Heroes of Might and Magic III Dreamcast unreleased community fundraiser

[Anthony817]

So it seems somebody that bought the unreleased DC game Heroes of Might and Magic III is willing to do a fundraiser to release the contents of his GDR disc!

https://www.obscuregamers.com/threads/h ... iser.1837/

Here is what the original poster had to say about it.

Hi everyone,

I am another (sadly) former member of Assembler Games.

Years ago, in 2005 I bought GD-Rs and Dreamcast promos from a member of Assembler Games (LeGIt). I bought Heroes of Might and Magic III and Test Drive Cycles from him. He sold me Heroes III for $600, £355 at that time.

Now I am willing to make a public release. I have ripped the game and my question is if people would be willing to make a community fundraiser for this game to be distributed.

I comment a few aspects of the game:

- It's a beta, version 0.800, not a final version. It's a Windows CE game.
- It crashes randomly. It can crash on the FMV intro or when loading.
- There are options or menus where the game always crashes, for example going to the Thieve's Guild in the Tavern always crashes the game. Again, it's an unfinished beta. The original GD-R has always been like this.
- In my opinion I think maybe this game could be canceled due to memory problems. In addition to the reason why so many games were canceled.
- For me this game would have been one of the best Dreamcast games in terms of quality. Wonderful music, great artwork, etc. Heroes III is considered the best game in the saga.

I can upload soon a video of the game running on retail Dreamcast to my YouTube channel ( FatalistDC ). I have some problems capturing audio from DC with the capture card that I need to solve.

Some more rare or unreleased material can be released in the future.

I would like to thank thedoctor45 for providing me a DC with DreamShell used to rip this game.

[Ryo_Hazuki]

Incredible, I thought the game was lost in history.

[pcwzrd13]

This is great but I'm baffled why people keep asking for money to release this stuff. I mean he states that he already has the game ripped so it's just a matter of uploading it somewhere. So where's the cost here? I know if I were in the same position I would upload it immediately.

[dreamcast ™]

@pcwzrd13 - The reason for a fund-raised release is simple. Up until the game is released, the game is sold from one party to another for a single, usually significant, price for a single physical copy of the game. The moment that single unique game is distributed online, it potentially loses a lot of its value because now it exists in multiple.

The post's author clearly states the game cost the author $600 (~£355) at the time of purchase. Just because the game goes from existing on a GD-R to existing on a hard drive doesn't suddenly mean the cost of acquisition goes away.

The author's asking for a return on their investment before releasing the game is just the final transaction for the game, no different from going from single party to single party, it's just now going from a single party to a distributed party. We should be thankful that the game ended up with someone who's willing to release the game at all.

Those who choose to release games out of their own pocket are a privilege, not a right, to the community. Anyone who feels differently is welcome to put their money where their mouth is and fund the fundraiser themselves to acquire and release the game for free to everyone else.

[deluxux]

thedoctor45 already gave him a DC to rip it. Still not enough. Just greed that's all it is.

[pcwzrd13]

He may own the physical disc which he payed $600 for but he doesn't own the digital content contained on that disc. It's the property of the current IP holder which I believe is Ubisoft at the moment considering the recent HD release of the game was published by them. That being said, he can't legally charge money for that content since he doesn't own it. If there was some cost involved with distributing it such as the need to get data recovery services for a badly damaged disc or maybe even just paying for someone's time to package it into a playable format then that would be one thing but there's no justification for a "fundraiser" in the current situation.

[Krootox1986]

Fingers crossed it's released as I've never experienced HOMM and would love for my first time to be on my dreamcast

[Anthony817]

Fundraisers are not uncommon at all nor a new thing and many of the Dreaamcast betas and unreleased games we have had over the years were released this way from over at Assembler Games. This is no different, Assembler doesn't exist now but Obscure Gamers is the spiritual successor to that site. Sure it sucks people may want to charge money in the form of a fundraiser to get some return on their investment before the price inevitably plummets on their Beta disc which the exclusivity of said disc ensures the higher price. Once the files are dumped and released people won't be willing to pay as much for that lone disc.

I can't afford to give anything, so just do like I do and let others who are more well off and want to pay to have it released do so. That is the great thing about this, it is your choice if you want to pay to help release it.

[thedoctor45]

Fatalist is actually a pretty nice guy, I've talked to far less cooperative people in the past when it comes to unreleased Beta content. I think it's only fair if he gets compensated for his expenses and I'm sure a nearly completed unreleased Dreamcast game is worth the $600 he's asking for.

For those of you who fear that this is going to end up like the Deer Avenger Demo I want to assure you that I myself am planning to donate at least half of the required sum or more if neccessary to ensure a swift and drama-free release of this game.

In the meantime, please just try to stay positive people.

[megavolt85]

Honestly I don 't understand why there is so much noise around this game
It 's not a playable demo with a bunch of bugs