/vr/ - Retro Games

buy and dump it you idiot.

CAM AWN ENGLAND!

Too bad MJR made a video about it, it will surely bring out the approval-seeking moneybags collectors, meaning the auctions will sell for way more than they would have had they just been your average low-key development listings.

>>5190028
That's the point. He'll probably get a cut of the revenue. I like the dude for the most part, but sometimes he seems like a straight up shill.

Im more mad at Al Lowe to be honest
you can dump all that shit and sell it to collectors anyways, sure it doesnt have the clout of nobody having the contents, but collectors get off on having the physical media anyways

>>5190065
To an extent. At least with unreleased games the value of the physical item drops after it has been dumped.

>This board is for the discussion of classic, or "retro" games. Retro gaming means consoles, computer games, arcade games (including pinball) and any other forms of video games on platforms launched in 1999 and earlier.
Go to /v/ if you want to talk about general videogame culture, this isn't the place to talk about any e-celeb.

>>5190073
Most if not all of the stuff he has was released before 1999. This is about preserving that history. Checkmate, faggot.

>>5190117
You don't fool me, kiddo. It's not only that, but also your average MetalJesus thread, only in disguise. And as such it should be removed.

>>5190017
Why would you dump something and release it for free when you're trying to auction it to make money? Are you fucking retarded?

Just watched this video. Something in me made me cringe watching MetalJesusRock handle all of Al Lowe's old shit.

I'm probably just upset that I doubt I will pick up any of the cooler stuff. But, you've got a legend here and they see more interested in rare old shit he has than any of his experiences or stories.

GUYS I WORKED FOR SIERRA. DID I MENTION I WORKED FOR SIERRA? LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY TIME AT SIERRA.

>>5190610
because he's trying to shift the blame. He knows that he'll get nuked if he releases the code, but if someone else does it...

Just looking at Al's ebay page now. The most someone has paid for one of his auctions was $1,009.99 for a Macintosh Picasso light followed by a sealed copy of The Black Cauldron for $834.89

Some lucky chap was able to grab the disks for some of his earlier Disney games for $22 though. Pretty cool.

Good luck trying to win a complete-in-box item though. Sierra fans are old - there's likely to be many rolling in cash to splash.

Metal Jesus Rocks is an empty vessel of a human being. Did anyone watch his PS1 Classic video? He talks about how he cancelled his preorder because of the game library and then pitched what his perfect PS1 Classic lineup would be like.

The only problem is that he fucking shows the original copies of the games he wants on the PS1 Classic as he talks about the list. He owns the original games - why would he still want a Classic.

Classic hoarder.

>>5190017
Is Al Lowe also Rob Reiner

>>5190017
>a faggot is being a faggot
That makes two of you

The auction for Larry 1 and 2 source code is up. Both are already in the thousands.

I hope the German company that owns the IP doesn't end up buying this.

>>5191714
I find it hilarious that some of these companies (like Midway apparently) will cling so desperately to decades old code and assets because they're so.... something.... that they have to perpetually keep re-releasing the same shit over and over again and charging money for it; they view people archiving what is so old that it should be irrelevant to their bottom line as a threat to their modern business.

> current bid double yesterday, up to US $6,600.07
fuck me, there are some loaded collectorfags

>>5190017
>An ex-Sierra employee has a ton of source code and masters up for auction but hasn't taken any consideration for dumping the software.

He doesn't have the rights to distribute the source code to more than one person.

Why didn't this turkey necked reject offer to test and at least make a digital copy of Al's files? As a 'collector', he would surely have the computers and disk drives to extract these masters.

Now it is up to nameless eBay buyers to do this for each game. What if the disks are degraded? Will Al give a refund? Makes me mad that this is on the precipice of being lost forever.

I'm not seeing any mention on the eBay listings whether or not the disks actually work.
What if they're corrupted?

BUY Al Lowe's SIERRA collection: https://www.ebay.com/usr/al_lowe


What are the chances of The Dark Crystal Gelfing Adventure being released to the players?

>>5190017
>Sierra

Literally who cares. They weren't known for amazing programming prowess.

>>5191868
I don't recall their games being buggy, just poorly designed.

God damn, I just put 3 bids on Al Lowe's first game and got rejected. Someone is already sitting on this auction with a big wad of cash they're prepared to spend.

>>5191971

I just put in another bid to test the waters and yep - someone wants to spend more than $1k on this game.

Imagine how much the source code ends up going for. Holy shit.

>>5191860

It has already been dumped.

https://wowroms.com/en/roms/apple-ii/gelfling-adventure/708.html

>>5191972
Don't be so sure. People have alts that boost the sales prices of their own auctions so they get what they want regardless.

inb4 Activition shits all over him in court, legally takes possession of the source and burns it

>shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill shill

>dumping
First off it's his shit, both in a legal sense and in a he coded it sense, so clearly he can do whatever he wants with it.
Secondly it's not super-relevant outside of interesting historical tidbits, AGI has been reverse-engneered for nearly two decades now.

>>5192005
>First off it's his shit, both in a legal sense and in a he coded it sense
Except it's not. The source code is copyright Sierra and rightfully belongs to whoever owns their rights now.
This may come as a shock to you but developers employed by a company don't actually own any of the code they produce for said company. Or even what they produce on their own time usually under most employment contracts.

>>5192021
>This may come as a shock to you but developers employed by a company don't actually own any of the code they produce for said company
I'm fairly sure Sierra was too much of an amateur outfit in the days of LSL1 & LSL2 to actually acquire the copyrights, they paid people per game back then and didn't start hiring non-contractors until way later. (Lowe, Josh Mandel et al have some stories about this in interviews with Matt Barton)

>>5191830
That's the point. MJR is a shill, he's not someone who gives a shit about preservation.

>>5191830
Very good chance that they'll never be tested by the buyer if they're an MJR-watching collector.

>>5190017
go worship stalin and satan, commie. both red for a reason. and that reason is the devil

>>5192208
>satan
>red
What?

>>5192028
What do you mean "to actually acquire the copyrights"? Surely they would put it in as part of the job agreement "Sierra owns the copyright to all of the code you've produced"? *gives a weird look*

>>5192208
Grandpa, get off the Internet.

>>5192028
I'm 100% sure you're too much of an amateur to understand the basics of employment and IP law. But a couple minutes on wikipedia could save you from making a fool of yourself like this in the future.

>>5192294
Sierra wouldn't need to do that. In the US employers automatically own IP produced by employees. The contract would have to be specially constructed to have Sierra not own it.

>>5190073
I hate people like you, stop ruining the board. The topic is obviously /vr/ related

>Inb4 private collector buys it all, brags for a month about how no one will ever see it again, and completely vanishes off the map.

>>5193161
>/vr/ related
Then you should make a board called /vrr/ and take your shit there. What's ruining the board is underage shitposting about their underage and claiming it belongs here because someone talked about an old game in a youtube video.

Sierra sucks so who cares

I won the source code for leisure suit Larry 4. This game is hilarious!

>>5191856
most of my old floppies from the 90s have corrupted data but parts of them can be read.
In postage the disks could go through an xray machine.
Its going to be like all those other times a collector has brought a prototype for no other reason than to lord it over other people. I don't really see the big deal, they are very basic games with no physics or anything, its not like its donkey kong or zelda source.
It would be good to hack them so that instead of typing you use menus like in the master system version.

Al made off like a bandit here. I hope this is going to someone who will make these files public and not just some rando adventure game collector from Sweden.

>Al Lowe
Literally who

>>5193592
Heh, he'll probably make a decent year's wage from just selling 30 year old backups. I wonder how many old developers realize that they're sitting on a small fortune of stuff just sitting in boxes around the house.

>>5191735
>I find it hilarious that some of these companies (like Midway apparently)
Midway died years ago dipshit.

>>5193627
Maybe, but the legal ramifications probably scare most away from attempting to do so. If say, Disney or Activision owns the IP and you have the source code from some late 80s PC game, are you really going to run the risk of trying to sell it, or are you just going to sit on it in anonymity? You have no idea how much an army of attorneys can fuck up your life. Not worth a quick 5 grand on ebay.

>>5191714
It's weird, why does a former employee have rights to the source code? Who owns Sierra's corpse today, Vivendi? Which is now part of Activision Blizzard. Shieeet.

Well, it's not like it's anything special in itself. AGI has been emulated forever.

Meanwhile, based Mechner just posted his entire source code for free.

https://github.com/jmechner/Prince-of-Persia-Apple-II

>>5190018
Would the person who purchased them be publicly recorded as such? Because if you were to buy them to dump you might face legal action from the current rights owners. Also is the fact that you'd be severly diminishing the value of your product by doing so, you're essentially just throwing money away (though for a good reason)

>>5193627
I wonder how many scammers are going to realize that a few dead old floppies and a sharpie can are worth as much as or even more than a CD-Rs and a sharpie?

>>5190070
I don't see NWC sell any cheaper.

>>5190610
No one said anything about free. He gives the source code as pdf away for those with no dire need of having something nostagic, then the collectors could jack off on the paper. Evertbody wins.

>>5190073
Never heard of the guy until now. Never seen him mentioned in any thread other than the big three.

>>5193679
Selling the source isn't an IP violation is it?
Sharing the source publicly would probably be obviously.

>>5193315
Underrated post.

>>5197029
Well, NWC isn't a prototype and is a title popular with regular game collectors. That Monster Party FC prototype sold for a few grand on ebay before it was shared online. Once the ROM made it's way online, the previously mentioned cart was resold and netted between $400 and $700 (I can't remember the exact amount, but it was definitely under $1,000). It is unfortunate for those who do dump and share and want to recoup, but as someone who regularly buys and dumps stuff, I can say that I'm not as willing to go crazy on something with a ROM out there. If I know a prototype cart is retail, typically I'm not even going to bother unless it is selling for very cheap.

>>5197059
Of course it is. I guess the guy is so desperate for money he's willing to take the risk. Which is probably pretty small. Especially considering the disks are probably fucked. Since they're all sold untested all he has to do is run a magnet across them before shipping to make sure he's safe.

>>5197079
Couldn't that be because once the value was known, the game lost its appeal? I mean, if it was Miyamoto's hobby project, maybe it would still soar, but the game ia what it is, not great, unfinished, so maybe they are not willing to part with much money for something with blemishes.

How much do you think the source code for DOOM will go for?

>>5197918
https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM

>>5190024
ING
ER
LAND

>>5197965
You might be autistic

Al Lowlife selling important, irreplaceable video game history to the highest bidder. We'll never see any of that source-code once it disappears into some 600 pound monstrosity's basement.

>oh you want the source code for Leisure Suit Larry? Sorry, I got nacho cheese on it.

This reminds me of the people holding the source code for Blood and they were asking for a million bucks, fucking tards.

>>5198068
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abMWWwu_mVA

>>5198063
Nice selfie, kid who fantasizes about doing something with source code

>>5198063
>Heineken
absolutelydisgusting.jpg

>>5198063
Obsessed

>>5198208
>t. MJR

>>5193294

Owning a copy of the source code only serves to nourish the ego of some autistic collector who will hoard it for fear of being sued by the current LSL rightsholders.

All of this would have been much more interesting if Al Lowe had somehow managed to acquire the rights to his original games and therefore could freely publish the code under GPL or even a public domain license.