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Is there a living to be made from arcade cabs?

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saint:

Get this straight - this web site is paid for by me, out of my personal pocket. I get advertising dollars from Google Adsense, and from mamemarquees.com, and once in a blue moon an affiliate sale from Amazon, X-Arcades, and mameroom. There are zero rom advertisements allowed here. In fact, I cut my own pocketbook by specifically banning ROM vendors from my Google ads, which limits the amount of ads I get from Google. This is not a MAME site. This is an arcade control site. There are hundreds and hundreds of games you can play with arcade controls that do not involve MAME or emulation, or involve legally purchased emulation. Yes, you can be a pirate if you want, but to claim that anyone involved in this hobby must be a pirate is blowing smoke out your keester. You're just plain wrong.

I bought every single ROM that starroms had legally available for purchase when they were in existance, including ROMs for games I physically own. I have purchased every arcade compilation available for the PC that I'm aware of. The most often used games on the Project Arcade cabinet are "Best Friends" from http://www.retro64.com/, and Jazz Jackrabbit 2 from Epic ... yes, both purchased. My kids love them.

Be a pirate if you wish, but don't paint everyone with your paintbrush, it doesn't wash.

--- saint



--- Quote from: jimmy_bored on September 18, 2006, 09:42:02 pm ---
--- Quote from: spacies on September 18, 2006, 09:34:47 pm ---

Also,

Thanks for the PMs and emails asking where to buy the multi-game PCBs from.
You guys really crack me up.

Why don't you ask on the boards?

 :cheers:

--- End quote ---

LMFAO... My point exactly....

If you think this website is paid for by non-grey market companies(e.g. boiler rooms walking the legal line) you are living in a fantasy land.  Everything here is paid for by one of these companies.

Welcome to pirate land... Ahoyyy.... mates




--- End quote ---


saint:

By the way (and perhaps this has already been addressed, if so I'll nuke my reply when I find it) -- it's entirely possible that it *is* less legal to sell than to possess illegal material. I believe in the US that possession of pot, for instance, carries a lesser penalty than possession with an intent to sell. It wouldn't surprise me if such variations existed for copyrighted material as well. I am, however, talking out of my hat on this one as this is purely conjecture.  "I gave them away instead of selling them" wouldn't fly worth a flip in court though in either case I'm sure.

The above isn't an attempt at moral persuasion one way or another -- that's between you, your conscience, and God -- it's just a statement that I would think long and hard before engaging in a venture that included transfer of copyrighted material you don't have the rights to distribute. Is the money worth the risk to your house, possessions, and liberty?  You won't think so if someone takes you to court. Even if you avoid severe penalty, you'll pay a fortune in court costs, lawyer costs, and the toll on your psyche and wits. You'll make at least as much money at a boring 9-5 job without all that.

Now, making these things for fun and profit without venturing into illegal material?  Several vendors have done so, some with more success than others. I suspect it's a saturated market unless you can find a way to undercut costs significantly without compromising quality -- so far that's proven to be the toughest nut to crack. 

--- saint


--- Quote from: spacies on September 18, 2006, 12:43:36 am ---
Selling a machine with roms is no more or less legal than you having them yourself. Do you think you above the law by having them privately and think nobody will find out? Dude, you are on here saying you have a MAME machine, with roms, and your ISP address is accessible. Doh!

However, I didn't sell my machines with roms anyway. I am not stupid. I am in businees and you need to protect yourself every way you can.  I just 'gave' them away on DVD instead! LOL

The whole rom issue is completly overated IMO. If the owners of the 'protected' rom images were that concerned then they would shut down sites which contain roms for FREE download and also prosecute rom burners who have paypal accounts which contain their details.  Have you ever heard of anyone that has been charged with a rom 'offence'? I haven't.

Anyway, I don't build MAME machines anymore. Too much hassles.
How legal are the multi boards that are around these days that use a cut down version of MAME? Not very right? What about Clay and his multi boards or Arcadeshop? Or the 100, 200, 400, 800 in 1 boards from China which clearly show a hard drive sitting on top! If you ghost that hard drive you will even see ArcadeOS running on it!

Who cares, they should be happy we still play these games and think of how many businesses wouldn't be operating or would take a serious decline in income if we didn't have access to roms. Sh*tloads!

Website owners
Artwork suppliers
Cabinet builders
Electronics suppliers
Joystick/button suppliers
Ultimarc
Keywhiz
T-molding
Me!!!

Dont get to tied up in the legality of roms mate. Lets just be thankful to the MAME team and all the rom dumpers and 100s of others who have contributed to keeping these old games we love alive.

 I  :notworthy: to them all and so should every member on this forum and 1000s of others who are re-living their mis-spent youth.  :cheers:





--- End quote ---


saint:

Bah ... message removed as I totally missed the switch to discussing all-in-one boards and it doesn't apply.

saint:

If anyone has seen a rom seller advertised on this site's Google ads, please let me know so I can add them to the ban list.  As far as I know there haven't been any slipping through for many many months, and they get banned as quickly as I'm made aware of them.

--- saint



--- Quote from: jimmy_bored on September 18, 2006, 10:28:44 pm ---
--- Quote from: CheffoJeffo on September 18, 2006, 10:22:20 pm ---
--- Quote from: spacies on September 18, 2006, 09:34:47 pm ---Thanks for the PMs and emails asking where to buy the multi-game PCBs from.
You guys really crack me up.

Why don't you ask on the boards?

--- End quote ---

I would presume because you have already documented where the ROMs are on these boards and discussing how to get ROMs is against the rules.

Cheers

--- End quote ---

LMFAO...

Where have you been???  Watch the google ads and you'll see <<<reference removed by saint -- don't link to rom sellers please>>> advertised... Who needs a search when its at the top of the page...

Lets not feed the  :tool:.



--- End quote ---


quarterback:


--- Quote from: spacies on September 18, 2006, 09:30:34 pm ---
--- Quote from: quarterback on September 17, 2006, 04:23:20 am ---
--- Quote from: sealslayer on September 17, 2006, 03:02:19 am ---Does anyone on here actually do this as a full time job?
I'm having so much fun making my cab I was wondering if it is possible to sell cabs if they are built to a really high standard, seems like the perfect job to me  ;D

--- End quote ---

Well, I guess I should defer to Night Walker's answer since he does this and I don't.... but I'd still say the answer is "no".

Search around, you're certainly not the first person to wonder and not the first to ask.   My response is that there already are already people who have established businesses doing what you're asking about but I'm not sure any of them are rolling in the dough.   It's a niche market.   The advice in the past has been something to the effect of:

 "Give it a shot.  Try selling some to your friends, neighbors, co-workers but you'll probably find that the market is small"
"You'll find that people don't want to pay what it costs to make one-off cabs (and for your labor)."
"You'll find That shipping cabs is expensive, and that legally selling arcade cabinets without MAME and ROMS installed, means that the end-user needs some MAME knowledge, in which case, it's likely they'll build their own cab"
"You'll find that you become a computer tech who has to troubleshoot their machines for them when something doesn't work" etc

Again, there just aren't that many people buying these things and most of those who might buy them are going to want them to be a turn-key gaming solution. 

If it's fun for you, then go for it.  Give it a run and see what happens.  But you should think about how many hours you've spent on your cab?  What hourly-wage would you need to do this for a living?  Then add that up with all the supplies and come up with a total.   Now shop that price around and see what you can do.  If you've got some rich friends, you could be in business, but one reason that this community exists is because we're not willing to spend $3,000+ to play 20-games on an Ultracade machine.    And, outside of people in this BYOAC community, I know exactly ZERO with arcade games in their homes.

My 2-cents

--- End quote ---

Geez, you change your tune quick mate.
--- End quote ---

My tune has not changed by one single note.   The fact you think it has changed just makes it even more obvious that you are either not reading or understanding the words I'm typing.    :banghead:


This is saint's forum.  Whether you, I or anybody else agrees with saint's rules is irrelevant.  It his house, and his rules apply.

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