NEW UK MAME ARCADE COMPANY???

[mamegeek]

Hi all,
        I have been reading this forum for a couple of years now, nicking idea's and helping out a fair few people along the way.

My aim was to research what people really wanted out of MAME and the costs involved in the cabinet building and business point of view.

I wont mention my website yet as i dont know where to post and i dont want to tread on anyones toe's.

If someone can direct me to where i can post, i caqn then hopefully get some feedback on the website and product range we offer.

Website is new and possibly has some spelling mistakes and the prices will be modified, hopefully with some feedback from this great forum.

Anyone who can help will get a great discount on any product and my knowledge on MAME is free to anyone on this site.

Please let me know if there is interest and room for another MAME site, although i am struggling to find a decent one out there

Before people send me links, we have tried to do our research and even ordered parts and cabinets of company's.

Surprisingly most where great but we aim to improve.

Hope to hear from a fair few people/

Happy gaming

MAMEGEEK

[RayB]

Pardon my attitude but the way you word things is a bit odd. You speak of MAME as if it's something you can control and effect change in. Are you one of the developers?

You also speak of it as if MAME is an arcade cabinet. MAME is not an arcade cabinet.

Can you clarify what you're talking about?

[mamegeek]

Hi
  Sorry for the bad wording.

I wrote my aim was to find what the costs where of building the cabinets, as businesses really need to know there costs.

Knowing what styles and types of cabinets wanted, i could fine tune the costs of the building.

Going back to MAME, it is in know way controlable, i just want to provide cabs that are easy to use, fairly priced and what people really want.

We let people play our machines at the local fairs, corporate events and party hire for free.

Although cabs had trackballs and spinners, people did not really play the limited amount of games that involved these controls.

We also had about 30 to 50 people between the age of 25 and 35 play our cabs (people old enough to remember the original golden years of gaming)

and the games chosen did not involve a trackball or spinner ever.

Now we do fit trackballs and spinners but the research was a great help and it also tested the product sufficiently to be confident in selling it to the public.

This is the wrong forum for me as its primary use is to build your own and not buy, but as i have had so much help on this forum i could not help but post.

I am not a developer but know my product and have a great team and backing behind me.

Still need to do my research though so hence the forum.

[the3eyedblindman]

  I dont understand where this thread is going. You start it by naming it with a question, like you have questions you want answered, then you just have many statements. I dont think its legal to charge for or sell cabinets with mame roms in them, so again I dont know what you are trying to do here. Can someone clarify for me?   

[mamegeek]

I cant see where i said i was specificly asking questions although there are a few?

No rom sets will be sold in our cabs, they are simply MAME ready, control panel wired and ready to be plugged in and played.

Monitor and pc fitted, side art and marquee etc

We have sold many like this.

As it is a niech market, people who buy know a little or have used MAME at home, hence they no how to load and use and have the confidence to buy the cab knowing they can complete there games list.

We reccomend star roms but as you know 99.99% of MAME use is illegal.

I am 100% sure that everyone posting on here has dozens if not thousands of Rom's that they are using now illegaly.

They are actualy breaking the law more by playing illegaly, we are currently not breaking no laws as rom's are not installed in cabs.

I know MAME is a touchy subject but with the correct business approach, these copyright companys may in turn take MAME seriously and not as a thorn, as they earn no revenue.

I have contacted loads of companys and understand what people are pointing out, but this is just what i wanted.

I can assure you that we know the legal side as no business will invest in a un proven illegal market.

If i do have one question that needs answering 3eyedblindman, how do you explain these other MAME companys that have been succesfully trading for a while? just by adding no rom sets will be on machine when sold like thousands of just roms on disc sell everyday on ebay, without even a cab around them to say pay for cab and roms are free.
no one has ever been chased but still we are cautious as this is a long term dream and investment.

Happy gaming

[versapak]

The question referred to is the actual topic title.


? ? ? = question

Tis why they call them QUESTION marks.


Also... You keep calling them MAME cabinets.

You did now clarify that you are simply talking MAME ready cabinets, but then still...

We wonder what the point of this posting is. Was this just an announcement of your business? Are you looking for ideas for your business?

The initial post seemed to be just a rambling product announcement, that didn't really seem to make all that much sense.

[the3eyedblindman]

I dont know how these companies are surviving to tell you the truth, not many people even know about mame or how to use it. Those of us that do either just run it on our pcs and play with a keyboard or build our own cabinets, hence the website "build your own arcade controls". I dont believe there are many companies out there that sell complete "mame cabinets" anyways. I think slikstik sells a complete cabinet (allthough Im not sure it is "mame ready") but they make their money selling other things like their control panels. You need to contact 1up to see if this business is really worth getting into, as I know he was selling complete cabinets (although he may have gone under by now, I havent heard any progress in a while). The only companies I really see survivng in this business are the ones that sell such things as controllers and unique interfaces for the pc you cant buy anywhere else (like ultimarc and Hagstrom, we can all buy a PC, install mame, build control panels, and build cabinets, but you cant just buy a screw in terminal arcade controls to pc interface anywhere...) So I dont know, do what you want, I just really didnt understand what this topic was about, good luck, Doug.

[saint]

By the way, feel free to post links to your web site or anywhere else, so long as the rules as posted on the forums are follwed there's no problem  

[Crazy Cooter]

I don't think english is his first language  .

If I'm understanding correctly, he's asking what can he offer that nobody else does.  He says he's ordered some other cabinets from companies and were surprised at how good they were, but thinks he can do better.  He just doesn't know how yet because he's unsure on what people want.  It sounds like he has sold some cabinets already but has not sold any ROM's.

Basically, he wants to be spoon fed.

Mamegeek, what I would do is just post specific ideas and ask for feedback.  We can't really design the whole thing for you without knowing what you want to do.  Post a link to your site.  (There are people here that don't even use MAME by the way, so don't assume that everyone has a bunch of ROM's they aren't supposed to have)

[the3eyedblindman]

You say your quite certain that most of us here use roms illegally, yet you are going to sell "mame ready" cabs...do you really think that none of your customers are going to use illegal roms in their cabinets that they dont own? Your going to be handing out guns, just making the people obtain the bullets themselves.

[RayB]

Anyways, let's forget about the ROM angle....

MAMEGEEK, you mentioned that in your tests no one touched the trackball and spinner games. That makes sense since it's a pretty small percentage of games that use those. Certainly it would make sense to offer a cheaper cab without those controls. THe only game I'd say people would want and remember that use those controls are Centpede and Arkanoid.

Other than that, it's really hard to say what you should or shouldn't offfer on your cabs, because there are a few different demographics... The over-40 crowd will fondly remember the classics from 1983 and earlier. 30-40 crowd will remeber those and some of the 80's side-scrollers, etc. Then the under 30 crowd are likely to be the Neo Geo and fighter fans.

The reason I mention those 3 example demographics is that the games they like will affect what controls you want to include, and even the control layout. Also if you are including PCs it affects the speed of PC you need to run the games they like. THe newer the game, the more powerful PC you need.