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How to legally purchase Mame ROMs
AlanS17:
--- Quote from: StephenH on July 25, 2004, 08:31:15 pm ---You can try approaching the game companies directly. The older and the less popular the game was, the more likely they are to license. It is fair game with any company though.
--- End quote ---
I'm sure companies such as starroms.com are already up on this. That's what they do. If they haven't done it yet then (i figure) there is probably little hope for us.
Howard_Casto:
Yeah, I asked those guys about it early on, just getting the ancient atari roms took months and moths of negociations from the current owners of atari, which just happened to want to unload some of atari's older stuff.
But hey it's worth a shot.
Btw pat, no offense taken, I didn't even realize you thought I was offended. If I am you'll know. ;)
Patent Doc:
I also contacted starroms and talked to them about the liscencing process... the gave me the same story they gave Howard .. VERY long negotiations. However, this was a distribution liscence so it MAY be different from an individual wanting the liscence for a non-distribution personal use. Liscencing fees, on the other hand, may very well be cheaper for starroms than individuals because they probably pay some sort of royalty to Atari for every game they sell.
Still this didn't stop me from contacting NAMCO. I got the impression from NAMCO that they were looking into liscencing old games, but they seemed confused by my desire for a liscence restricted to personal use. Anyway, the person in the legal department that I spoke with was not prepared to inter negotiations and told me to call back at a later time.
OK bad choice of companies on my part judging by the continued success of Ms. Pac Man/ Galaga and the NAMCO classic software for x-box, ps2, and pc.
SirPoonga:
it would be cool if you could get after other companies like atari. Now, starroms might have had it a *little* easier being that atari arcade is now dead since midway killed it. BUT you might be able to use starroms as an example that tselling old rom license is a good business, if starroms is doing good off it.
Howard_Casto:
I think my problem is the games I personally loved are by companies that are popular and still in business.
Namco, midway, and capcom. They are still the powerhouses and thus like to keep hold of their property. Capcom throws us a bone once in a while though.
While we are on the subject does anyone know the company that owns data east now? Data East and it's sister company are now defunct and I haven't seen anything done with their properties in over 10 years. It might be easy to get permission from them as they are a dead company and they have some great games like karnov, bad dudes and robocop.