I might be sorry for putting my two cents in, but here goes (puts helmet on)
I don't know, I think DKII is very well done, but not sure why it is put on a pedestal over any other hack or homebrew game.
My thoughts exactly. DK2 is an awesome hack, I respect the guy for accomplishing it, and I do not begrudge him selling rom upgrade kits (or however he sells it). But at the end of the day, it's a hack and I don't think anyone should feel bad about playing it in mame. If it was an original game, I would feel differently.
There is this awesome program (can't remember the name) out there that lets you easily hack Super Mario Bros. You can put all the bricks, question blocks, pipes, coins, enemies, items, etc. where ever you want - essentially you could do to Super Mario Bros. what Jeff did to Donkey Kong. Consider the following 2 situations:
1) I use this program to make an incredible hack of SMB that everyone loves, and wish to sell it. Is it ok for someone to take the rom and distribute it freely?
2) Same as situation 1, but the program does not exist and I had to do all the hard work myself. Is it ok for someone to take the rom and distribute it freely?
IMO if you answer yes to one question and no to the other, you're a hypocrite. If the end product is the same, the amount of work that went into it should have no bearing on whether it's ok for people to distribute it freely.
Now I think the folks who are mad about people "stealing" DK2 the moment it was released, would have to answer no to question 2 above. It's basically the same situation, different game. But would you seriously answer no to question 1? If I used that hacking program to make a "new" SMB game, would you really think I should tell people to pay me for it and that it's wrong for someone to get it for free?
I think taking the attitude of "This guy worked really hard on this, and if I play the game, I would like to pay him" is perfectly fine. But trying to make people feel bad about playing it in mame and not paying him is asinine.
It's a freakin' rom hack. It's elaborate and no doubt took a lot of time and effort, but it's still a hack. If you feel this hack should be paid for but others shouldn't be, then where are you drawing the line? Who should decide what constitutes "too much work was done to get this for free"? No, I think you either have to say that all hacks are free, or we should be paying everyone for their hacks. I'm going with the former, simply because if I were hacking something, there's no way I would expect to get paid for it.
I don't consider it a hack. It's new content that runs in a closed and antiquated platform. A hack is what pinballjim did - change some characters and text. New levels are an extension of the original software, and let's face it, decompiling the source code of embedded software that old is a feat by itself. Extending the software, re-embedding it into the original package, and then making it run on the same ancient hardware is hardcore. The level of respect among those of us who are also software engineers is why this one gets treated differently.
That's fair enough if you don't consider it a hack. When you look at what the guy did, I could see someone taking that perspective, and the guy does deserve respect for doing it. But it uses the same graphics, engine, and IP as Donkey Kong. To me, that's a hack. I just can't accept it as an original game. Again, who has the authority to decide where the line gets drawn?
Rant over.