Dreamcast Propeller Arena

[GenkiVideoGames.com]

Just curious if anyone out there has actually played Propeller Arena on the DC? We thought the whole project had been canned, but have also heard rumours it sneaked out. Was it just cancelled for Western release? Sank You.

[Paulo]

We/someone at ASSEMbler games paid for the copy and had it craked and leaked out to the public. Its available at many torrent/warez sites.

Assemblergames.com, the people who brought you Propeller Arena...

[Paulo]

Originally Posted by ProgrammingAce

Assemblergames.com, the people who brought you Propeller Arena...

In a way i guess. . . just tainted by the fact it was made such a warez group release and we seemed to get less attention then we deserved.

[Mark30001]

You guys should've hacked the 1ST_READ/IP (Can't remember which) file to have an ASSEMblergames logo if you all really wanted some attention.

Or you could have done your own intro, similar to Echelon's, but something that "actually" works!

Wasn't the audio downsampled?

[Szczepaniak]

Ooh... I'd heard vague rumours about how it was leaked, but no full account. Anyone care to divulge the entire story? I'd love to hear it. :)

I managed to get myself a copy in the end, and it's rather good. But as said, I'm intrigued by how it happened. Was assemblergames also connected with half life on the DC being leaked?

Please excuse the ignorant questions, I'm not entirely sure of the facts.

As far as I remember, someone who called himself ServiceGames (he's registered here, but no posts) had supposedly obtained a leaked copy of the game and was accepting "donations" needed to rip the game, but, long story short, after many people donated, he never did, vanished, and it was released by another source. He came back many months later and attempted to apologize/make an excuse for what had happened. I know that Yakumo was involved with him, so maybe he could explain the reason for his behavior...maybe he was just a douchebag.

Then again, I don't know the ASSEMbler story, so I imagine it's more complicated than that.

[Szczepaniak]

The stories behind such games I find are often AS interesting as the stories about the game's development and cancellation.

Fascinating.

The story is weird, basicly ServiceGames bought the disc, but when he did, the seller gave it to other people as well. ServiceGames collected funds to stamp(burn?) copies of the game, and sell them for $30. The groups that got the disc from the original seller without paying leaked the game. ServiceGames hit some hard times, and was never able to ship out the copies he claimed to have made. Overall the whole thing sucked. ServiceGames came back to try to sell the GD-R but no one would buy. Does anyone know what happend to the original disc?

Originally Posted by ProgrammingAce

Assemblergames.com, the people who brought you Propeller Arena...

hahaha that is sooo going on the signature

Originally Posted by _skitzo_

hahaha that is sooo going on the signature

I thought it was supposed to go on a T-shirt? And it didn't come from me, i think it was AntiPasta...

[Fabrizo]

Originally Posted by ProgrammingAce

The story is weird, basicly ServiceGames bought the disc, but when he did, the seller gave it to other people as well. ServiceGames collected funds to stamp(burn?) copies of the game, and sell them for $30. The groups that got the disc from the original seller without paying leaked the game. ServiceGames hit some hard times, and was never able to ship out the copies he claimed to have made. Overall the whole thing sucked. ServiceGames came back to try to sell the GD-R but no one would buy. Does anyone know what happend to the original disc?

Mostly correct, but the part about the original seller giving out multiple copies of the game is'nt. What actualy happened was that servicegames didn't have the ability to rip the game himself, and so it was handed off to another member of the community known as Belok (spelling might be wrong). Belok was part of a DC release group and had extensive experiance in ripping games for it. Once the protection was cracked he gave copies of the game to others in his release group prior to Servicegames getting his original back along with the rip for distribution. After that one of the groups members who had receaved a copy decided to leak it on the net himself, which ended up pissing off alot of Assembler members who had contributed to the release and had been promised the chance to play it before anyone else. Service Games was then more or less flamed out of the community as no one learned the truth of what happened for a some time (well, about a week).

As for the the original, as far as I know ServiceGames still has it. And yes, the music was downsampled in the release version.

[Blur2040]

That sound you hear is Fabrizo hitting the nail on the head.

Grumble...this whole episode steamed my prunes...

Oh...Genkivideogames...Propeller Arena wasn't released in Japan either. Totally cancelled.

[madhatter256]

I was around when it came out. I didn't pay much attention to the controversy, all I know is I asked nicely for a copy when some assembler members already had their hands on one and I think someone put up a torrent, before it was unleased to the rest of the world. The role this site played, I think, was to actually produce the game on stamped discs and as far as I know, it was successful and Yakumo played a big role in making that happen. A lot of this is very foggy in my memory.

man,.. I'll bet service games was pretty upest over this whole ordeal. I sure would be. didnt he pay like $15,000 for the origninal game?

One too many zeroes...

[madhatter256]

Originally Posted by ProgrammingAce

One too many zeroes...

He overpaid. Knowing that if you are going to release an unreleased game to a select few, the value sharply drops, so why buy it for insane amounts if its going to end up free on the web? but then with this logic all game developers should shut down their business in order to prevent their games from being pirated...

[hl718]

Of course it's also a perfect example of why many true collectors hate dumps.

That little chain of events cost me a copy of Geist Force. No matter how many times the "pro-dumpers" (heh, something amusing about that) parrot the old "the original disc will always have value" it simply isn't true. As soon as any relatively complete build of a game makes it out the other versions devalue IMMEDIATELY.

-hl718

Luckely i can just hide behind NDA's and not have to worry about the whole "Should i dump it or not" issue. I guess there's some stuff i would, and some i wouldn't. In the end, a lot of the protos i have were free...

Fabrizio hit the nail on the head. In exchange for donations, Service Games was going to send out professionally labelled (for CD-Rs, anyways) copies with color case art, but his big mistake was letting belokk (a known name in the DC warez scene) and his gang of clowns have access to the disc. And yeah, there was the big fiasco with Service Games landing on some hard times as well, as everyone's donations vanished into thin air. I've got no clue where the original disc went.

For a while, it was epic drama almost on the level of Neo-Geo.com!

As Paulo noted, the game can be found easily enough with your weapon of choice. Yakumo whipped up some very excellent quality Japanese case inserts (complete with spine card!) for the game, and I think a bit of Google Image searching could supply you with the proposed American cover of a suitable resolution for printing.

And I think the Dreamcast Half-Life release might have been courtesy of an Assembler member - that was a few years ago, and while I was a member at the time of its release, I didn't pay much attention to the specifics of who put it out.