How much money is Ever17 worth?

I'm curious specifically about the value of the English version released by Hirameki. Just out of boredom I browsed around for prices, and I found completed auctions on eBay where it sold anywhere from around $55 to $150, and I see sellers on Amazon listing it for almost $200!

I guess I'm just so surprised about the price being high. I remember when Hirameki was selling it for practically nothing a few years back. Did demand just skyrocket after Hirameki closed down? I wasn't planning on selling mine, but it's nice to know if I own such a collectors item.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Did demand just skyrocket after Hirameki closed down? I wasn't planning on selling mine, but it's nice to know if I own such a collectors item.

Obviously.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I wasn't planning on selling mine, but it's nice to know if I own such a collectors item.

I don't think I'd go that far.

[TDOMMX]

As far as I recall, Hirameki International was originally released for $39.99. Not long after Piece of Wonder was released, Hirameki started offering their titles on a 2-for-1 basis and later marked down all of their prices, asking for only $7 for their AnimePlay DVD titles and $13 for everything else.

Despite the massive discounts, a regular at TorrentPhase decided to upload every single one of their games to the site, spam Hirameki's message board with links to said uploads, and even hack their online store's review system to redirect purchases to the pirated copies. The mess took roughly a year to clean up. After Hirameki reopened the site, the hackers redoubled their efforts and hacked them again. Hirameki decided to cut its losses and close up shop for good.

Sorry for the tangent. A lot of people don't know what happened and insist that Hirameki dug its own grave with the AnimePlay DVD format, subpar translation quality, and excessive censorship; I agree that these were all stupid moves, but they're not what forced them out of business (also, Animamundi, Yo-Jin-Bo, and Piece of Wonder had excellent translations, though the graphics in Animamundi were censored to Hell and back - literally).

Back on topic: It doesn't matter how good something is; there will always be opportunistic pricks who buy them in bulk, then sell them at exorbitant prices when the supply has dried up. Ever when a much, much cheaper legal alternative becomes available, they'll still insist on their 400% markup (compare Castlevania - Rondo of Blood vs. The Dracula X Chronicles). Given Ever 17's many, many technical flaws (misprinted discs, for starters), there's no way anyone who did their homework would pay five times the original retail price.

Bottom line: Ever 17 is not worth $200, but that won't stop opportunistic pricks from asking for that much.

[Message]

I don't recall ever seeing Hirameki's site display links to torrents or whatnot. Where/from whom did you learn about that hacking business? No offense intended, but it seems a bit far-fetched to me.

But I agree that it's risky to buy Ever17 'new' from surplus stock hoggers. I had to get a fixed CD4 from Hirameki customer service because mine had holes in it (I kid you not). You'll be risking paying way way way too much money to someone who really doesn't deserve to get payed, and getting a broken product for your troubles.

[X-Calibar]

I don't recall ever seeing Hirameki's site display links to torrents or whatnot. Where/from whom did you learn about that hacking business? No offense intended, but it seems a bit far-fetched to me.

I remember it... Their BBS style fourm went from a nice place to discuss their games, to OMG 500 threads of DOWNLOAD GAME FOR FREE. Needless to say the forums basically went dead after that... and for some god forsaken reason they couldn't attempt to fix it for many months (maybe a year like TDOMMX says?). I remember the store had links to pirating threads too (reviews).

If you use the wayback machine maybe you can see what it looked like during this mad house. A few times users would try to bump their threads, showing support for Hirameki. But, since they had no admins or something; it just got buried again and again.

I remember they "fixed" it by deleting all the spam accounts and made it harder to do it again. But, just a little later it was back to the spam.

They put this up afterwards :
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200...ameki-int.com/
Here's how it once looked :
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200...ameki-int.com/

Ah looking at the forums :

April 2007 http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200...ameki-int.com/

"BBS Recent Posts
•Re: question New (Avari 2007/1/15)
•Re: Favorite Character New (yukikanou 2007/1/15)
•Ouran Host Club game? (arekuru 2007/1/15)
•Ever17 Doujinshi (Leviathan 2007/1/15)
•Re: KID goes bankrupt (Bata-kun 2007/1/13)
•Re: missing endings? (spoilers?) (Noxy 2007/1/11)
•Re: Otaku Culture Update (magicalgir 2007/1/11)
•Re: just got the game \(^_^)/ (magicalgir 2007/1/11)
•Re: just got the game \(^_^)/ (MarcFrost 2007/1/10)
•Re: question (Sayori 2007/1/10)
"

Ah the peaceful days... but next month...

May 2007 http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200...ameki-int.com/

"•Re: Link to pirated copy of Ever 17: New (Sylvie 2007/5/16)
•Re: Link to pirated copy of Ever 17: New (X-Calibar 2007/5/16)
•Re: Link to pirated copy of Ever 17: New (Yamitenshi 2007/5/16)
•Re: Phantom the Animation (OVA) New (MarcFrost 2007/5/16)
•Re: How Hirameki became a part of our lives... (Mari-chan 2007/5/14)
•Re: Phantom the Animation (OVA) (Mari-chan 2007/5/14)
•Re: Who kicked the can? *spoilers spoilers spoilers* (Yoshio 2007/5/12)
•Re: Link to pirated copy of Ever 17: (Marui 2007/5/10)
•Re: 2 hidden cgs - save files? (jyuichi 2007/5/10)
•Re: Link to pirated copy of Ever 17: (jyuichi 2007/5/10)
"

Yeah, we were begging the bots to PLEASE GET A LIFE!

Sep 2007 http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200...ameki-int.com/

"BBS Recent Posts
•REPORTING TORRENT LINKS TO DOWNLOAD ALL HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! (Yamitenshi 2007/9/12)
•REPORTING TORRENT LINKS TO DOWNLOAD ALL HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! (Yamitenshi 2007/9/12)
•REPORTING TORRENT LINKS TO DOWNLOAD ALL HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! (Yamitenshi 2007/9/12)
•REPORTING TORRENT LINKS TO DOWNLOAD ALL HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! (Yamitenshi 2007/9/12)
•REPORTING TORRENT LINKS TO DOWNLOAD ALL HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! (Yamitenshi 2007/9/12)
•REPORTING TORRENT LINKS TO DOWNLOAD ALL HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! (Yamitenshi 2007/9/12)
•REPORTING TORRENT LINKS TO DOWNLOAD ALL HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! (Yamitenshi 2007/9/12)
•REPORTING TORRENT LINKS TO DOWNLOAD ALL HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! (Yamitenshi 2007/9/12)
•REPORTING TORRENT LINKS TO DOWNLOAD ALL HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! (Yamitenshi 2007/9/12)
•REPORTING TORRENT LINKS TO DOWNLOAD ALL HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! (Yamitenshi 2007/9/12)
"

Didn't work.

[Sirf*palot]

Man, those guys were just total dicks..

[Message]

I stand corrected. And amazed. o_O

[jyuichi]

Originally Posted by TDOMMX

Despite the massive discounts, a regular at TorrentPhase decided to upload every single one of their games to the site, spam Hirameki's message board with links to said uploads, and even hack their online store's review system to redirect purchases to the pirated copies. The mess took roughly a year to clean up. After Hirameki reopened the site, the hackers redoubled their efforts and hacked them again. Hirameki decided to cut its losses and close up shop for good.

EDIT: looks like you can see me the the archive post list, brings up some bitter memories...

I remember the BBS attacks well (it was a nice community, I came here when it closed) but didn't realize the store had been targeted too. And so intentional, some people are disgusting...

Vaguely remember the board hackings back in the day, never knew how deep it ran to affect their actual business. Disgusting, the levels that people can stoop to.

Ah yes I used to visit Hirameki's forum back in the day and I remember the massive spam... Not sure what the mods/admin were doing, but they pretty much dug up their own grave by letting the hackers/spammers run wild for like a whole year. If they didn't knew how to deal with them, they should have just shut down the forums until they found a way to enhance their security measures.

Though I still wonder what was the motive behind this attack? Hirameki was a nice and peaceful community... obviously it's someone who had a grudge against Hirameki International for some reason, but it's a mystery that will forever remain unsolved.

[sanahtlig]

Originally Posted by BlinkWinkel

Though I still wonder what was the motive behind this attack? Hirameki was a nice and peaceful community... obviously it's someone who had a grudge against Hirameki International for some reason, but it's a mystery that will forever remain unsolved.

Perhaps the grudge was Hirameki's massive catalogue of censored games? I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if people attempted similar tactics with MoeNovel, with all the rage flying around.

Anybody knows where I could find an affordable copy of Ever 17 nowadays? I keep hearing good things about this game and I'd like to buy it but only copies I've found are at Amazon and prices currently range from $330.00 used to $999.00 new :(

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...&condition=all

[ImmLff]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Anybody knows where I could find an affordable copy of Ever 17 nowadays? I keep hearing good things about this game and I'd like to buy it but only copies I've found are at Amazon and prices currently range from $330.00 used to $999.00 new :(

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...&condition=all

English version of Ever17 is long out of print and the publisher has closed down too, so you're probably out of luck. At this point you can probably treat it as abandonware, and just find a copy somewhere at the internet.

Or, if you really want to have a copy of the game, you can try to find and buy a japanese version and download english version afterwards.

[eviejohnson724]

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