Thoughts on Burning/Reproductions Forum section?

[racketboy]

I don't want to get heavy into piracy, but reproductions are becoming more of a common occurrence (I had a post a while back viewtopic.php?f=44&t=51339 ). Also, I was recently trying to find discussions on burning a couple weeks back (trying to find advice for Mac OSX viewtopic.php?f=17&t=51434 )

So anyway -- could combining these topics into a category make sense?

[Jagosaurus]

Flash carts, Optical Drive Emulators, Upscalers (Framemeister, etc) fall into similar categories as well. We have a great monster thread going on flash carts odes, etc.

[Hazerd]

Ive been tempted to buy some repro's like Mother 3 for GBA, and Secret of Mana 2 for SNES, but just feel i may as well emulate them.

Repros just hurt the hobby imo.

[o.pwuaioc]

Repros just hurt the hobby imo.

If they're clearly marked as such, how could they hurt?

[racketboy]

Repros just hurt the hobby imo.

If they're clearly marked as such, how could they hurt?

I think it waters down the hobby a bit, but it's evolving. I think it opens some interesting doors, but it's kinda like classic cars and other antiques when you have reproduction parts and such.

[marurun]

I think discussion of repros is fine as long as there are guidelines. My opinion is that we shouldn't be seen to approve of repros that are indistinguishable from legit copies or repros that simply reproduce items already available in the designated region with no alterations. Meaning mods and translations and region shifts are fine, but supporting repros of Magical Chase on TG-16 just because it's hard to find and expensive is much more questionable, IMO. But we shouldn't take this stance because it keeps people from playing games. We should take this stance because those who make those repros are profiting in ways that are highly questionable. It's one thing to take a little off the top for patching with a translation or PAL/NTSC change, or something like that. It's another to say, "Here! You can play this $500 game for only $50! And $20 of that goes straight into my pocket!" Unlike ROMs for which no money typically changes hands or flash cards which have legitimate other uses, repros of rare or expensive games involve money and no legitimate alternative uses.

[Sarge]

I feel that to some degree, this would fit into the "Hacks and Mods" section, so maybe a slight rebranding of that sub-forum?

[CRTGAMER]

Maybe add description to the Archiving Section to more then just document scans? It could be the all purpose Archive of Docs, Repo Carts and Backup Burns. To keep the piracy side out emphasize Backup.

[Xeogred]

I feel that to some degree, this would fit into the "Hacks and Mods" section, so maybe a slight rebranding of that sub-forum?

Good idea, I don't touch that forum otherwise.

[Tanooki]

Hacks, Mods, and Reproductions maybe a good renaming.

Don't think we should discriminate what is covered, all should be fair game for discussion, debate, linking to good, the bad and the ugly and people can rip on that ugly as they see fit.

Even if you dig a layer deeper, sometimes those reproductions are kind of a mixed bag. Came up recently and I pointed out I have a new shell, reused pair of SNK boards, and newer chips thrown on due to a dead game with Nightmare in the Dark on there I picked up cheap. It's a practice that's fairly common in those circles, would not be surprised in other stuff as well keeping some old parts alive without killing another (like the classic NES bootleg killing a game to make one.)