Dream Arcades LLC announces the first ever agreement With MAMEDev to distribute

[lokki]

did not see a thread on this already.

http://www.dreamarcades.com/press/72805.shtml

For immediate release:
Dream Arcades LLC is proud to announce an agreement with the MAME

[SirPoonga]

[Stingray]

Isn't that a clever bit of leagalese? I'm sure no one would ever try loading roms that did not come with the system.

-S

[AlanS17]

It's simple enough to exclude games that aren't already licensed. All it takes is a custom build of MAME and a few hours of free time.

I think this is a great idea, and it'll give Foley a run for his money. Of course it can't be used for commercial settings, but it can be used in the home 100% legally. The home market seems to be Foley's new target audience, too. I recently started seeing those Arcade Legends (or whatever they're called) sold at Fry's.

[Santoro]

I am very curious about the terms, anyone know if the Mamedevs were compensated?  If they are open to that, the could be the end of Foley's (*spit*) monopoly on legal cabs. 

[Crazy Cooter]

I'm very glad to see this.

[RayB]

"first ever"? You sure about that? I'd check up on Hanaho's PC cabinet before making that claim...

[nipsmg]

I'm thoroughly convinced this is a bad idea.

Not only does this put MAME under even more public/commercial scrutiny, but that whole "playing games is just a side effect thing" kinda goes out the window when you're commercially licensing the software specifically to play games.


*sigh*.

[DreamArcades]

The version of MAME we'll use will only play licenced games. All others will be disabled. The MAMEDev's didn't want compensation. I am guessing it's better for them from a legal prospective.
Like Alan guessed we are going to be using a custom build.

-Mike

[1UP]

It is a condition of the Mame trademark license that you MUST create a custom build that can only play the games you have legally licensed from StarROMs, or any other authorized party.

[AlanS17]

It shouldn't be a problem so long as a special agreement is made with StarROMS to use their ROMs for a third party. The StarROMs license agreement only allows for use by the person who bought them. They can probably be given away to someone else, but they can't be re-sold. To say a person is selling the machine and giving the ROMs away free with it probably wouldn't fly, either. But I'm sure that's all been taken into account.

On another note, what's the front-end going to look like??? I'd sure like to see a commercial-grade front-end - even if it's not available for my own use.  I just want to see what can be done when there's monetary incentive behind it.

[SirPoonga]

It shouldn't be a problem so long as a special agreement is made with StarROMS to use their ROMs for a third party. The StarROMs license agreement only allows for use by the person who bought them. They can probably be given away to someone else, but they can't be re-sold. To say a person is selling the machine and giving the ROMs away free with it probably wouldn't fly, either. But I'm sure that's all been taken into account.

Yes, DreamArcades LLC will put the roms in the buyer's name.

[rchadd]

The version of MAME we'll use will only play licenced games. All others will be disabled. The MAMEDev's didn't want compensation. I am guessing it's better for them from a legal prospective.
Like Alan guessed we are going to be using a custom build.

-Mike

is this limited use distribution going to be made publicly available?

[SirPoonga]

The version of MAME we'll use will only play licenced games. All others will be disabled. The MAMEDev's didn't want compensation. I am guessing it's better for them from a legal prospective.
Like Alan guessed we are going to be using a custom build.

-Mike

is this limited use distribution going to be made publicly available?

Why would anyone who isn't buying from DreamArcades want it?  There's the real mame that will have support for those games and more.  You aren't going to get performance increases because other drivers were excluded.


DreamArcades, what version of mame do you plan on using.  I know a version or two ago I had issues with mame and one of my starroms. 

[DreamArcades]

I think we are going to use an older version. Like MAME .87

[Minwah]

On another note, what's the front-end going to look like??? I'd sure like to see a commercial-grade front-end - even if it's not available for my own use.  I just want to see what can be done when there's monetary incentive behind it.

Not implying DreamArcades are using this (I have no idea what they will use), but you might be interested in this:

http://www.maximusarcade.com/

[AlanS17]

You mean he's not using MAMEWah?  j/k

[monkeybomb]

On another note, what's the front-end going to look like??? I'd sure like to see a commercial-grade front-end - even if it's not available for my own use.  I just want to see what can be done when there's monetary incentive behind it.

Not implying DreamArcades are using this (I have no idea what they will use), but you might be interested in this:

http://www.maximusarcade.com/

That would be dissappointing.

[elvis]

"first ever"? You sure about that? I'd check up on Hanaho's PC cabinet before making that claim...

It isn't first ever.  We're selling cabs in Australia with the same deal:

http://www.gamedude.com.au/arcade/

MAMEDev released permissions to everyone who applied around April at the same time.  Part of the agreement states that we MUST distribute custom-compiled versions of MAME that support only the licensed games.  Anyone not doing that is breaking the rules, hence why the statement about the custom version.

We'll be adding a press release to our site with the agreement in detail shortly.  But for now, cabs are already shipping with legal ROMs from StarRoms.  I hope that all MAME-cabinet makers worldwide will do the same, as it will show the game manufacturers that there really is a legitimate and legal market for classic game ROMs, and that we're not all warez-kiddiez.

I am very curious about the terms, anyone know if the Mamedevs were compensated?  If they are open to that, the could be the end of Foley's (*spit*) monopoly on legal cabs. 

No.  MAMEDev receive no money for this.  Copyright permission issues do not need money to exchange hands for them to be legal or illegal.  MAMEDev own the copyright on MAME, and are the only group who can give or take away permission for others to use it in a commercial product.

I can't speak for other cabinet makers, but we obviously don't charge extra for MAME.  We sell our PC-based cabinets with GNU/Linux, XMAME, AdvanceMenu and the complete set of ROMs from StarRoms.  We don't charge extra for any of the software nor "labor" on software.  Likewise, the ROMs are licensed under the buyer's name directly, and we make no money from these, as per the agreement.

We also don't give the option to buy PC-based cabinets without ROMs.  Some people might find this the wrong way to approach it, but I disagree.  I think people need to start getting used to paying for legal media, and stop seeing MAME as a pirate's heaven forever more.  Legal ROM licensing will occur en masse.  It might take 5 years, it might take 1.  But the more people start paying for what they use (and lets face it, the costs are not huge compared to the physical cabinet itself) the more we'll see legal ROMs appear for legal purchase, and that's a good thing.

[DreamArcades]

"first ever"? You sure about that? I'd check up on Hanaho's PC cabinet before making that claim...

It isn't first ever.

[elvis]

Just to set the record straight according the the MAME team we were the first vendor to get permission to use MAME under the new license.
Here's a quote directly from an e-mail I received from Phil Stroffolino who runs the licensing agreement for MAME, " I've already told Aaron to add you as the first vendor licensed to bundle mame on mamedev.org; he'll do it as soon as he has some free time."

I'm not saying anything bad about you or your company, I just felt I needed to reply so members didn't think I was making this up or someting.

Yup, you'll be the first added to MAMEdev.com.  But everyone got the email at the same time.

As part of the agreement we all had to print out the paperwork, sign it, and snail-mail it back.  Ours took a little longer thanks to the international trip from Australia.  Consider it our handicap. 

Ironically, we actually asked for permission to use MAME exactly 3 days before they announced the license changes.  We didn't have any super secret inside information or anything diabolical like that, but did it just as a courtesy thing (to be honest, we're all a little afraid of R. Belmont, and just wanted to be in everyone's good books) .  When I showed my business partner the official license changes a couple of days later, we had a good laugh at our email from 3 days eariler.

But regardless, congratulations on being the first to be on MAMEDev, and the first both in the world and in the USA.  I hope every single cabinet maker out there follows the lead, and proves to game manufacturers that there is a real market for these games.  I want to see the 27 games on offer from StarROMs turn into 270 by this time next year.  And maybe we'll all finally be given real options to purchase the games we want to play.  I can't wait!

[AlanS17]

If StarROMs can amass a large enough ROM library because of these sort of deals, I hope they offer packages. That would be neat.

[DreamArcades]

One more thing. I noticed you have a screenshot of MS.pac-man and another game on your tables. The MAME license prohibits screenshots of games that aren't offered via starroms. The website looks great besides that.
Just thought you should know,
Mike

Just to set the record straight according the the MAME team we were the first vendor to get permission to use MAME under the new license.
Here's a quote directly from an e-mail I received from Phil Strolling who runs the licensing agreement for MAME, " I've already told Aaron to add you as the first vendor licensed to bundle mame on mamedev.org; he'll do it as soon as he has some free time."

I'm not saying anything bad about you or your company, I just felt I needed to reply so members didn't think I was making this up or someting.

Yup, you'll be the first added to MAMEdev.com.

[RandyT]

One more thing. I noticed you have a screenshot of MS.pac-man and another game on your tables. The MAME license prohibits screenshots of games that arn't offered via starroms. The website looks great besides that.
Just though you should know,

So what does it say about using character art like that on your sideart from the image at the link below?

http://www.dreamarcades.com/intro.shtml

I see Q*bert, Popeye, Pacman, Mario, DonkeyKong, the Bubble Bobble guy and one I can't identify.  I don't think StarRoms has any of those.

The other poster also appears not to be selling that table as a product, rather using it to show the style of product they have in the works.

Please make sure your own house is in order before pointing fingers at others.  If you really wanted to give him a friendly notification, you could have done it in email....

RandyT

[DreamArcades]

On our front page it says we now include different side-art with our tables and you probably missed the DA side Art contest because you are more of a hardware guy.
I wasn't going to report him to the MAMEdev or anything, I wasn't pointing fingers, just a friendly note.
There are a tons of restrictions for including MAME, so I figured he just missed this one. We used to have pac-man screenshots as well (from the MS version), but we had to remove them.
Our house is very much in order. But no hard feelings

[RandyT]

The images are still on your site and being used to market your products. 

RandyT

[Edgedamage]

The images are still on your site and being used to market your products.

[SirPoonga]

I'm going to have to agree with RandyT on this one.  The artwork is there on site.  It was the first thing I noticed and thought that those games were there.   Yes, have to actually read the site, but someone skimming through trying to see what you are about might not read everything.

[elvis]

One more thing. I noticed you have a screenshot of MS.pac-man and another game on your tables. The MAME license prohibits screenshots of games that arn't offered via starroms. The website looks great besides that.
Just though you should know,
Mike

Hey, thanks Mike.

The cocktail cabinet on the site is just a generic filler image.  That will be replaced either today or tomorrow when we finish our Aussie-style cocktail cabinet range, and show a real one in action (with legal games playing).  It was only supposed to be up for "a few days", but one thing lead to another and we fell 2 weeks behind in getting our cocktails ready for sale.

The upright cabinet in the photo is actually playing a JAMMA board that my business partner owns.  We wanted to test these for use with PC/JAMMA swap, and that shot was taken on the prototype.  I guess we should indicate that under the image, or perhaps take a new shot with one of the StarROMs games.  That might be a better idea.

Anyways... I've got the web design guy booked in today.  So I'll point these things out and let him know.

Thanks for the heads up.

[DreamArcades]

That's the same thing with our side art. We just need to get a professional photographer in to take some new pics.

Isn't running a business fun 

One more thing. I noticed you have a screenshot of MS.pac-man and another game on your tables. The MAME license prohibits screenshots of games that arn't offered via starroms. The website looks great besides that.
Just though you should know,
Mike

Hey, thanks Mike.

The cocktail cabinet on the site is just a generic filler image.  That will be replaced either today or tomorrow when we finish our Aussie-style cocktail cabinet range, and show a real one in action (with legal games playing).  It was only supposed to be up for "a few days", but one thing lead to another and we fell 2 weeks behind in getting our cocktails ready for sale.

The upright cabinet in the photo is actually playing a JAMMA board that my business partner owns.  We wanted to test these for use with PC/JAMMA swap, and that shot was taken on the prototype.  I guess we should indicate that under the image, or perhaps take a new shot with one of the StarROMs games.  That might be a better idea.

Anyways... I've got the web design guy booked in today.  So I'll point these things out and let him know.

Thanks for the heads up.

[elvis]

That's the same thing with our side art. We just need to get a professional photographer in to take some new pics.

Isn't running a business fun 

Heh.  There's always someone somewhere who wants to try and knock you down a peg.

But it's worth it when you get to see happy customers reliving their childhood through your products.  As long as the pros outweigh the cons, keep on gaming, I say.