In the long run, how much damage can Foley do?

[rackoon]

O.K I get it, we all wondered if it would ever happen.
    Well, Foley made it happen. (Yea, I question his business choices). Lets face it, Kevin already pointed out the fact that this could and would probably happen some day( We all knew it could happen some day.)
    In defence of Kevin and Retroblast, He serves as a Consumer Reports like service. ( Although, I admit, I feel a small sense of betrayal regarding the Ultracade situation) But, lets face it, the MAME community is a small one, and Ultracade  has branded its self as a tyrant among a small comunity of hobbyists. Ultracade is F#@%ked as far as sales among the majority of this small comunity.
    They should of waited to produce a superior form of legit (and more extensive) MAME before making such a devastating  business move.
    Regardless, can Ultracade enforce  the sales of retro-gaming ROM's, along with the frontends needed to run them? I doubt it.

    Also, How much will they be able to charge for: Example, (Asteroids, Pac-Man) When I can buy (NEW) ps2 games, for 10 bucks, on amazon). (Would I be willing to pay .25 for a copy of crazy climber, Tempest?) (Hell yea!) I could throw a huge party of gamers around this. It would be the home town arcade all over again. (mullets and all). Many of my Friends still have mullets. {Hey, Don't judge me, I live in a redneck town where people still drive muscle cars, have mullets, and knowbody has teeth.} I got all my teeth.
    But, what about those titles that knowbody would even think about. (like my personal favorite Sinastar).  Will the less popular games be set aside during the tradmark frenzy?
   
My main question is this, will foley destroy the average hobbyist like me, or will his actions legit retrogaming  roms.

I personal believe that there are too many old and outdated roms being played by retro gamers already, for anyone to legitimize.

   (I would like to add that much of the MAME movement is about saving many of the games that we played as kids from disappearing from oblivion. Furthermore, my 11 year old son would rather play Halo than MS.Pac-Man. (I can buy a used copy of Halo or $5.00 bucks. How long cam Ultracade expext to make a profit from a dated group. For 5$ a game, I will play old Ps2 games.)
    Of course I want to re-live my youth but at what coast. Sure, I will spend, and enjoy building, a $1000.00 cab to relive my youth. But will I or you, pay Ultracade for the roms?

[IntruderAlert]

I wouldn't sweat over it too much

[Avery]

Has anything, really, happened? 

Now you can't actually use MAME in your ebay auctions, but it's not like searching on MAME ever got you very specific results anyway.

Star Roms is charging about $5.50 for Asteroids, so there's a baseline for you, and you can, of course, still find it all over the web if you want a pirate copy.  (Who exactly is Starroms anyway?)

If you had the rights to a bunch of roms, you could probably milk them for a lot of money.  It would require careful pricing, and developing a general sense of goodwill among the community (read: us).  Or you could piss off the community, charge $50 per rom and not make a penny because everyone is pirating those roms.

[KevSteele]

Rackoon,

I understand your feelings of betrayal, but I'm not selling out, nor am I completlely willing to overlook Foley's actions in the past. (I do think he's managed to piss off the very customers that he needs now, so karma may yet win out...)

My main motivation in all of this is "the greater good". I'm caught between my desire to see legal ROMs and my distaste at Foley's hardball "business is war" assault on MAME.

I just have this vision of MAME going truly mainstream, perhaps even being legally bundled and sold with ROMs, with proceeds going to the MAMEdev team for their hard work.

Unfortunately, only two companies have stepped up to the plate to make legal ROMs happen: StarROMs (who have a tiny handful of games), and now UltraCade.

Talk about being between a rock and a hard place...

[IntruderAlert]

So what if some goofball tried to trademark MAME
What difference does it really make?

Does he own MAME? NO
Did he put an end to MAME development? NO
Did he put an end to the ever increasing  number of gazillion OTHER EMULATORS? NO
Will he ever actually start selling ROMS at a reasonable price? Maybe
Will he put an end to file sharing? NO
Will he be able to force everyone to buy his $3000.00 cab? NO
Will he stop people from building their own cabs? NO
Will he stop people like Randy and Andy from developing more cool products? NO

What's really changed?
Nothing much. Except that Foley has proved hiself to be a source of irritation to the people selling "MAME" leg levelers and t-mold on ebay

[HoopstarsGarage]

My main motivation in all of this is "the greater good". I'm caught between my desire to see legal ROMs and my distaste at Foley's hardball "business is war" assault on MAME.

I just have this vision of MAME going truly mainstream, perhaps even being legally bundled and sold with ROMs, with proceeds going to the MAMEdev team for their hard work.

What does "the greater good" actually mean though?

The problem is Kevin, with respect to ROMs, the cat is already well and truly "out of the bag"..

We are not talking about music piracy here where every day sees the release of a new "must have" song.  We are talking about a collection that for the most part, pretty much stays the same and will for all time be passed around between enthusiasts.  There are tons of avenues to get your ROMs and it would be next to impossible to shut them all down.  One ROM site shuts down and 5 more open..  Hell, one of the most powerful and richest companies in the world, Microsoft can't prevent piracy of their products.. what hope would these companies have of covering 5000+ ROMs?

Another thing is, even if they charged 10 cents per ROM, that is still $500 for a collection of all games.  And why would someone who already has or has access to the full set pay that kind of money then? (or make their mates pay for it..)

The owners of the ROMs have little interest in persuing the license - which is backed by the fact that they aren't protecting Foley's investment into them and that MAME has been around for well over 7 years without so much as a whimper from them (except maybe the odd few).

Foley has obviously invested heavily into his project and is keen to protect that investment (hence his "noise) - for that I don't blame him.  However, he has obviously gone about it in the wrong way and it has bit him on the ass - even he has admitted that clearly illusrated with his amazing amount of back pedaling.  That said, I do not support him or anyone who supports him in any way, shape or form.!!!!!!!!!

Foley is a spent force and will not make ANY impact on the scene..!! Why? Because all it would achieve is pushing it FURTHER underground.

Am I saying it's right?  Not at all..  But what if it was?  Then there would be a million Foley's out there trying to make money out of MAME and then going down the road of to try to prevent "unfair competition".

As someone said to me - there is only two things that keep the internet going: Pornography and Piracy.

[Goz]

Another thing is, even if they charged 10 cents per ROM, that is still $500 for a collection of all games.  And why would someone who already has or has access to the full set pay that kind of money then? (or make their mates pay for it..)

People with high moral standards might. I'm not a goody two shoes by any means don't take this the wrong way, but. Who really needs the full set? I don't know about you, but over the years I have only played maybe 100 games multiple times. Thats $10 and even with questionable morals I'd have no problem fully legitimizing the hobby if the games were 10 cents per rom or more as a matter of fact. ROMS use is the one thing that makes this hobby questionable from a legal / moral standpoint. I'm certainly hoping it doesn't come to a point where we may need to agree to a UELA before each game play; but something will change the way the ROMS are hanfled / managed at some point.

-Goz

[pointdablame]

Another thing is, even if they charged 10 cents per ROM, that is still $500 for a collection of all games.  And why would someone who already has or has access to the full set pay that kind of money then? (or make their mates pay for it..)

People with high moral standards might. I'm not a goody two shoes by any means don't take this the wrong way, but. Who really needs the full set? I don't know about you, but over the years I have only played maybe 100 games multiple times. Thats $10 and even with questionable morals I'd have no problem fully legitimizing the hobby if the games were 10 cents per rom or more as a matter of fact. ROMS use is the one thing that makes this hobby questionable from a legal / moral standpoint. I'm certainly hoping it doesn't come to a point where we may need to agree to a UELA before each game play; but something will change the way the ROMS are hanfled / managed at some point.

-Goz

I have to agree completely here with Goz.  Who plays all of the 5000+ games?? no one.  Plus... take out all the clones and Jap/US/Asia/ et al versions of roms, and you SIGNIFICANTLY lower teh number of "games"  Now take out the awful games that just aren't worth playing.. and the quiz games if you don't like em... and mahjong... and the 500 "adult" games that are all the same crap wrapped up in a slightly different puzzle package....

I would buy games for .10 to a quarter without hesitation.  Hell, you can get an awesome collection going for $10 or $20 (less than the cost of a new console/PC game), and buy other games with your pocket change...

Just because people HAVE pirated games... doesn't mean that they won't want to legitamize their hobby.


EDIT: One more thing.. in the grand scheme of things... what the hell is $20 in this hobby anyway.  We spend so much money on these cabs to play old games... why wouldn't people spend a few bux for the ACTUAL GAMES?

[KevSteele]

I certainly don't think we'll ever see the end of freely traded ROMs, but I think it's important to have a legal avenue for ROMs as well, if only to help give MAME legitimacy in the eyes of the industry.

The chance of lawsuits dimishes greatly when companies start looking at people as a source of potenial income (a lesson Foley never learned, and he has now burned his bridges with respect to selling to the MAME community, IMHO)

Having Legal ROMs is a Good Thing(tm) in this situation, no matter if people still swap ROM sets or not. I just wish someone else was doing it...

Kevin

[hulkster]

well worst case, you have to buy the games starting on a certain date.  $10 per ROM or something stupid like that.  just backup what you have, and you'll be fine.  there will ALWAYS be a way to beat the system.   some ways take too much work on your part, but there is always some kid living in his mom's basement without a job or going to school who has nothing better to do than to find out how to get stuff for free.

[IntruderAlert]

Let's not forget Foley's reply to Kev earlier this year:

"In the end, you will review our iROMs service, and talk all about it. You won't have a choice as it will have a huge impact on the community and you wont' want to be left out. I don't care if you don't review it, or even mention it, your participation will have no impact on it's success." - David R. Foley

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,32730.msg284570.html#msg284570

 

..oh .. and:

"We are concerned about the commercial marketplace, and not the readers of the many MAME user groups and forums." - David R. Foley

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=4992

 

[markb]

MAME is not only a game emulator it is also a musical and a type of bonsai plant (search ebay UK), therefore if anyone wants to sell a cab and include Mame in the title in my eyes they could simply type in something like:-

Arcade cabinet for sale with links to free Mame Bonsai.

Sneaky, but I believe still legal. I bet it would still get pulled from ebay though.

[markb]

Or the musical for that matter:-

http://www.musical.org/b1mame.html

Seriously though if people did that and auctions got pulled the whole Mame trademark thing would probably collapse similar to the WWF/WWE case a few years ago.

[IntruderAlert]

...oh.. and be careful not to MAME yourself while installing this T-Mold



..and NOW you CAN legally include a copy of MAME with each cab
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/6300268853

[Avery]

Three Thoughts:

Yeah, there are 5000 odd roms and about 100-200 worth having.

[markb]

...oh.. and be careful not to MAME yourself while installing this T-Mold



..and NOW you CAN legally include a copy of MAME with each cab
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/6300268853

Is the word Mame already trademarked I wonder?

[Fat_Trucker]

All fair points. I think the thing is that in terms of the hobby movement then people using cabs at home aren't going to pay for roms whose price has any kind of number to the left of the decimal point.

Where there is an argument for legitimising rom distribution is among the vendors who want to sell multi emu, multi game cabs.

I for one would much prefer to have a legitimately owned set of roms in my cab. I have always supported the industry and have always bought current gen stuff on the level. I don't purchase pirated software that is still readily available in the shops, in fact I must spend between

[IntruderAlert]

In demographic terms only a tiny handful of people are running dedicated cabs or emu software. We aren't getting a snazzy (and collectable) little box and joystick to plug into our TV,  we aren't getting a dedicated cart to play on our current gen console or handheld, we are getting a few kilobytes of ancient code that you really need to have an arcade control panel to play properly, and no-one is going to be prepared to pay 5 or 10 dollars/pounds per game for that.

Actually.. if Foley has his way about it I'm pretty sure that you'll need his $3000+ machine to play properly
Why else would he be attacking the guys selling parts like T-Mold, Keyboard Encoders and Leg Levelers?

[monkeybomb]

Personally there are around 250 games I would love to play legally, but

I think the market for roms is much smaller than people realize.  The whole put rom in folder and get stuff to work acctually has a big impact.  I have burned copies of MAME32 where people just need to double click the game and play right from the CD, and they still can't remember to press 5 to put a coin in.  People like software that installs itself and does everything for them.  Roms are for the intermediate computer user and up.  Most PC gamers aren't interested in old games designed to end within three minutes.  There are also problems for those that don't fit those categories.

ROMS are available free and always will be.  So we are only talking about the percentage who really want a license.  I don't think anyone wants a license 20 dollars bad if the PCB only costs that much.  Randy pointed out that games are currently selling in bargin Bins and work out to .25 a game.  At that price how are atari and capcom going to make money on this.  Is it really worth their while to tap such a small market? 

[jelwell]

Ultracade is F#@%ked as far as sales among the majority of this small comunity.

Ultracade is in Fry's Electronics. I think they can afford to ignore/offend this small community which, should be pointed out, is not part of Ultracade's target audience anyways. It's been pointed out before that no one is making tons of cash selling 3000$ arcade cabinets to home buyers. Why anyone would think that a BUILD YOUR OWN ARCADE CONTROLS member would want to BUY SOMEONE ELSES is beyond me.

My main question is this, will foley destroy the average hobbyist like me, or will his actions legit retrogaming

[IntruderAlert]

Ultracade is F#@%ked as far as sales among the majority of this small comunity.

Ultracade is in Fry's Electronics. I think they can afford to ignore/offend this small community which, should be pointed out, is not part of Ultracade's target audience anyways. It's been pointed out before that no one is making tons of cash selling 3000$ arcade cabinets to home buyers. Why anyone would think that a BUILD YOUR OWN ARCADE CONTROLS member would want to BUY SOMEONE ELSES is beyond me.

Surprisingly, Ultracade's "Arcade Classics" ARE in fact for "Home Use Only" and are targeted at the home user.

Personally there are around 250 games I would love to play legally, but

I think the market for roms is much smaller than people realize. The whole put rom in folder and get stuff to work acctually has a big impact. I have burned copies of MAME32 where people just need to double click the game and play right from the CD, and they still can't remember to press 5 to put a coin in. People like software that installs itself and does everything for them. Roms are for the intermediate computer user and up.

which is another reason why we all need to buy an Arcade Legends machine from Ultracade to run our IROMS on

[RayB]

"Arcade cabinet for sale with links to free Mame Bonsai."

That's a waste of title characters, with non keywords like "for sale with links to"

I chop out those words and make better use of good keywords. Oh hey, it's what people already do, hence the fury at t-molding and leg leveller listings being pulled!!!

[jelwell]

Ultracade is F#@%ked as far as sales among the majority of this small comunity.

Ultracade is in Fry's Electronics. I think they can afford to ignore/offend this small community which, should be pointed out, is not part of Ultracade's target audience anyways. It's been pointed out before that no one is making tons of cash selling 3000$ arcade cabinets to home buyers. Why anyone would think that a BUILD YOUR OWN ARCADE CONTROLS member would want to BUY SOMEONE ELSES is beyond me.

Surprisingly, Ultracade's "Arcade Classics" ARE in fact for "Home Use Only" and are targeted at the home user.

[ sarcasm ] I was not aware that "home user" was the same as "BUILD YOUR OWN ARCADE CONTROLS member" [ /sarcasm ]
There's only one person this applies to and I think you know who that is. BYO-Ultracade != BYOAC.
Joseph Elwell.

[markb]

"Arcade cabinet for sale with links to free Mame Bonsai."

That's a waste of title characters, with non keywords like "for sale with links to"

I chop out those words and make better use of good keywords. Oh hey, it's what people already do, hence the fury at t-molding and leg leveller listings being pulled!!!

BTW RayB I see that on your tag line you have 'Ray B and Lilgames are trademarks of Ray B'. I'm afraid that I have now filed a trademark claim for the use of the letter B after a first name and must ask you not remove all references to it or I will ask Saint to pull the offending posts.

Yours faithfully

markb

[RayB]

BTW RayB I see that on your tag line you have 'Ray B and Lilgames are trademarks of Ray B'. I'm afraid that I have now filed a trademark claim for the use of the letter B after a first name and must ask you not remove all references to it or I will ask Saint to pull the offending posts.

Look up "Fair use".

[danny_galaga]

i just cant see how this guy can do MAME any harm

[KevSteele]

i just cant see how this guy can do MAME any harm

Just wait 'till he tries the old "banana up the tailpipe" trick...then we're all in for it!

 

[IntruderAlert]

i think he already tried that once

[markb]

BTW RayB I see that on your tag line you have 'Ray B and Lilgames are trademarks of Ray B'. I'm afraid that I have now filed a trademark claim for the use of the letter B after a first name and must ask you not remove all references to it or I will ask Saint to pull the offending posts.

Look up "Fair use".

LOL I'll let you off this time as you use a capital B and I use a small b.

[ScoopKW]

I would buy games for .10 to a quarter without hesitation.  Hell, you can get an awesome collection going for $10 or $20 (less than the cost of a new console/PC game), and buy other games with your pocket change...

EDIT: One more thing.. in the grand scheme of things... what the hell is $20 in this hobby anyway.  We spend so much money on these cabs to play old games... why wouldn't people spend a few bux for the ACTUAL GAMES?

If anyone thinks the ROMS are going to be less than $1, around $1, or even a little more than $1, I have a bridge to sell you. (The bridge will cost considerably more than $1, incidentally.)

It simply won't work. There are so few people who dig emulation, and in order for any business to turn a profit, they'll have to charge $10/$20 per.

This isn't like the music industry, where 10,000,000 people are willing to shell out a buck every time Christina Agulera spews out another song.  There are about 5,000 games total, about 500 that actually get played regularly, and perhaps half a million people willing to purchase games they already are able to play...

The numbers don't work.

But, even if the whole industry were to shut down tomorrow, (Hopefully, not until I get my v2 spinner...),  we still have MAME .98 and 99% of the ROMS we want to play. (C'mon, Dragon's Lair 2).

ScoopKW

[KevSteele]

David Foley has already quoted a price range of $.50 to $9.99

His example used "Speed Coin" as a $.50 game, and "Asteroids" as a $9.99 game.

We'll have to see how many games are considered "premium" and how many are "bargain bin"...

Kevin

[RayB]

His example used "Speed Coin" as a $.50 game, and "Asteroids" as a $9.99 game.

It will never fly. For the same reasons buying music downloads never worked until FINALLY we could get single tracks at $1 each.

Asteroids right now is about $6 from StarRoms. What makes Fooley think it will sell at $9.99? At that price I would expect to also get Deluxe, plus a CD and manual, and an enhanced 3D version. What he doesn't seem to "get" is that zero development is going into each game, therefore there's no overhead like you get with a published retail product. I wouldn't pay more than $2 or $3 for Asteroids.

[KevSteele]

His example used "Speed Coin" as a $.50 game, and "Asteroids" as a $9.99 game.

It will never fly. For the same reasons buying music downloads never worked until FINALLY we could get single tracks at $1 each.

Personally, I definitely think $1 is the "sweet spot" for pricing, but I obviously have no idea what sort of licensing fees are being charged. The industry may have a different idea of what constitutes a "fair and reasonable" fee.

Heck, I've paid over $100 for parts, I'd certainly be willing to buy my "top 100" arcade games for $100.

Kevin

[IntruderAlert]

perhaps if it was anyone else selling them..

sorry.. I know that someone compared it to a TV set and said something like "what do you care if the guy that made your TV set is a jerk or not?"
but after all that has happened I just don't see myself sending 100 bucks to Foley

Sure.. there are principals involved in the whole matter of legalizing a persons ROM collection
and I strongly believe that it is a good thing to do so.

But on the other hand..
there are principals involved here in allowing a devious snake to profit from the whole affair

[KevSteele]

Sure.. there are principals involved in the whole matter of legalizing a persons ROM collection
and I strongly believe that it is a good thing to do so.

But on the other hand..
there are principals involved here in allowing a devious snake to profit from the whole affair

That's the whole crux of my dilemma: supporting legal ROMs at this time means supporting David Foley, which is paradoxical and frankly makes me feel a bit slimy all over.

Unfortunately, if we boycott Foley, I can easily see the IP owners looking at the situation and saying "see, I told you no one would buy ROMs..."

I'm not happy with this situation at all.

Kevin

[Fat_Trucker]

Did anyone ever clarify what the score was with regard to that piece of legislation stating that using copyrighted software was ok so long as the platform it was designed for was no longer commercially available?.....or something to that effect.

[Crazy Cooter]

That's the whole crux of my dilemma: supporting legal ROMs at this time means supporting David Foley, which is

Not really, Foley doesn't have any ROM's (yet) and doesn't talk about when (if) he will get some.  That's why I hate when people even reference it.  Right now it's all hot air.  We should be pushing StarRoms and be contacting people to get them a larger selection.  To counter Foleys, I'll announce my service... "fROM's^TM"  .  Priced at $0.98 to $9.98...

Just as legit as his "service".

[Haze]

Sure.. there are principals involved in the whole matter of legalizing a persons ROM collection
and I strongly believe that it is a good thing to do so.

But on the other hand..
there are principals involved here in allowing a devious snake to profit from the whole affair

That's the whole crux of my dilemma: supporting legal ROMs at this time means supporting David Foley, which is paradoxical and frankly makes me feel a bit slimy all over.

Unfortunately, if we boycott Foley, I can easily see the IP owners looking at the situation and saying "see, I told you no one would buy ROMs..."

I'm not happy with this situation at all.

Kevin

We'll just have to see.  Foley is targetting somewhat of a niche market anyway, and it would appear he has managed to incense a large number of his potential customers within that market.  However, if he offers people what they want, at prices they want, then no doubt he can make a success out of it, the question is, will he, and that is something only he can answer.  Many of you have already made the foregone conclusion that the answer will be no.

Emulation or not people these days aren't going to value classic games at the same price they sold for when they were released, given the choice between the original PacMan and a more modern shareware / freeware dot eating game I know the majority of my friends and family would take the more modern game.  For all its nostalgic value most people will look at pacman and think it pales in comparison to the majority of the free online flash games.

You can't blame emulation for that, you can't even really blame the shareware clones of these games, its just that people perception of what makes a good game is changing rapidly as it has been for the last 10 years.  Also back when pacman was released producing a good quality pacman game was something of a challenge, these days anybody with a little experience in Flash can probably create something to rival it, such is the power of tools available today.

Its an interesting situation no doubt, but if the service fails there are a whole number of reasons aside from existing emulation that could account for it.  All I can say is time will tell.

Personally I'm interested in seeing what Nintendo do with their 'revolution'

[Tiger-Heli]

Unfortunately, if we boycott Foley, I can easily see the IP owners looking at the situation and saying "see, I told you no one would buy ROMs..."

If the IP owners are (or become) convinced that no one will buy the ROMS, that would indicate the ROMS have no commercial value and make them less likely to hassle the MAME team about them, would it not, or am I being simplistic???

[Haze]

Did anyone ever clarify what the score was with regard to that piece of legislation stating that using copyrighted software was ok so long as the platform it was designed for was no longer commercially available?.....or something to that effect.

if you're talking about the DMCA exemptions they basically make reverse engineering protection devices on obsolete hardware legal (thus putting something like MAME in the clear) they don't nullify the copyright on such software however.