# English Mother 3 Reproduction goes on sale



## Heran Bago (Aug 5, 2013)

Mother/earthbound started out on the NES where it gained something of a cult following. The long awaited third entry in the series hit on the GBA and never made it out of Japan, previous titles in the series also command a high price second hand and Nintendo had previously been somewhat reluctant to rerelease them outside Japan (or at least until the other week). In one of the more impressive translations the GBA has seen it was translated by the folks at Fobby.net.

An English reproduction of Mother 3 is now available though we can not link it up on this site as it is completely unlicensed. For those that don't know, a reproduction is usually a fan-made cartridge with original parts. Unlike previous Mother 3 reproductions which were made in batches of 10 at most, this one is not made of gutted flash cart parts.

If you're asking why someone would want this when there are GBA flash carts I can give you a few reasons. One benefit of a dedicated card is no SD slot and a form factor that fits flush with a Gameboy Advance. There is also no menu or splash screen; you boot right to the game which is only functionally comparable to an EZ 3-in-1 or X-ROM 512 in single game mode. Also it's an English Mother 3 cartridge.

It is sold cart-only, I believe with a label. If you want a box your options are here or here.



I'm not totally sure this news works for GBAtemp, but it's more fitting with the site's theme than cell phone benchmarks for example. If a mod has a problem with it please move it somewhere more fitting.


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## 2ndApex (Aug 5, 2013)

See Nintendo? If you don't sell Mother 3 in English, someone else will.


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## shakirmoledina (Aug 5, 2013)

whatever the case, this one came very close to earthbound and in some areas surpassed its predecessor.
the translation was better than best.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 5, 2013)

Interesting in that non pokemon repros or ones where the effort was apparently made is not something I have seen much on the GBA.
The trouble with such news is this is technically straight up paid piracy, I dashed the links for now and added a bit of background in the first paragraph but will otherwise leave it.


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## Celice (Aug 5, 2013)

I'm gonna guess none of this money is gonna go to the fans who actually translated their favorite game, making it possible for English-speaking fans to enjoy Mother 3.


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## T-hug (Aug 5, 2013)

So it's kind of the same as flashing the game onto a flash2advance card.  Iirc when putting a single ROM on it skips the boot menu.
Sounds like a lot of work for whoever is making these.
Also the batteries in these devices aren't the best and the cards they have bought up are probably ancient though I guess you could change the battery yourself.
Nice find but I don't think we can front page this for obvious reasons.


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## Heran Bago (Aug 5, 2013)

Thug said:


> So it's kind of the same as flashing the game onto a flash2advance card. Iirc when putting a single ROM on it skips the boot menu.
> Sounds like a lot of work for whoever is making these.
> Also the batteries in these devices aren't the best and the cards they have bought up are probably ancient though I guess you could change the battery yourself.
> Nice find but I don't think we can front page this for obvious reasons.


 
In terms of function when you boot it yes, but it is not re-flashable memory. The dude straight up contracted out the right kind of ROM chips and new batteries, albeit from from china. It was pretty hard since mother 3 used bigger memory than most all GBA games. Yeah it's a lot of work for the guy to have gone through which is why it's $55, relatively steep for a GBA game. 

Reproduction cartridges are most always made of completely new parts which is kind of the appeal, although it's common to see donor cartridge shells used when a 3D printer isn't available or authentic enough.

I understand why I can't link directly to the store selling it. Thanks for letting the thread stay up. Suffice it to say anyone really interested is going to have to go on a "retro quest" or PM someone else in the know.


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## Pedeadstrian (Aug 5, 2013)

$55? I would leave out the "relatively," and call it just steep. The translation has been out for years now. Pretty much everyone who would be interested in this has already played it.


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## Heran Bago (Aug 5, 2013)

Pedeadstrian said:


> $55? I would leave out the "relatively," and call it just steep. The translation has been out for years now. Pretty much everyone who would be interested in this has already played it.


 
Yeah but on the other hand it's a much better game than a lot of modern $60 titles.


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## Costello (Aug 5, 2013)

the problem I have with those is probably that 0% of the profit will go to the original game developers, to Nintendo or to anyone else involved in the making of the game...


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## Bladexdsl (Aug 5, 2013)

others will do what nintendon't


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## Nathan Drake (Aug 5, 2013)

Costello said:


> the problem I have with those is probably that 0% of the profit will go to the original game developers, to Nintendo or to anyone else involved in the making of the game...


That is the major issue with copies of any game with a fan translation being distributed for money. You know the translators won't see one penny, nor will Nintendo, or any person involved in creating the game, and quite frankly, I don't think most translators, official developers, and the like _want_ money from something like this. For example, on the site for the Mother 3 patch, it explicitly states that they would rather you at least purchase some official merchandise if you can't get your hands on an official cart to rip your own ROM to apply the patch to. They in no way condone piracy, which you would have to do in order to accept profits from the sale of game reproductions.

No matter how you look at it, the person making the reproductions is in the wrong, and regardless of how desperate you are to have an illegitimate hard copy of the game in question with the fan translation, if you aren't willing to do the work yourself to put the cart together, you damn well shouldn't have it to begin with.


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## FireEmblemGuy (Aug 5, 2013)

No one who translated the game is getting any of this money, nor are the developers. The guy selling the repros is the only one profiting, and of course it's completely illegal. I laugh at whoever actually pays money for that - if you haven't learned anything else from the flood of Chinese bootlegs all over the internet, you should at least know that the guy is severely overcharging anyways.

The guys who did the Der Langrisser translation for the SNES had a couple neat licensing tricks that prevented repros from being sold using their translation (see here) but I'm don't know if the Mother 3 team is in anything close to the same position; they might be powerless to do anything about it.


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## Pedeadstrian (Aug 5, 2013)

FireEmblemGuy said:


> No one who translated the game is getting any of this money, nor are the developers. The guy selling the repros is the only one profiting, and of course it's completely illegal. I laugh at whoever actually pays money for that - if you haven't learned anything else from the flood of Chinese bootlegs all over the internet, you should at least know that the guy is severely overcharging anyways.
> 
> The guys who did the Der Langrisser translation for the SNES had a couple neat licensing tricks that prevented repros from being sold using their translation (see here but I'm don't know if the Mother 3 team is in anything close to the same position; they might be powerless to do anything about it.


Link is totally messed up, fyi. Here's a working one: http://board.byuu.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1204&start=15#p25250


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## Heran Bago (Aug 5, 2013)

Costello said:


> the problem I have with those is probably that 0% of the profit will go to the original game developers, to Nintendo or to anyone else involved in the making of the game...


 
You're on a site that tracks rom releases. Have you seen http://shoptemp.net/ ?

You make a fair point, but I'm sure that everyone buying a card would gladly give nintendo money for an English version if only they would let them.


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## FireEmblemGuy (Aug 5, 2013)

Heran Bago said:


> You're on a site that tracks rom releases. Have you seen http://shoptemp.net/ ?
> 
> You make a fair point, but I'm sure that everyone buying a card would gladly give nintendo money for an English version if only they would let them.


 
To be fair, tracking ROM/ISO releases and selling ROMs are two totally different things.

I know I've pointed out the problem with pirated games being indexed on Shoptemp before as well, but the way Shoptemp works is that it indexes everything on the sites it tracks. It would be nice if there was a basic filter settings that prevented that, though.


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## xist (Aug 5, 2013)

FireEmblemGuy said:


> The guys who did the Der Langrisser translation for the SNES had a couple neat licensing tricks that prevented repros from being sold using their translation (see here)


 
That is just amazing....


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## Joe88 (Aug 5, 2013)

I'll wait for the c&d letters from nintendo


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## WiiUBricker (Aug 5, 2013)

So basically he is selling warez?


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## Gahars (Aug 5, 2013)

So not only is this blatantly illegal, it's also not benefiting anyone involved in either the original development of the game or its translation? I sure do love me some shameless money-grubbing.

10/10 deal would piss my money away


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## Costello (Aug 5, 2013)

Heran Bago said:


> You're on a site that tracks rom releases. Have you seen http://shoptemp.net/ ?
> 
> You make a fair point, but I'm sure that everyone buying a card would gladly give nintendo money for an English version if only they would let them.


 
Hah, I knew some smartass would say something like that. Selling someone else's copyrighted work is a completely different thing.
It's nothing like selling a device that unlocks a console (and allows it to be pirated). These guys are actually selling a game they didn't make...


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## mechagouki (Aug 5, 2013)

This will probably end up being a minor collectible, with no real value, much like the various bizarre Pokemon bootleg carts and the "black CD" Dreamcast Half-Life discs.


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## Heran Bago (Aug 5, 2013)

Tomato knows about it and is okay with it. Not the first time it has happened. Reproduction cartridges are only made of things that are out of print so that it is actually impossible to to give the original creators any money for the product by the time it is sold. Ethically this compares favorably to backup devices sold during a system run.


A notable difference between carts that enable piracy and reproduction cartridges are that Nintendo actually goes after stores that sell backup devices. Both are "illegal" under strict interpretation of the law and precedent.

On shoptemp the first thing that catches my eye are cartridges with a picture of Mario on the front. I understand that this is a different type of illegal use of IP than what GBAtemp is against though.

This is a good discussion and I'm glad reproductions are getting some attention on here. Let's keep it going.


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## BORTZ (Aug 5, 2013)

Is he just trying to bait lawsuits or what?


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## Heran Bago (Aug 5, 2013)

He would be the first person making a reproduction cartridge to receive a C&D letter. Usually they are NES, SNES, and Genesis/Mega Drive games though. The Angry Video Game Nerd uses reproduction cartridges in a couple of his episodes.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 5, 2013)

Heran Bago said:


> Reproduction cartridges are only made of things that are out of print so that it is actually impossible to give the original creators any money for the product by the time it is sold. Ethically this compares favorably to backup devices sold during a system run.



Hmm, most IP laws will include words like monopoly for the rights holder and regardless of whether it is in print or not means surprisingly little (and courtesy of the decades copyright lasts for now probably until after we are dead as well). The closest you might ever get (seen as we are dealing with entertainment and not something like pharmacology) is abandonware/orphan works and that is a still largely theoretical area and clearly not the case here (the rights holders are still known and very much still around).

All that said, nobody in the repro business has got a C and D or equivalent before? I follow it loosely and can not think of an instance but given how C and D happy Square are and how Chrono trigger happy some of the repro people are I am kind of surprised.


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## Fishaman P (Aug 5, 2013)

Hmmm...
If it isn't made from gutted flashcarts, I would pay up to $35 for it.

Interestingly, at another site, they have English repros of Mother 3... in a DS Lite form factor.  They're half-height, and will only fit into a Lite's GBA slot.


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## Heran Bago (Aug 5, 2013)

FAST6191 said:


> All that said, nobody in the repro business has got a C and D or equivalent before? I follow it loosely and can not think of an instance but given how C and D happy Square are and how Chrono trigger happy some of the repro people are I am kind of surprised.


 
You would think so, right? But surprisingly no, not yet. People sell boxed translated SNES Squaresoft RPGs a manual and everything. Not just weird things like Bahaumat's Lagoon but serious stuff like Dragon Quests. There are increasingly more sites and eBay auctions for this stuff and they've been getting more and more daring in recent years so I would think it's only a matter of time.



Fishaman P said:


> Hmmm...
> If it isn't made from gutted flashcarts, I would pay up to $35 for it.
> 
> Interestingly, at another site, they have English repros of Mother 3... in a DS Lite form factor. They're half-height, and will only fit into a Lite's GBA slot.


 
Wow, haven't seen this. Almost guaranteed to be a re purposed EZ 3-in-1. Not authentic enough for me though.


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## Hop2089 (Aug 5, 2013)

Most repos and bootlegs are only worth as much as their gaming value, save for several exceptions like bootleg Cotton, Cotton 2, and Cotton Boomerang arcade cabinets which go for $150 and Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire has bootleg CDs that are worth $70-$150 but the reason for those is they look nearly identical to the officials and demand is high.


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## Dann Woolf (Aug 5, 2013)

I can already hear Nintendo's lawyers having aneurysms.​


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## Skelletonike (Aug 6, 2013)

Meh, stuff like that should be reported imho, people earning money through fantranslations (on top of distributing roms with intent to sell which is illegal) isn't very nice at all. Some people also used to do that with anime and that's why on older anime they sometimes put the 'This is a fantranslation if you paid' blablabla to avoid it.

Well, I'd never pay for a reproduction of a game unless it was actually official and the only bootleg game that I bought was Pokemon Diamond for the gb when I was like 13 or so since it seemed pretty interesting (it was a japanese game that had nothing to do with Pokemon, but ignoring the crappy english it was pretty fun).

Also, in the translator's website it clearly says this:
"Try to find a legit copy of the game. It’s not cool to brazenly pirate stuff! Itoi, Nintendo, HAL, and Brownie Brown worked hard on this game. Assuming you can’t find a retail copy (they're extremely rare) you should consider buying some official merch (below)."


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## DinohScene (Aug 6, 2013)

Heran Bago said:


> I'm not totally sure this news works for GBAtemp, but it's more fitting with the site's theme than cell phone benchmarks for example.


 
FINALLY, someone with common sense!


If I where a fan of the Earthbound series then I'd deffo buy it.


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## Rydian (Aug 6, 2013)

Heran Bago said:


> Ethically this compares favorably to backup devices sold during a system run.


So paying money to somebody who's selling their own work (a flash cart and ROM loader) is worse than paying money to somebody who's selling somebody else's work (a ROM of a commercial game)?

wut


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## sblur (Aug 6, 2013)

Heran Bago said:


> Tomato knows about it and is okay with it.


 
I can promise you that isn't true.

I can't say anything more than that, as I'm not sure why the attempt to stop this from happening fell through.


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## Heran Bago (Aug 6, 2013)

Rydian said:


> So paying money to somebody who's selling their own work (a flash cart and ROM loader) is worse than paying money to somebody who's selling somebody else's work (a ROM of a commercial game)?
> 
> wut


 
You don't see how the ability to pirate an entire current generation's system's library is more harmful than bootlegging a single game that's out of print?

Sorry dude.


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## FireEmblemGuy (Aug 6, 2013)

Heran Bago said:


> You don't see how the ability to pirate an entire current generation's system's library is more harmful than bootlegging a single game that's out of print?
> 
> Sorry dude.


 
Just because you _can_ do something doesn't mean you _have_ to do it. If I were to choose one or the other for the sole purpose of playing Mother 3, I'd take the flashcart every time. While the developers profit in neither instance, at least this way the money only goes to the flashcart sellers and manufacturers rather than to the sellers, manufacturers, and repro seller. They'd be getting my money because I want to play Mother 3, but unlike the repro seller, the flashcart seller's not directly selling their product as content they have no right to sell (aside from whether or not the bootcode etc. is copyrighted but that's a whole other issue)

(I hope that made sense, it's like 6AM, I haven't slept, and I might've had a couple drinks)


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## Rydian (Aug 6, 2013)

Heran Bago said:


> You don't see how the ability to pirate an entire current generation's system's library is more harmful than bootlegging a single game that's out of print?
> 
> Sorry dude.


I don't see how a flash cart immediately means pirating an entire library.


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## raulpica (Aug 20, 2013)

Bumpity since I was away while this was posted.



sblur said:


> I can promise you that isn't true.
> 
> I can't say anything more than that, as I'm not sure why the attempt to stop this from happening fell through.


I'm sure of that, I can't see Tomato liking some guy selling his hard work and cashing on it while he has gained NOTHING (except popularity and thanks from all Mother fans everywhere in the world. FOREVER. From me, too).

I hope he can stop him. While I can understand repros of old out-of-print games (the original copyright holder probably doesn't care anymore), selling the hard job of someone else for an hefty profit (costs shouldn't exceed 20-25$ per cartridge) is something horrible.


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