Updated: That Akalabeth Fake…Was Probably A Fake (Or: Another Scam?)
Akalaupdate: Jocksitter Dragon was the person who actually “won” the APPLE-OIDS auction, and he reports that it was in fact a forgery…and then not a particularly well-executed one. He has reported the seller to eBay and has left some negative feedback on the seller’s profile as well.
Original Post: In a comment to this post from a while ago, about a (probably) fake sale of a rare copy of Akalabeth, Jocksitter Dragon added the following updates about the seller of the dubious item:
Update. This seller sold a CPC Akalabeth that looked brand new last week on a buy it now starting at $2000 and took a quick offer of $1000 (Ebay # 220866110569 )Next up he just sold an Apple-Oids game (Ebay # 220868381000 )Here is the problem. If you look at the label of the Apple-Oids game it says “Apple-Oids Beyond adventure lies Akalabeth” oops. The real label should say “Apple-Oids Designed by Tom Luhrs” Here is a real disk (Ebay # 140571766804 ) The copy he sold “looks” brand new also. Looks like a possible forger. My gut instinct was probably right all along.
:extralife:
Said APPLE-OIDS sale has since ended (thanks go to Joe Garrity for the link), netting the seller a little more than $100.
Jocksitter draws the obvious conclusion: the Akalabeth copy was probably a fake as well, if a somewhat more well-executed one. Which, in turn, means some unfortunate Ultima fan probably got ripped off to the tune of a few thousand dollars.
Which…ouch.
The First Age of Update: Over on the UDIC Facebook Group (which I still think should be called the UDFC), Holger Bachert linked to another “rare” Ultima-related item for sale from the same person. This time, it’s supposedly a Japanese import flyer ad for Escape from Mount Drash from 1983.
Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum suspects that it might be a printed blow-up of a trading card, possibly from the Japanese Ultima Complete collection. Bachert himself notes that the back of the sheet is probably from a magazine or book, and that it actually deals with Ultima 5. He furthermore notes that there is no sane reason why “Sierra Online” would have been translated into the Runic font.
Still, as always: judge for yourselves, Dragons and Dragonettes. Much of this is speculative, because there is quite a lot of Ultima-related stuff out there (especially when we consider advertising) that is more or less entirely unknown to the wider community. That does mean that on occasion, a truly special rare item will surface…but it also means that scammers can produce things which can all too easily be claimed to be the genuine article, and which are immensely difficult to verify after the fact.
Ouch indeed, I feel for the winner of the last one that sold for $4000. One of the main red flags for me was the evasiveness of the seller in answering all questions. I’m really looking foward to seeing on ebay the mint copy of Lost Vale that his Uncle’s friends dog brought home one day.
The funny thing is that even if it is from that time it could still be counterfeit. Piracy back then was selling copied disks, including manuals. There’s no way to appraise period relics without the original players inspecting them.
Intersting Late Night Read/Post;
I’m not one to oppose your “Here is the problem.” comment about the Apple-Oids game, but then you go on to show item 140571766804 with such zeal as if that where the only version in existance. I can assure
you I own a copy of Apple-Oids. Disk and all, which I purchased in 1981 and it differs from the two you’ve referred to. The price on the Cover I have is a lower $24.95 and the instruction manual print is a sky-blue.
Seems to me that now I’ve seen 3 versions of that game in existance and there could possibly be more, and there have been misprints of other items known to surface from time to time.
Hell, If anyone is willing to pay such hi prices for these things I say let it be. That’s what one gets for being too young and missing out on an early lower price buy or too old and trying to recover or regain their youth at a higher price. The higher priced $4900 sale of the Manual & Artwork Only “NO” Disk, also on eBay came with a certificate seen here: http://mocagh.org/loadpage.php?getgame=akalabethcomputerland
I reviewed this sellers sales and he sure has been having a hell of a time trying to unload his collection.
Only curious thing about the whole thing is that he never claims any big words like “ORIGINAL” or “AUTHENTIC” not even a this is the “REAL THING GUYS”, like other sellers I’ve seen do & pushing obvious fakes left and right without regard to Author/Artist or Buyer.
It sure doesn’t help stop Fakes from being sold, when folks keep throwing cash at the problem. Even a lower $102.50 for one item is more than enough encouragement to keep things like this going on forever.
Get this;
I’ve even heard thru the grapevine/friends that they’ve read blog/group/posts that state, author Lynn Abbey supposedly showed her copy of the Artwork & Manual to Lord British himself and he dissed her in a polite chivalrous sorta way, as if he knew they weren’t real. He is probably the only one who knows exactly which
original hand-made copies have surfaced and those weren’t it.
Makes one stop and think; “Maybe I should do my homework before I go off and go all in!”, on a half-baked trumped up story about how its; “FOR REALS GUYS”/”AUTHENTIC”/”ORIGINAL”/”ULTRA RARE”/”BELIEVE ME!!!”/”HE SAID, SHE SAID” it was; “MY CERTIFICATE INCLUDED” items such as these.
One thing is for sure, I wouldn’t pay such ridiculous prices unless the Creator himself publicly blessed the item and knighted the seller to go on and sell with a signed and licensed certificate of authenticity, including a magazine article picture & ALL.
I bet the Dungeon Masters/Creators of these games are probably saying “WHAT?!” when they read about this stuff.
Guess we all have to continue to be pawns in this game of REAL vs FAKE.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE: (P)layer or (T)hief ?_
LOL-That’s all.
Good rant. I think we summed it up in the buyer beware category. I want original data, not original disk.
Which reminds me, WtF or other bloggers, what the fuck is up with the Ultima source code being neglected. Either it’s bullshit code and isn’t what Garriott wrote (damn if it be some forgotten entity’s rewriting) or it’s real and those with the public ear are making an unforgivable mistake.
Waiting for Garriott’s underling’s response to an email or other social contact isn’t sufficient. Slashdot, even after I wrote the article publishers personally, didn’t give a shit at all about Ultima’s source code being leaked. I guess people just are worthless bastards and can’t be relied upon to produce relevant knowledge without fear. Maybe the current IP Gods would get mad without tacit assent. The BioWare cloud is as thick as old blood blown through a 20″ fan.
The source code thing has kind of stalled. I think I need to hit people with another round of emails.
On the one hand, it’s an incredible find…but on the other hand, it’s the sort of thing that could in fact get me in a heap of trouble if I reported on it in the wrong manner.
Guess the good news is that no one other than the hand-me-down of hand-me-downs is going to care about it being published directly. I converted it to plain text with binaries (images) and archived it on my site for some time, even advertising it here, and haven’t received an email from EA, BioWare, Richard/Robert Garriott, Portalarium, or anyone else.
I guess the cat is out of the bag, no one cares, and all we can expect is a triumphant and inherently profound trailer to announce the historic old news. What’s so funny is that it seems like the most important announcement, the foundation of this site (“Ultima”), but it’s in the forum posts with no further comments. Makes me think the community and possible new community members are just fair-weather, ignorant sycophants. Old schoolers should rework the code to make it work with a modern language. A fan port. 🙂
I heard back from my contacts at Mythic…they feel it would be imprudent to release the code openly.
Still no word back from Garriott. Pity.
I think what I might do is see if there’s enough in the comments to put up an article about the exact method; I’ll get additional details from Odkin if need be. Then at least people will have a guide to follow. It’s not quite hosting the code, but it’ll let the really interested people DIY it easily enough.
I’m a little behind on emulators; what’s the best Apple II simulator out there?
On my PC I have Applewin installed but to be honest Ive only used it a couple times..
http://applewin.berlios.de/
I play mainly on my Mac and use Virtual ][ which is pretty rad actually.
I love how it even has the sound of the old disk drive spinning up when you start it..
http://www.virtualii.com/
Virtual ][ needs a license otherwise it pauses every so often which can get frustrating..
Its well worth the $$$ though its the best Apple ][ emu Ive used.
Theres even options for customizing your ][e, like adding RAM cards or printer cards or the Z80 card to the internal slots.. I get to play with stuff in it I could NEVER afford when I had a real ][e back in the day..
Maybe I should just post it to the Usenet and let it become a part of history. What gets me is that absolutely no one gives a crap. No one on Aiera (WtF and a few others excluded), no one on Slashdot (which is amazing to me), and the fact that Mythic wouldn’t give an immediate “Yes” makes me think they’re either consulting their lawyers or just have their heads up their ass.
This is some code written in Garriott’s parent’s closet in a dialect of BASIC with some assembly for his specific computing platform. No trade secrets here. Not that I have much faith in people left, but this is so sad and shitty it’s mind boggling.
Fuck EA, Mythic, and anyone else who feels threatened by this historic find. The only thing that could make me feel better would be knowing that this WASN’T Garriott’s original code, just some crappy port to a slightly different system. I’d almost rather his code be lost than to hear of so many apathetic entities pass on publishing it with the sense of historic discovery it deserves.
At least I had the balls, as I’m still hosting it with a big middle finger to DMCA takedowns and anyone else interested in such idiocy. Jesus…
To be fair, the agreement between EA and e.g. the Wing Commander CIC as to what content can be released (or not) has always been summed up in the elegantly simple rule of thumb: “No code, no budgets.” Even ancient code for an ancient (if deservedly famous) computer system falls under that rule, and the answer from Mythic was what I expected it would be. I still held out a glimmer of hope that they’d take a different stance, but this was the far more probable outcome.
I’m a little more surprised that Garriott never got back, given Swofford’s reputation as a guy who goes to great lengths for Origin fans. It’s possible that even Garriott has decided he doesn’t care much for the old code…which, in one sense, makes sense, since the 1986 re-working of the game is pretty much the standard as far as such things go. Heck, who knows what Garriott is thinking these days; he’s even selling Britannia Manor, which I take as indicative that he has moved on (at least to some extent) from these roots.
I don’t think Mythic feel threatened by this find; I think it’s just easier to follow policy than argue with endless armies of bureaucrats and lawyers that there should be a one-time exemption to same. That happens in a plethora of industries, not just gaming. I don’t begrudge them that. It’s arguably just as true that old C++ code for a sci-fi flight sim built for 16-bit 386 processors likely contains nothing in the way of valuable trade secrets, but you still won’t ever see the Wing Commander CIC release the Wing Commander source code (which they have a copy of, by the way). And so it goes here, for the time being.
Having said that, I for one would be surprised if you ever got a takedown notice.
I understand what you’re saying, and I agree. However, I’d like to think that the human race has not abandoned itself entirely to the rule of protocol outside of crime.
Following protocol is routine, yet this is not a routine discovery (or is it?). Why was an exception not made for such a piece of video game history? I’m tempted to contact G4 for what little they’re worth.
Wing Commander (the first one, thus no Roman numeral), was a terribly advanced piece of programming. Ultima (again no number) was a kid in his parent’s closet.
I don’t want some official statement declaring it’s perfectly legal to distribute the Ultima source code and associated binaries, but I refuse to believe that no one really gives a damn. The refined version may be the standard, but this is what Garriott delivered, is it not?
I appreciate your efforts to contact the IP holder and the IP creator. You’ve done all you can in your position. In mine I distribute it, and I hope that the IP holders know this and are happy and proud though they might not be able to say so. Hell, just getting it to run is a tour de force.
Anyway, I think this pretty much sums up people’s interest in the history of video games. Scientists may find interest in poring over the source code, while the rest just want to look at a cartridge through a plate of glass as see the archived trailer. Such is the world. I can do nothing but scream ’til relegated to a village idiot.
Sorry again to post twice, but to a different part of your post.
I’m not surprised that Garriott (by proxy or otherwise) didn’t respond. I would feel the same way that he may. He has love, bitterness, and has slowly written Ultima off like an old girlfriend. It lives in his heart, but formal inquiries are met with disdain and deference to current IP holders.
From what I’ve read, he’s treating his marriage seriously, and selling his old house is probably a given unless she just REALLY liked it and wanted to live there. They probably got a very nice place in a mutually beneficial location with less eccentric features.
Who knows… I missed the last episode of “Austin Shores”. 😉
I won the apple-oids game from the seller for $102.50. Received it today. The game is definately a forgery. The disk label is on plain paper, blurry, and was printed with a ink jet printer. I have never seen ink smear on a California Pacific label. The “Cover art” is a cheap reproduction, the lettering on the back is blurry. The disk is brand new, never used. 100% Forgery. I opened a forgery case with ebay, they already ruled in my favor and I received a full refund of the purchase price. I have already left proper feedback.
Well, that’s one way to confirm it. Glad you got your money back, and good work. Bit of a risk, but it panned out.
Nice work Jocksitter glad this guy is exposed, odds are this scumbag will just move onto something else like movie posters, basketball cards or some other printed media. I know the buyer should beware but that should not be an excuse to green light forgery, hope ebay shuts this guy down.