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| In the long run, how much damage can Foley do? |
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| 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 I personal believe that there are too many old and outdated roms being played by retro gamers already, for anyone to legitimize.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 |
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