As Gamers, your thoughts on new arcade games.

[ArcadEd]

I've started talking with a lot of indie developers about the possiblity of creating new games that are geared toward the home arcade market.  I have a site up (www.aiabgames.com).  The store is currently offline as there is nothing to show.

The plan is to have these developers either make new games, or change their current games to standard mame key setup.  All that have shown interest have been giving a techincal sheet that lists all of the standard mame key inputs for the joysticks and buttons, along with starts and coin in buttons.

My question is, how many of you would be interested in purchasing new games for your home arcade if the price was right and the game was good?

I've kept this quiet for a while because I wanted to know if the indie development community would be interested in something like this and it turns out they are.  Except many think I am asking for these games specifically for my arcade boxes, which isn't the case.  I explained that there are thousands of people out there with home arcade setups that might be interested.  Plus other cabinet/control panel manufacturers that might be interested in selling or at least advertising the game.  Now I just want to know if there is much interest before I go ahead with this full steam.

Any thoughts?  Would you pay 10 or 20 dollars for a new arcade style game (I'm guessing 10 will be the standard price)?

Hmm, just realized maybe this should go into the software forum.  Please move if need be mods, sorry about that I wasn't thinking.

[davieboynj]

If you're talking about platypus, i'm in. 

It would be nice to have a good simple remake of star trigon as well.

[ArcadEd]

Yeah, my initial thought was these developers could probably knock out remakes in a month or two and sell.  Using another name and updated graphics of course .

It's all still kind of in the beginning stages, which is why I am curious.  At least this way if mr. fbi man comes to the house you can show him that you have the cabinet for these 5 new games you bought

[davieboynj]

bonus.  never even thought of using a cab legitimately..   

[MajorLag]

We need new lightgun games, pronto!

[ArcadEd]

We need new lightgun games, pronto!

I was just thinking about that when I was reading the light gun thread.  I wonder how hard it would be to program.  Then seem like more than basic 2d sprite games though, unless someone comes up with a unique use for the gun.  I'll mention it.

[JONTHEBOMB]

I think this is a great idea, indie developers can be very creative.  The price is right in my ballpark too.  Also, I think it would  be nice if a little demo was available for each game.

[MYX]

IMHO, for simple type arcade games, we sould not have to pay over 5-10$ for an arcade style game. Many new console system games with hours of content can be purchased for the $20 range. Plus when you consider you can get multi game pacs for that range (for arcade classics) it seems pushy to ask for 20 for a single game. I am not knocking the time and ability that it takes to produce an arcade game. I just feel that $20 is too much for any "arcade" game.

Now, with that all barfed out...
I would like to see more track ball games.

I think a great combo would be to be able to move a vehicle with a joystick and aim with a track ball. (you can use that one for free) Imagine a tank game -w- 2 joysticks same tank controls as batalzone. when you select a directoin it keeps going that direction, then you can aim your turret with your track ball. perhaps changable from 3d 1st person for driving then top down for aiming. (you can use that one for free just give me a credit for concept.)

If programmers are in the starting stages, they should consider the hardware that is out there and program towards it.  for example, when you get an extra person for passing 10,000 write code for a lighting event so it triggers the GGG LED Wiz to go nuts.

[babydickonboard]

i'm down for more light gun games...even if there simple (and fun) like police simulator and point blank.

[Tahnok]

Interesting idea. I have to agree though; you are going to be hard pressed to get $20 a game. I suggest packs of maybe 3 or 4 smaller games that you could sell for $15 to $20.

Also, what kind of compatibility are you planning for these games? I'm guessing they will be using DirectX. The problem with that though is that Mame is not windows specific, and part of the already small market won't be able to run windows only games. Not only that, but some cabinet PCs are old low spec rigs that have a hard time running newer Mame games; they'll never be able to run a game made out of a 3D graphics package.

[ArcadEd]

Yeah, as far as specs go, it was the reason for my recent post asking what kind of specs people have in their cabinets.  There as nothing under a 1ghz.  Most of the 2d games I see by small dev houses range in the 500-600mhz range for requirements.

There really isn't a way to get around the windows thing.  We ask them to develop for DOS or Linux because the market is so small.  What I am hoping they do is develop the game for PC, and then port it over to the home arcade setup.  That would be ideal.

I'm glad to see there is some interest in this.

MYX-  I know of one game in development right now that has robotron type gameplay, but uses the trackball and joystick as one of the controller configs.  I won't say which one, as I'm not sure the author wants to reveal that yet .

Keep the comments coming, lots of knowledge here .

[RayB]

Small niche market, and to top it off they are saying they wouldn't pay $20. Yet $20 seems to be the magic number that works for the casual games market.

Profitability aside, we HAVE seen people set up non-arcade emulators in their cabs. We HAVE seen people try and get Flash games working on their cabs (such as the "New Metal Slug" Flash game). So yes there's some demand. Would they pay and how much? So far it sounds like they want bargains.

Personally, I'd love some modern looking games but that took advantage of specialized controls, like a spinner, or two joysticks. I'd love to have a spinner-compatible Zuma or TumbleBugs.

But then the question of how much. I wouldn't pay $20 just to have one of those games on my MAME cab. Nope.

[ArcadEd]

Small niche market, and to top it off they are saying they wouldn't pay $20. Yet $20 seems to be the magic number that works for the casual games market.

Profitability aside, we HAVE seen people set up non-arcade emulators in their cabs. We HAVE seen people try and get Flash games working on their cabs (such as the "New Metal Slug" Flash game). So yes there's some demand. Would they pay and how much? So far it sounds like they want bargains.

Personally, I'd love some modern looking games but that took advantage of specialized controls, like a spinner, or two joysticks. I'd love to have a spinner-compatible Zuma or TumbleBugs.

But then the question of how much. I wouldn't pay $20 just to have one of those games on my MAME cab. Nope.

Yeah, that is kind of sense I'm getting.  Which I think is ok.  I don't think I would pay 20 dollars either unless it's an awesome game.  Like a Street Fighter remake with online play .

I like the gamepak idea.  Maybe I'll that past some developers that have more than one game to offer. 

[tetsu96]

Small niche market, and to top it off they are saying they wouldn't pay $20. Yet $20 seems to be the magic number that works for the casual games market.

Profitability aside, we HAVE seen people set up non-arcade emulators in their cabs. We HAVE seen people try and get Flash games working on their cabs (such as the "New Metal Slug" Flash game). So yes there's some demand. Would they pay and how much? So far it sounds like they want bargains.

Personally, I'd love some modern looking games but that took advantage of specialized controls, like a spinner, or two joysticks. I'd love to have a spinner-compatible Zuma or TumbleBugs.

But then the question of how much. I wouldn't pay $20 just to have one of those games on my MAME cab. Nope.

Yeah, that is kind of sense I'm getting.  Which I think is ok.  I don't think I would pay 20 dollars either unless it's an awesome game.  Like a Street Fighter remake with online play .

I like the gamepak idea.  Maybe I'll that past some developers that have more than one game to offer. 

Isn't Flexarcade already doing something along these same lines?  I seem to remember the "content delivery network" being one of their things, and them courting developers for arcade oriented developers.  In fact, reflexive and the richochet games are already on board.

If anyone has a line on their pricing, bring it to this thread.  I'm guessing at least $50-$100 per title as the games are meant for commercial arcade use, but I don't know this.

Probably going to get the developers make their games "cabinet compatible" would be better for their intended audiences but I wonder if the interest would be high enough for them to see it through - even for a community as great as this one.

Not to mention that the quality among developers varies and not even all "professional" games by indies have a high level of consistency and polish...  But even as a pessimist I'd love to see something like this gain traction.  Especially for some shooters for vertical monitors (why do so many vertical jap shooters have no option for monitor rotation?  *sigh*).

[ArcadEd]

Interesting, I had never heard of Flexarcade until right now.  My future plan were considering coinop with these games, but that was way off and glad to see someone else had the same vision.

[Gatt]

I'd support it.

I'm in the process of starting a video game studio,  and one of the things I've considered is similiar to this one.

Heck,  anything that creates more games is a good thing IMO.

[ArcadEd]

I mentioned this thread in my ongoing thread at indiegamer.com.

Hopefully we can get some input from the actual developers as well.  Would be nice to have a big round table discussion about this .

[Andy_WildSnake]

Hi everyone!

Well. Look guys. The problem of working with such peoples as you are that you all are too creative. What ever we - developers - would propose you - you always would be too picky to it. Not because the products are so bad but because you are pretty OKi with your current passion - creating of that boxes, playing huge amount of old and good games on them ( for FREE! ).

To not start long discussion there is the idea. You are welcome to order all games from our website: www.wildsnake.com in the nearest month with 50% discount. This discount code was made specifically for your forum - no one else gets such low price from us. That would help me to track your orders and exclude all that talks about high price. So when you place the order please use this discount code:
WILD-4VYM-ARCC

My bet that we wouldn't get any single sale from you - backward you will start shaming me here.
But you are welcome to show me how I'm wrong. 

Would you find something wrong in software from your hardware requirement please drop me a line though any email at our website. Would it be enough requests sure thing we will fix the problem for you.

PS That's Ed. I believe such results would be interesting for you as well. So I promise to share them with you.

Thanks,

Andy
WildSnake Software
www.wildsnake.com

[mairsil]

i'm down for more light gun games...even if there simple (and fun) like police simulator and point blank.

Give me about a year 

Seriously though, I will be doing my dissertation on a topic related to lightguns (I guess that I will be the first person to actually buy one of those r0r3 boards) which will require me to build a few custom lightgun based games. I could be persuaded to sell them to the public when they are done. 

[Tahnok]

My bet that we wouldn't get any single sale from you - backward you will start shaming me here.
But you are welcome to show me how I'm wrong. 

Would you find something wrong in software from your hardware requirement please drop me a line though any email at our website. Would it be enough requests sure thing we will fix the problem for you.

You are probably right. Shareware tends to cater to the casual, impulse, gamer. We are on the exact opposite side of the spectrum here. I know that I would never personally buy a shareware game.

I did find the one game I tried interesting though. It looked like it would work well with either a paddle or spinner. Also, it's a pro that it's made in Java, since that solves the compatibility problems mentioned earlier.

It seems that just about the only way you may be able to move games around here is to cater to the even smaller niche market of lightgun games. But that's a risky proposition at best.

[ArcadEd]

Thanks Andy, you have some nice looking games on your site.

You might want to let people know what the control setup is like for the games so they if they are useable on their cabs or not.

[MYX]

Hey one more thing to mention. If you are asking this group, and you are asking folks who are playing on cabs with actual arcade monitors, and this is the market that you are writing for, please remember to program for screen resolutions appropriate to arcade monitors. (15k)

And to Andy Wildsnake, I could be out of line for saying this, but that was a little abrupt for a first post. Yes we are picky people. We are the nerds that make the world a better place. We have many developers in both software and hardware on this board and our "picky"ness is what has pushed them to make outstanding products. It is in our blood. Many of us come from technical backgrounds and are problem solvers by nature. This said, we are also problem causers as we will find the cracks and have you, the developers, fill them in. I don't know if you are new here or if you have been here and never bothered to post a thought, but your post felt a little backhanded and it is not appreciated. Many of us are looking for new content. there are posts all the time about newly found games. Many of us report em and review them. Many of us have, yes, actually purchased them. The people who have spent a heck of a lot of money (sometimes in the thousands of dollars) to build a cabinet do want to play the classics. The fact that they are "free" is a side effect of the age of the game. Many of us actually purchased ROMs legally from StarRoms. And would purchase more if the Game companies would get wise that there is a market here. We are always looking for new stuff. But yes we also want to not have to pay another arm and a leg to get a new game. I noticed that you have free demos on your site, this is a good thing as there is nothing worse than getting burned with a bad game. I hate paying a lot of money for a game that sux. Worse is the fact that with software, even if the game sux, you can not get your money back. Your stuck. This is why many folks are hesitant to buy anything. So forgive us for being picky, if you want opinions, great we'll give them and we will not sugar coat them. We will find the holes and you will have a better game because of it.

[tetsu96]

Hey one more thing to mention. If you are asking this group, and you are asking folks who are playing on cabs with actual arcade monitors, and this is the market that you are writing for, please remember to program for screen resolutions appropriate to arcade monitors. (15k)

See?  Right there is a split in the community - I'd guess at least 1/3 of the gamers here are using either PC or Tri Sync monitors and we'd want to run in high res (High being either 640x480 or 800x600, not enough Billlabs to think about 1024 yet).  I don't know how much effort programming the games to run @ 15KHz would be, but not everyone here would want that.  If it's an option, great - if not...  *shrugs*

And then how many of us would rather play on vertical vs horizontal monitors?  Or are we thinking of letterboxing one mode?  That's not even mentioning Windows vs DOS vs Linux -  there's truly that many different configurations they'd have to account for.

And to Andy Wildsnake, I could be out of line for saying this, but that was a little abrupt for a first post. Yes we are picky people. We are the nerds that make the world a better place. We have many developers in both software and hardware on this board and our "picky"ness is what has pushed them to make outstanding products. It is in our blood. Many of us come from technical backgrounds and are problem solvers by nature. This said, we are also problem causers as we will find the cracks and have you, the developers, fill them in. I don't know if you are new here or if you have been here and never bothered to post a thought, but your post felt a little backhanded and it is not appreciated. Many of us are looking for new content. there are posts all the time about newly found games. Many of us report em and review them. Many of us have, yes, actually purchased them. The people who have spent a heck of a lot of money (sometimes in the thousands of dollars) to build a cabinet do want to play the classics. The fact that they are "free" is a side effect of the age of the game. Many of us actually purchased ROMs legally from StarRoms. And would purchase more if the Game companies would get wise that there is a market here. We are always looking for new stuff. But yes we also want to not have to pay another arm and a leg to get a new game. I noticed that you have free demos on your site, this is a good thing as there is nothing worse than getting burned with a bad game. I hate paying a lot of money for a game that sux. Worse is the fact that with software, even if the game sux, you can not get your money back. Your stuck. This is why many folks are hesitant to buy anything. So forgive us for being picky, if you want opinions, great we'll give them and we will not sugar coat them. We will find the holes and you will have a better game because of it.

I bet Andy's a lot more right than some of the hopefuls want to admit.  Did YOU get any games from StarRoms?  I'd give you a pat on the back if you said yes, but I'll go on a limb and assume not since they're out of business.  I'll bet that the older people here do purchase some of their games (and definately own ports of some if not many games they have), but not nearly as much so as the community would make it out to be.

Don't misunderstand me - I'd love to see more arcade-ish games come out that are geared to this.  Hell, if a content delivery system was in place (I'm thinking similar to xbox live, not just a web site) and there was enough content preloaded onto cabs which are sold, I'd see this as even being possible.  Licensed games would go a long way to mainstream / legitimize the cab scene as a whole since the "MAME" controls configuration would be a standard going further than just an emulator with unlicensed roms.

But at the end of the day - we're cheap, we're pains in the ass, and I don't think there's enough of us to warrant a developers full attention for such a low price point.

[ArcadEd]

I had considered an Xbox LIve type setup as well.  I just wasn't sure how manypeople actually have their cabs online, so I wanted to make an alternate place to get games.

[MYX]

See?  Right there is a split in the community - I'd guess at least 1/3 of the gamers here are using either PC or Tri Sync monitors and we'd want to run in high res (High being either 640x480 or 800x600, not enough Billlabs to think about 1024 yet).  I don't know how much effort programming the games to run @ 15KHz would be, but not everyone here would want that.  If it's an option, great - if not...  *shrugs*

And then how many of us would rather play on vertical vs horizontal monitors?  Or are we thinking of letterboxing one mode?  That's not even mentioning Windows vs DOS vs Linux -  there's truly that many different configurations they'd have to account for.

But this is a Build your own ARCADE forum. Yes many of us are using computer monitors. I myself have chosen to make the leap and play on the type of monitor that the games were designed to be played on. If you want to be a computer gamer, then be one. If you want to be an arcade player then be that. Do not come to this site to put forth ideas for the desktop gamer. All I was doing was saying that if you are asking a group of people that ARE building arcade cabs WITH arcade monitors, please consider it as an option that we could use.

I bet Andy's a lot more right than some of the hopefuls want to admit.  Did YOU get any games from StarRoms?  I'd give you a pat on the back if you said yes, but I'll go on a limb and assume not since they're out of business.  I'll bet that the older people here do purchase some of their games (and definately own ports of some if not many games they have), but not nearly as much so as the community would make it out to be.

Don't misunderstand me - I'd love to see more arcade-ish games come out that are geared to this.  Hell, if a content delivery system was in place (I'm thinking similar to xbox live, not just a web site) and there was enough content preloaded onto cabs which are sold, I'd see this as even being possible.  Licensed games would go a long way to mainstream / legitimize the cab scene as a whole since the "MAME" controls configuration would be a standard going further than just an emulator with unlicensed roms.

I have purchased several games (though not all). I was limited to strictly Atari. Again, if the manufacturers of these games would wise up, there would be another source of $$$.

But at the end of the day - we're cheap, we're pains in the ass

True

I don't think there's enough of us to warrant a developers full attention for such a low price point.

Dude, I am not asking for HALO. I am asking for the simplicity of the 80's games with better sound and graphics. Developers have much better tools to work with than the folks that were developing in the 80's too.

[psychopanda]

I'd be interested in 'game packs'. Four classic arcade style games for $10-20. The cheaper the price, the more enticing it will be.

I love games like Robotron, Xenophobe, etc. I think there is room for alot more games in that same style. Alot of the games were space-shooters, but I could see some Fantasy (Babarians, Knights, etc.), Sci-Fi platforms and other cool games being developed. I also like the idea others have mentioned about incorporating more of the arcade controls like trackballs and spinners. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

[Minwah]

I think games for this market to to have two specific (very important) things:

Redefinable controls, including to quit the game, and the option to use joystick/mouse inputs,
User definable screen mode (for the whole app, not just in-game).

The ability to not have a menu and just have a title screen/attract mode would be nice too...as would the option for credits.

This is possibly the kindof picky that Andy_Wildsnake is referring to, and I can sympothise with him to some extent.  However redefinable inputs and screen mode are not difficult things to implement, in fact quite the opposite...which is why it really disappoints me when I see these things missing from games (retail as well as free/shareware).

[ArcadEd]

Well I'll give you all a run down of the Technical Sheet that is available to the developers.

:
Resolution: 640x480 for the best compatibility for all users

Controls.
System uses a keyboard to arcade controls interface.  This interface mimics keyboard presses with a much higher throughput.

Player 1:
   Joystick
o   Up =       Arrow Key Up
o   Down =       Arrow Key Down
o   Left =       Arrow Key Left
o   Right =    Arrow Key Right
 .
o   Buttons
o   Button 1 =     Left Control
o   Button 2 =    Left Alt
o   Button 3 =     Space
o   Button 4 =     Left Shift
o   Button 5 =    Z
o   Button 6 =     X
o   Coin In =     5 (Keyboard 5, not Numpad)
o   Start =     1 (Keyboard 1, not Numpad)

Player 2:
o   Joystick
o   Up =        R
o   Down =     F
o   Left =        D
o   Right =     G
.
o   Buttons
o   Button 1 =    A
o   Button 2 =     S
o   Button 3 =    Q
o   Button 4 =     W
o   Button 5 =    I
o   Button 6 =    K
o   Coin In =    6 (Keyboard 6, not Numpad)
o   Start =       2 (Keyboard 2, not Numpad)

ESC is used to exit games.

Trackball:
o   3

[RayB]

Andy_WildSnake: Well that was a nice advertisement...

I downloaded two games. I'll post what I think in the Software Forum.

I downloaded a pinball game and an arkanoid clone. I haven't tred them yet, but let me tell you what 3 factors (well 4 really) would define whether you get sales off members here:

1. IS IT FUN?
2. Can the keys be reconfigured?
3. Is it full-screen and can it support 640x480?*
4. Is the price right for the "value" in return?

*For those of us with ArcadeVGA: Games don't need to support native 15k resolutions. AVGA displays 640x480 interlaced quite nicely on a standard res arcade monitor.

[Andy_WildSnake]

This is not fair RayB!

I'm here to help Ed with his idea we've discussed in another forum.
I spend my personal time of this because arcade and pinball my always love.
Would I like to get some additional promotion I'd choose another forum to make it.
I'm here to discuss the issue with professionals ( in a little bit another area of Entertainment business but anyway)

As for customizable controls - Well. The guy - whom I respect a lot - says that we are pretty OKi with our titles at least on some cabinets: http://www.retroblast.com/reviews/wild-christmas.html
Even if there is some problems in some games we haven't ever got any complain on this. And please note we need them at least a hundred before we will consider this as the valuable interest and efforts to spend.

REM: The general patern of visits from this forum to our website so far is pretty simple - entered, clicked two pages, gone away. No even any single game download - no any checks for another games. Said you guys - you are too creative for the buyers.

With all my respect ( Seriously!!! )

Andy
WildSnake Software
www.wildsnake.com

[RayB]

Sorry, maybe your english gives the wrong impression. (It's not your first language, is it?)

I forgot to mention another criteria: Any game that has spinner support should have adjustable "sensitivity". That's very important for compatibility with a wide variety of spinners and trackballs.

PS: Andy, you should use normal screen shots next to your games in the categories list. In puzzles, you made the shots look like jigsaw puzzles pieces and at a glance what can happen is customers will assume it's a jigsaw puzzle game and just ignore it if they aren't into jigsaw puzzles.

[JoyMonkey]

How about a 'Light Gun Game Construction Kit' sort-of application that allows people to create their own lightgun games from their own video files ?

You could shoot/edit your own Mad Dog style video, then import it into the app, set some hot-spot locations using some sort of grid and timeline, then use a similar app to run it. Sounds like a simple enough kind of program for those competent programmers out there. It's more like a video sequencing program than anything I guess.

Perhaps there could be an advanced version that allows sprite overlays?

Just thinking out loud here...

[AtomSmasher]

REM: The general patern of visits from this forum to our website so far is pretty simple - entered, clicked two pages, gone away. No even any single game download - no any checks for another games. Said you guys - you are too creative for the buyers.

By not even a single game download? do you mean full game or demo download?  Because earlier this morning (before your post) I browsed through about 4 or 5 of your games and downloaded the demo for Invasion 2 Pinball.  I'm always looking for a new, good pinball game.  I was only able to play for about 10 minutes before I had to go to work, but I intend to try it out a bit more later tonight.  Keys are customizable in this game and I think game resolution can be set to 640x480, except instead of putting exact numbers in the options it says "resolution: low, medium, high."  The game itself is kind of like arkanoid pinball, which is kind of a cool idea.  The main thing that bugged me with it initially is that you only start with one table (which is actually an empty table) and you have to beat each table to unlock the next one.  Maybe thats just in the demo, but only getting one table at a time is not a good thing for a pinball game IMO.  The game does have potential to be worth buying if the other tables are any good, but I haven't had time to beat the first one yet so I don't know.

[Andy_WildSnake]

You are pretty correct RayB. English isn't my first language.
I'm just wondering how else should I read this.
Andy_WildSnake: Well that was a nice advertisement...
And as I said I'm not focused on advertising here in these forums.
Thanks for the feedback on puzzle icons!

Thanks for good words about the game Smasher!
General pattern - means for me most of the visitors. Not all of them.
I'm glad we've got at least some downloads. This promisses that we will get most productive discussion after all.
About one table - oh, that depends how you count. This is not the standard pinball - you've tried it so you know for sure. So that more than hundreds levels in the full version - you are welcome to call them as different table layouts if you like.
REM: Fun game really. We can't stop playing it here. Stupids we are - we just like our own creations too much. But such creations as all of our INVASION series and Zombieball return pretty good money for our efforts as well. That's really why I suppose this experiment so fun. I just like to compare.

[psychopanda]

The game should not have any options menus.  It should simply launch to the title screen where the user can then insert coins and press start.

I'm all for going directly to 'start', but I would like the ability to escape to an options/configuration menu. Alot of people will prefer different keyboard and display configurations. It would be nice to be able to set those things.

Wild Snake - it's likely alot of people are browsing your website from work and won't download till they get home.

[Andy_WildSnake]

"Wild Snake - it's likely alot of people are browsing your website from work and won't download till they get home. "

Ah, I see.

REM: Andy please. WildSnake is the name of the company. Simple Andy username was busy so...

[MYX]

"Wild Snake - it's likely alot of people are browsing your website from work and won't download till they get home. "

that is my situation.

[romperwomb]

Yeah, that is kind of sense I'm getting.  Which I think is ok.  I don't think I would pay 20 dollars either unless it's an awesome game.  Like a Street Fighter remake with online play Smiley.

Not a "remake" - more like a mash-up, but I recently came accross this: http://www.streetfighteronline.com/

I just recently got my cab on-line and plan to try it out. 

[oNyx]

[...]

I don't think there's enough of us to warrant a developers full attention for such a low price point.

Dude, I am not asking for HALO. I am asking for the simplicity of the 80's games with better sound and graphics. Developers have much better tools to work with than the folks that were developing in the 80's too.

Its true that its nowadays easier then ever to create a game. You can use a nice managed language (instead of asm) and media wise there are almost no restrictions.

However, the problem is that you dont have a big team (often its only a single person who does everything) and that the budget is also often very low or non existant. Doing one of those AAA games you can find in the bargain bin would take a single person over hundret years (fulltime). There are also lots of unspectacular ones which would take over 400 years. Like that dull F1 racing game from 2000.

All those gains get pushed back a little tho. Like you end up writing a way more complex program just because it became so easy and you also spend more time on the graphics, because there are actually some details. Or music... now you really need some and sound effects are supposed to sound like something real.

Well, thats how it is. Time is the limiting factor and usually you cant afford spending more than 1-9 months on a project.

[Kremmit]

Jumping back to the original topic, I'd personally be most likely to cough up actual cash money for games that make use of the less common controls- Steering Wheels, Trackballs, Spinners, Analog Joysticks,  Flight Yokes, Lightguns, etc.  The reason being, there are just two many joystick and button games already available for free, legalities aside. 

But I'd seriously consider paying for a good game I could play with a flight yoke, or a spinner.  Or even crazy stuff like a spinner in one hand, and a joystick in the other (try Aztarac!).  Or whatever, the point is, I would pay money for something that I don't already have too many of.  Joystick games, I've got too many of.

This isn't as hard to implement as one might think, either.  360 degree wheel, spinner, and trackball games all just need mouse control enabled.  Analog joystick, 49-way, and Flight Yoke games all just need to make use of the analog controls on a PC gamepad or joystick.  Games using these controls can also have digital inputs enabled, so that they're still saleable to joystick & button gamers,  they just need to make use of the better controllers when available. 

Now, I would consider paying for a joystick & button game, if somebody comes up with something truly original.  But lately, it seems like shareware makers mostly just do the same game styles over and over again.  I just can't see paying $10-$20 for a game where my airplane/spaceship shoots up wave after wave of enemies while the background terrain scrolls under me, you know?  Ditto for a game where shapes/colors drop from the sky and I have to try to stack/match them up.  There's just too many of those out there already, why should I pay for more?  Come up with something I haven't seen before, and you've got my attention.

I don't think there's enough of us to warrant a developers full attention for such a low price point.

There don't have to be enough of us.  It would be insane to create games from whole cloth just for emulation cab owners, for sure.  But all developers need to do is take us into account when designing the games they release for all the other PC gamers,  in order to add us to their potential customer base.  All the developers need to do is make sure their game's controls *can* be set to MAME defaults, and that all menus, title screens, etc. can be dealt with using the basic controls found on an emulation cab, and allow a 640x480 (or lower) video mode.  They can do more, (like a mode that uses credits, bypasses the menus, etc., and making use of analog and/or mouse input would be a big plus) but that's all it takes to add our community to the list of potential customers.  As to the price point, it's up to them whether they wish to sell their product at that price, and I doubt that decision will be made on the basis of whether the games are made cab-compatible.