let's be honest here; the fact that your individual releases have different prices, seemingly based on the desirability of the game, is a pretty clear indicator that you hope to profit from this. I'm pretty sure that CDs don't cost more to create depending on the data put on them.) is something that I find disgustingly dishonest.

I know that this is not the first time something like this has occurred with you. I understand that you also attempted in the past to sell a port of the original Mega Man to PCE-CD that was made by a friend of mine without permission as well. Before that, I heard that you initially tried to pass off your first reproduction, Sapphire, as legit unsold stock.

These actions have caused you to have a very bad reputation with parts of the PCE community, especially those whose work you have attempted to profit from, including friends of mine whom I have great respect for. I was willing to look the other way for your Turbo Duo repro set, but after this, I wish to inform you that I will NOT be purchasing your reproductions of the Xak III and SO2 fan translations, and unless you make a serious attempt to make amends and change your strategies for dealing with the PCE fan and hobbyist programming communities, and attempt to work with them, and not just profit from them, I will not be purchasing ANY of your future products.

You make great repros, Tobias, but I cannot purchase them in good conscience, and I won't, until you stop hurting my friends and the PCE community at large, whether intentionally or not.

Sincerely,

Collin
He who dings the Gunhed must PAAAAY!!! -Ninja Spirit

CGQuarterly

Damn 'jak, that's a good e-mail.  I was thinking of e-mailing him myself, but you spoke much more eloquently than I could have. 

I have absolutely no problem with his bootlegs nor with the price he charges.  He's going after those of us who have collectardy tendencies.  Those without them can just play burned CD-Rs.  But there is just no excuse for his other behavior.  Like the Sapphire thing.  He should have just printed up nice manuals and inserts with vastly different artwork, like he's doing now, and sold them as high-end repros.  He would have made plenty of money.  And as far as the translations go?  He could have and should have reached out to the guys who did the translations to try to work out a business arrangement.  And when that didn't work out, he should have gone back to making repros of other high-dollar games.

SignOfZeta

Why he does it:

I don't know the guy, but I've seen this kind of behavior before, most famously from ChrisR and Crazy Dion of Neo Geo Freak USA.

When you love something so much (PCE and Neo being the two coolest systems of all time) there is a certain part of many fans that makes them want to be in on the action. They want to be part of it. They want some of that awesomeness to somehow rub off on them. This kind of shit happens all the time in many scenes in many weird and fucked up ways, but with Tobias and NGF it resulted in them pretending to be publishers of shit when in fact they just took some existing shit, fucked it up, and sold it as their own. Obviously NGF wanted to be SNK, Tobias wants to be...Working Designs, aparently. WDs contrived tat being the closest to a gilded coin and cardboard that is way way too glossy.

The way he refered to certain games as "requested" makes him seem like...awesome and popular. He can't actually make anything himself that would honestly earn praise, so he's trying to sell other people's awesome shit and get on that bandwagon. That's why he's not selling pirate Avatar Blurays at the pub for $1, there is no hype to vampire off of. He needs to feel like he's a part of the creation.

And it works. Personally, I'll collect anything I feel like, but any PCE game that was not manufactured with the approval of Hudson back in the day will never be real*, and since that door is long closed, I'll not be buying any "new release" or "special edition" PCE stuff from him or anyone. However, younger generations have no respect for "legitimate authority". A genuine game and a bootleg are the same thing to them, games. This is why he'll have customers. That guilder coin just BLOWS PEOPLE'S MINDS, but to me its and terrific as Sparky's carbon fibber fuel filler flap. **

And he will have his defenders, I'm sure, forever. People still defend NGF, astoundingly, usually people that are even more mentally ill than NGF are.

*homebrew is obviously excluded
**fake as fuck
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elmer

Quote from: Arjak on 03/02/2015, 08:28 PMI really enjoyed your Turbo Duo box set, as I do not wish to have to take out a bank loan to own and enjoy even just ONE of these four games, and seeing how the only alternative was to burn some CD-Rs and hope for the best, I was very willing to buy your product.
Quote from: CGQuarterly on 03/02/2015, 08:56 PMDamn 'jak, that's a good e-mail.  I was thinking of e-mailing him myself, but you spoke much more eloquently than I could have. 

I have absolutely no problem with his bootlegs nor with the price he charges.
Sometimes I just shake my head and die a little inside when I see pure self-interested moral indignation like that.

To paraphrase that argument ...
QuoteDear Tobias, I'm more than happy to buy the TV that you stole from the guy 2 streets over, it was such a good price and I don't know him. But damn you to hell for stealing my neighbor's TV, I would never, ever buy that from you, you dirty thief!

CGQuarterly

Meh.  I had a whole response typed out, but to be honest I think it's just going to piss everyone off, RoyVegas style.

Arjak

Quote from: elmer on 03/02/2015, 10:22 PM
Quote from: Arjak on 03/02/2015, 08:28 PMI really enjoyed your Turbo Duo box set, as I do not wish to have to take out a bank loan to own and enjoy even just ONE of these four games, and seeing how the only alternative was to burn some CD-Rs and hope for the best, I was very willing to buy your product.
To paraphrase that argument ...
QuoteDear Tobias, I'm more than happy to buy the TV that you stole from the guy 2 streets over, it was such a good price and I don't know him. But damn you to hell for stealing my neighbor's TV, I would never, ever buy that from you, you dirty thief!
:-k

 #-o

 ](*,)

I cannot argue with the logic of your accusation, because you are absolutely 100% correct to call me out on this...

*Sigh*

I suppose this is the part where I'm supposed to make excuses and/or try to tear you down by pointing out your own failings in order to draw attention away from myself and how you made me look like a complete hypocritical jackass...

Uh...Um...

I plead Temporary Insanity! The eBay resellers! They MADE me do it! :lol:

In all seriousness, though, you are absolutely right to call me out on the carpet here. Stealing from NEC/Hudson Soft should be no different from stealing from someone like Nightwolve or SamIAm. For some illogical reason, it just felt different. More personal.

I humbly apologize for my folly. :oops:
He who dings the Gunhed must PAAAAY!!! -Ninja Spirit

PCEngineHell

Quote from: elmer on 03/02/2015, 10:22 PMSometimes I just shake my head and die a little inside when I see pure self-interested moral indignation like that.

To paraphrase that argument ...
QuoteDear Tobias, I'm more than happy to buy the TV that you stole from the guy 2 streets over, it was such a good price and I don't know him. But damn you to hell for stealing my neighbor's TV, I would never, ever buy that from you, you dirty thief!
For some people things like this don't hit home unless it actually happens to them on some level. Until then it's pretty easy to stay detached and just enjoy those pretty box sets sitting on the shelf and pretend it's all victimless crime. It reminds me of Richard Stanley getting fucked over by all the Hardware bootleggers.

At one point there was multiple people bootlegging his film and tossing it up on ebay and on different sites for sale on DVD, because other then VHS and Laserdisc, there was no current legit retail copy available outside of a German dvd release. Rights on that version were even somewhat in question, but it was released by a legit business that had rights to a lot of movies, and the transfer they sold was fairly superior to the Laserdisc visually, so it was pretty obvious they had access to superior source material to use for the transfer.

Anyway, Stanley was kind of powerless to stop it all. The rights to Hardware were sold to a lot of different studios over the years in behind the scenes deals, so you had MGM, Miramax, Disney etc fighting over the rights to his film, while bootleggers were making good profits off it, etc, and it clearly bothered him as he would mention it in interviews. Eventually it got officially re-released here in the US on dvd and bluray, kinda like with his other film Dust Devil. Not sure how much he made off the official release. The thunder was kinda stolen from it due to all the bootlegging over the years. I know the retail price of it dropped down pretty fast after release.

elmer

Quote from: Arjak on 03/02/2015, 11:30 PMIn all seriousness, though, you are absolutely right to call me out on the carpet here. Stealing from NEC/Hudson Soft should be no different from stealing from someone like Nightwolve or SamIAm. For some illogical reason, it just felt different. More personal.
Sometimes people pleasantly surprise me, and make me feel that there's some hope for the human race.

SamIAm

The following is not directed at anyone in particular.

This whole world of retro games is full of moral ambiguities. I can't deny that making a translation patch might actually go against the wishes of the people who made the games, regardless of whether people using the patch own a legit copy of the game.

But the reason why I really want translate a lot of these games is because I want to share experiences and deepen understandings of what to me is a beautiful cultural phenomenon. I'm pretty sure that that's what most fan translators and hackers hope for as well. By my way of thinking, this intention itself is noble enough to override even the hypothetical wish of a creator for a game not to be translated.

You may not agree with that, but bear with me for a minute anyway.

So, is having a physical manual and image-printed disc a necessary component of the "experience" I want to share? Maybe it is. For me, it isn't, and that probably makes me biased. But I'm afraid that when people buy repros of translations or anything else, there's something else going on that has little to do with "experience" or "understanding". I honestly think it's more about satisfying some kind of greed. Even if the guy selling it is only just breaking even, I think that for too many users, when limited physical copies for sale enter the picture, the entire reason for getting the translation morphs away from the reason I had for making it.

That's why any talk of repro sales makes me uncomfortable, never mind the actual legal danger of making such things. If one of the hackers I work with wants to get behind a run of repros for one of our translations, then I'm open to compromise, but frankly I just don't like any of it. I'd like to share translations of the manuals, and I get a kick out of seeing photoshopped English versions of all the materials, but the simple act of selling at any price crosses a line for me. I can no longer look a hypothetical creator in the face and tell him my actions were for the greater good, because I'm afraid that real result was profit and trophies. There's nothing noble about that to me.

Tobias/Fudoh is an asshole. I think we can all agree on that. But I hope that this episode can make people reflect on what the best roles for both fan translations and reproductions are within our crazy little community.

CGQuarterly

Quote from: elmer on 03/02/2015, 10:22 PMTo paraphrase that argument ...
QuoteDear Tobias, I'm more than happy to buy the TV that you stole from the guy 2 streets over, it was such a good price and I don't know him. But damn you to hell for stealing my neighbor's TV, I would never, ever buy that from you, you dirty thief!
That's a fallacious analogy.  I'm not saying that piracy is not illegal, but that's just straw-man bullshit.

What this whole argument comes down to is really simple.  There's what we want (and what we will do to get it) versus what we can legitimately have.

Do you guys not see the similarities between these situations? 

Situation A: I want to play Dungeon Explorer II.  I don't have $400 (or don't want to spend it) so I skirt the law and buy a bootleg for $40.

Situation B: You guys want to play Xak III, but you don't know how to read Japanese (and don't want to spend the time to learn.)  So you download a patch that someone made that makes unauthorized changes to someone else's intellectual property so that it is now in a form that you can digest.  Nevermind the fact that probably 95%+ of the people using said patch are patching an ISO of the game that they downloaded, since they don't actually own the game.

Both situations are showing a lack of respect to the IP owners.  You want to play Xak III?  Petition the IP owners to get it translated and released here, on the Virtual Console or something.  Or take your translation patch to them and show them that the work has already been done.  They say no?  Tough shit, that doesn't give you the right to do it yourself.  I want to play Dungeon Explorer II?  I can petition Hudson to release the game on the US Virtual Console.  They say no?  Tough shit, that doesn't give me the right to pirate the game, or buy it from a bootlegger.

Edit: I just read SamIAm's response, and am glad to see what he said.  The only thing I would say to that is that I didn't buy Tobias' sets because I needed pretty shelf shit, but because I want to play PRESSED copies of the games.  I would have been fine with disc-only presses at a fraction of the price.  I would also be more than fine with buying official presses directly from Hudson.  If Tobias can do it, then so can Hudson, on a mail order-only basis.  Movie and television studios have done the same thing, releasing DVD sets of low-demand movies and TV shows.  The game companies choose not to do it. 

And just to make myself absolutely clear, I have NO PROBLEM with people making translation patches.  I think it's fucking awesome that people do it.  But please don't act like it's a completely legitimate activity while bootlegging isn't.  You can't have it both ways, and say that "game company X doesn't care what we do to this old game" and then also say "you are stealing from game company X by pirating or bootlegging that game."

tknjin

I love the PC engine, and I love the new experiences with each of the games that I add on to my collection whenever I purchase these originals.  I did not know that that XAK III was a translation done by one of the memebers.  It is fantastic to keep on seeing these games being translated.  Not only that, but then seeing the picture that NightWolve responded to Kisaku about those pressed discs being bought from that Tobias guy really is a sad one.  I knew I saw those, but I never knew it was the same guy who made the PCEworks stuff.  It is very unfortunate to see that these games are being bootlegged for profit off of the PCE/TG16 community.  It is good that I know of this now because I know now that I will not refer anyone to this guy.

I myself have wanted to do translation projects for saturn and pc engine stuff, but its always things like this that I am afraid of.  I am always on the fence of something like this happening, and it makes one feel as all that work that was meant for the community out of the kindness of our hearts is just being pushed aside.  Unfortunately, I do not have as much time as I used to, but to those people that do dedicate their time and patience.  I salute ya because I know how it is like to translate something you love for people.  It is very rewarding

elmer

QuoteBut the reason why I really want translate a lot of these games is because I want to share experiences and deepen understandings of what to me is a beautiful cultural phenomenon. I'm pretty sure that that's what most fan translators and hackers hope for as well. By my way of thinking, this intention itself is noble enough to override even the hypothetical wish of a creator for a game not to be translated.
From my own POV, I suspect that you'd find that most of the actual creative side of the industry wouldn't mind at all ... as long as it's not taking money (or potential money) out of their children's mouths.

From the business side of the industry, that usually means, as long as it's done outside the territories in which there are officially licensed sales.

There are some prima-donna types that need personal control over everything, but fewer than you might think.

It's kind of nice when someone has fond enough memories of the work that you've done that they'll spend considerable amount of their own time and energy to make it meaningfully available to other people ... as long as, once again, money isn't involved.

If money is involved ... then it's a business transaction, and everyone that's had a part in the creation deserves a slice ... anything else is blatantly unfair.

SignOfZeta

So since everyone pirates something in some fashion, therefore everyone is a pirate and nobody has any right to try and make distinctions between different levels of sleeziness. Since nobody is morally perfect, nobody should even try to be decent.

Its like...you try to teach someone table manners and after 30 seconds they accidentally drop their fork, say "fuck it" and just eat the whole damn meal with their hands.

Its not about the act of pirating in itself. Piracy of 20 year old games is a victimless crime. There is no way me buying an $1000 eBay copy of DEII is going to generate more money for Hudson than me pirating it. Neither one will steer me towards or away from a Virtual Console version since that's a completely different thing. Legally speaking, the company that made that shit doesn't exist anymore and half the creative staff have died or left the industry. If you actually did manage to arrange an agreement for a physical reprint of a PCE game, the parent company would probably lose money on the deal just from legal costs associated with creating the license. DEII is an artifact of history. Its not for sale anymore. When that game came out Bill Clinton was early in his first term. Nobody had cel phones and the internet was all text. Cars mostly still didn't have airbags. Playing "Smear the Queer" on school playgrounds was still totally cool. There were only three Star Wars movies with no others in site. Anime was still good. Gilbert Gottfried was on USA Network every Saturday night. It was another time, almost another planet. You can't go back and give money to those people. They aren't fucking there anymore.

Its about who you give the money to. What kind of garbage you're enriching. What you paid for, who got the money, who deserved the money, that kind of shit. Its subtle, but that's what being a grown up is about. This isn't a fucking GI Joe cartoon.

I can't explain it, I guess.
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