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If you want to reach a big audience you should create games that indeed work both on MSX and popular MSX Emulators. This often means you cannot use a copy-protection. The past years have shown that people can handle this responsibility now. An example: many (if not all) of the disk-images of the MCCM CD's copyrighted section are not available online on websites. That's a good thing. People finally respect copyrights.

Too bad... I will not mention the link here, but the mccm cd's are online available..

It depends on what you call online.
AFAIK you're talking about a certain private FTP server, not a public site.

It's a web bassed site and accesable to all.

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Ofcourse, a commercial company returning to MSX IS a revolution! (BTW, with the advent of MSX-PLAYer not an unlikely scenario!) You can't compare amateur products to something released by Konami...

I meant that if Konami had released exactly THE SAME game, the reactions would have been much more different (apart from the fact of a commercial company returning to MSX). For a lot of people , the same game would be faster, better and cooler.

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Game music is a seperate issue, it's something that's deeply embedded into MSX'ers. Japanese MSX magazines were always full with arranged PSG and FM game music. Among the first amateur products (at least in holland) were music disks, partly filled with game music arrangments

Ok, you're totaly right... and I love them too. I love MSX arranged music *composed and played on a MSX* ... that was what I meant.... not MP3's or MID's made with a sinthesizer.

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In holland there's a saying 'Silence is approval', so if there are no complaints you can assume people are liking it

Or you can assume people are NOT liking it

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I guess that behind all this issue it is the lack of -more than- 10 years without real development on MSX hardware.

I don't agree with that. I think we have a lot of new HW that we don't exploit. That's not the problem.

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I think one of the reasons people don't respond very enthousiastic to new MSX game development plans & promo's is they have seen many projects fail already.

Maybe, but one thing is not responding very enthousiastic and other thing much more different is not responding at all...

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1. What is the group you want to sell it to. If you think well I want to sell it only to people who have a real msx and make the game only suitable for those people i think it could be reduce your group of interested people

I make games for MSX, and if they work OK on MSX, they will work OK on a good emulator (if it doesn't work it wouldn't be my fault). The "market" I want is formed by the people interested in MSX games, that's all.

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3. The recent so-called hype of freeware makes people postpone their purchase or do Not buy it at all because thEy think it will become sooner or later freeware.

I don't think people that doesn't buy now, would buy if there were not freeware games. Anyway, surely the problem is that people really is interested in MSX games, but NOT in paying for them..

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It's a web bassed site and accesable to all.

There's a website that has more than 1GB of MSX stuff online?!
As soon as that becomes more known (for instance, I don't know it, but I own the original CDs), it'll die in an instant.. nobody can pay the bandwidth for the stream of leachers...
Post the url on alt.binaries.emulators.misc

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I meant that if Konami had released exactly THE SAME game, the reactions would have been much more different (apart from the fact of a commercial company returning to MSX). For a lot of people , the same game would be faster, better and cooler.

Nah... Konami has raised the bar too high. First, they wouldn't come up with Pippols 2. Second, people would think exactly the same as they're thinking now "Cool, but not spectacular". Take Green Beret, it's not a half-bad game, and very good compared to some other games, yet everybody says it sucks!

It's a cool game! Be happy with it! Why do you want people to rejoice and shout "this is the best game ever!" ??? People are just not like that.

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Ok, you're totaly right... and I love them too. I love MSX arranged music *composed and played on a MSX* ... that was what I meant.... not MP3's or MID's made with a sinthesizer.

Just for the record, some mp3's are simply recordings of Moonsound songs.
Even 15 years ago people made MIDI music with MSX. The same MIDI can be made on MSX with Meridian, in stead of on PC with Cubase/Cakewalk/whatever... Is that really such a big difference?

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>>In holland there's a saying 'Silence is approval', so if there are no complaints you can assume people are liking it<< Or you can assume people are NOT liking it

That would make you a pessimist. A lot of people thinking like that have already left the MSX-scene, and they are sorely missed. (Bandwagon, Umax, etc etc etc)

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Maybe, but one thing is not responding very enthousiastic and other thing much more different is not responding at all...

People saying it's fantastic == your game is very good
People not saying anything == your game is good
People saying it's ok == your game is bad
People saying it's bad == your game is very bad

So BE HAPPY if people don't say anything!

Also, people don't go out of their way to tell you what they think. If you run into them on a
chat, or in real life, they will say it, but if they have to log on to MRC, start a new thread and write a post, they think 'nah, it's not worth the trouble' and maybe are a bit embarrased about it.

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I make games for MSX, and if they work OK on MSX, they will work OK on a good emulator (if it doesn't work it wouldn't be my fault). The "market" I want is formed by the people interested in MSX games, that's all.

I think that's the market we're all in for

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Nah... Konami has raised the bar too high. First, they wouldn't come up with Pippols 2. Second, people would think exactly the same as they're thinking now "Cool, but not spectacular". Take Green Beret, it's not a half-bad game, and very good compared to some other games, yet everybody says it sucks!

I think you're not getting me. That was only an example. What I'm trying to explain is that people value a game not only for the game itself but where it comes from. In my example, a lot of Konami lovers would be excited and happy with their new Konami game... but as it is not a Konami, it will be another amateur game for them.

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It's a cool game! Be happy with it! Why do you want people to rejoice and shout "this is the best game ever!" ??? People are just not like that.

I don't want people telling this... I only want a few people (not only 4 people) telling something.

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That would make you a pessimist. A lot of people thinking like that have already left the MSX-scene, and they are sorely missed. (Bandwagon, Umax, etc etc etc)

If it has happened to several groups... maybe there's a real problem, don't you think so?

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People saying it's fantastic == your game is very good People not saying anything == your game is good People saying it's ok == your game is bad People saying it's bad == your game is very bad

Ups!! I didn't know anything about those equivalences!!

My problem is that I can't see any difference between these two options:

People not saying anything == your game is good
People not saying anything == people is not interested in your game

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Also, people don't go out of their way to tell you what they think. If you run into them on a chat, or in real life, they will say it, but if they have to log on to MRC, start a new thread and write a post, they think 'nah, it's not worth the trouble' and maybe are a bit embarrased about it.

Well they do with some other thinks like arranged MP3's, PC remakes and so on...

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I think that's the market we're all in for

There's no problem then... I must be going paranoid

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>>... >>I guess that behind all this issue it is the lack of -more than- 10 years without real development on MSX hardware.<< I don't agree with that. I think we have a lot of new HW that we don't exploit. That's not the problem.

I'm still thinking MoonSound, Gfx9000, LPE-Z380 and ATA IDE/Compact Flash are not enough HW improvement in 10 years.

Anyway, if you believe it is enough, then compare it with the hardware development rate on PC/mac platforms, and compare the increase of graphic/sound capabilities in nVidia,ATI/Soundblaster -audigy-etc... with the capabilities of the only one hardware improvement to -some kind of- MSX machines in last 10 years

Probably it is not The Problem, but it is one of the problems for many people. I guess and I hope, new MSX hardware (MSX3) will be at same level than actual requeriments on other platforms.

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Anyway, if you believe it is enough, then compare it with the hardware development rate on PC/mac platforms, and compare the increase of graphic/sound capabilities in nVidia,ATI/Soundblaster -audigy-etc... with the capabilities of the only one hardware improvement to -some kind of- MSX machines in last 10 years

Any comparison between PC and MSX in this is flawed.
MSX is a standard, PC is not.
If you call having 2000 different soundcards, 2000 different videocards and 2000 different CPU's an improvement, then you clearly don't see what MSX is all about.

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If it has happened to several groups... maybe there's a real problem, don't you think so?

A problem in the programmers minds, yeah
I'm a programmer myself, so I know how it goes.
Ofcourse I love people emailing me or writing in forums how they love my programs, but I know my programs are cool, I wrote them largely for myself, and I'm happy with it.
If I then get emails saying how cool other people think my stuff is, that's only better!

However, most feedback comes from people you talk to by accident. On IRC for instance... They'll say "hey! are you the programmer of {insert product here}?" and I say "yeah" and they say "wow! that's cool! your {insert product here} rules!"
That person would've never taken the trouble to contact me..

Personally I feel strange emailing someone just to say "you rule", because I'm sure these people have better things to do than read my stupid email.

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Ups!! I didn't know anything about those equivalences!!

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My problem is that I can't see any difference between these two options: People not saying anything == your game is good People not saying anything == people is not interested in your game

You're right, you can't see the difference directly, but is that really necessary?

You said you want a 'few people (not only 4 people)' to tell you something. Is a few more than 4? I would be very happy with 4 comments!

Anyway, you can see the popularity of your product by the number of times it's been downloaded. I know there are several hundreds of people using GEM, but I recieved less than 5 emails about it.

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Well they do with some other thinks like arranged MP3's, PC remakes and so on...

Do they? You mean here on MRC? Coz here on MRC there are a lot of nostalgists, people that don't care for the actual MSX platform, just about the old games.

Look at the thread about PC remakes, there are people that think MSX is not worth programming for. These are the people that think anything MSX-related on PC is cool, because MSX is dead in their minds.

Another thing, a wallpaper or MP3 can be downloaded and viewed instantly. A MSX game must be either loaded in an emulator or put on disk and used on a real MSX, either possibilities are not instant. So people look at the product later, and then forget they could reply on the newspost.

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>>I think that's the market we're all in for<< There's no problem then... I must be going paranoid

Well, you do make a valid point...
Ofcourse it's a shame people don't email the creators more often, but really, this is not something unique to the MSX scene! People always have trouble expressing their feelings.

I just strongly disagree with the 'No reaction == bad reaction' thing, that's really in your mind only.

You know, if you want to know what people think, ASK THEM.

Oh, btw... Last MSX Fair in Oss (January 2003), MSX NBNO (I think) showed your Bubble Rain.
Everybody said "Cool! Puzzle bobble for MSX! It looks really good! It plays well!" and the MSX that showed it got much attention the whole day. Are you more happy now?

People do react, just not personally to you...

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>>Anyway, if you believe it is enough, then compare it with the hardware development rate on PC/mac platforms, and compare the increase of graphic/sound capabilities in nVidia,ATI/Soundblaster -audigy-etc... with the capabilities of the only one hardware improvement to -some kind of- MSX machines in last 10 years<< Any comparison between PC and MSX in this is flawed. MSX is a standard, PC is not. If you call having 2000 different soundcards, 2000 different videocards and 2000 different CPU's an improvement, then you clearly don't see what MSX is all about.

This comparison is not flawed. MSX didn't improve the last 10 years, the PC did. That the PC has some more 'standards' co-existing next to eachother has nothing to do with it.
The way PC's are standard (with software API's and drivers) has the future. The NewMSX for instance probably won't be a hardware standard. (Ofcourse I hope it will be, but that is something different.)

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MSX didn't improve the last 10 years, the PC did.

If you call it an improvement...

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That the PC has some more 'standards' co-existing next to eachother has nothing to do with it.

LOL more 'standards', that's hilarious! GREAT

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The way PC's are standard (with software API's and drivers) has the future. The NewMSX for instance probably won't be a hardware standard. (Ofcourse I hope it will be, but that is something different.)

Ok, so API's and drivers are the future, but you hope the new MSX will be upwards compatible by hardware... I don't see how that's different, it's exactly what I was talking about! Thanks for proving my point

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>>Any comparison between PC and MSX in this is flawed. MSX is a standard, PC is not. If you call having 2000 different soundcards, 2000 different videocards and 2000 different CPU's an improvement, then you clearly don't see what MSX is all about.<<

I don't think the comparison is flawed, cause both are computers. I guess most people don't mind if the machine is "standard" or something else, people wants popular machines with the most titles possible, and cheap.
CAUTION, as first-time MSX user, I can see the obvious : MSX computers are much better and well-optimized than PC's and others "mass-machines". I'm only saying that today MSX1, MSX2, MSX2+ and probably turboMSX with all his HW improvements can't compete with PC or Mac, in number of games, development tools, HW variety, low prices and availability.

It hurts to me as same for you...

If videocard manufacturers (nVidia, Matrox etc.) want to sell anything, then they've to make sure that their cards follow the DirextX standard.. so.. I'd say: DirectX makes a PC into a 'standard'.
Sound is less of an issue since many games only play and stream audio. As long as a card has a D/A converter, it works.

In this case I prefer a somewhat hi-end fuzzy standard over a real technical standard that's too old and outdated..