Winners Don't Buy Repros

A treatise on why paying for ROM hacks on cartridge is a terrible idea
written by freem on 2025/04/04

If you've played some of the available ROM hacks for AKI Corporation's Nintendo 64 wrestling games, you might have seen a screen similar to this one on loading the game:

I was hoping it would be self-explanatory, but that does not appear to be the case. In fact, a few people have been flaunting the fact that they are buying reproduction copies despite the existence of this screen.

There are many reasons why buying a repro of a free ROM hack is a bad idea; these are just a few:

• These carts are made and sold without the permission of the ROM hacker(s).
• You can't guarantee the cart will work correctly, especially with regards to saving data.
• If the hack is updated, your cart becomes out of date.

There has already been some reaction to this trend from hackers. RetroRandy's WWF No Mercy Plus v3 and later requires a valid customized save file (if you aren't playing on a SummerCart 64). This restriction was put into place to combat sales of ROM hacks on cart.

"Repro carts are good because I find everything related to patching/emulation confusing"

Either get smart (like that old TV show) or stay dumb forever. There's a reason I wrote an entire section on patching the ROM in the VPW2 freem Edition Manual. There's a reason C-Drive made a portal that allows you to patch the ROMs without needing to install anything. Sometimes in life, you have to put some effort in yourself. This is one of those situations.

"Hackers should manufacture and sell their own carts!"

NO.

If you don't understand why this is a bad idea, you probably don't know anything about trademark and copyright laws. If hackers sold carts, they would gain unwanted attention from various copyright holders, meaning the hack will either disappear or stop being updated. Furthermore, the hacker(s) may have to pay legal damages. This would result in a chilling effect that would make people less likely to make ROM hacks in the first place.

None of this is worth selling a cart just so people who don't know how to follow relatively simple instructions can play the game. If you disagree, please donate to my legal fund (that I hopefully won't need to use).

"But I want a cart anyways!"

Your options are as follows:

• A flash cart, such as Everdrive 64 or SummerCart 64. This option is preferred, since you can easily update hacks, and all relevant save types are supported.
• RetroStage's N64 Blaster, Mini Programmer, and N64 cartridge adapter. This is recommended for people who only want to play one hack and/or have a "custom" cart. Hacks can be updated on this device as well, but you will have to re-write the game to the cart. Furthermore, the N64 Blaster does not contain Flash RAM, so you can't save on WWF No Mercy or any hack based on it.

In Conclusion

Buying carts of ROM hacks from random sellers on the internet is a bad idea.