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Thinking of opening an arcade...

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katuuuz:

Hi everyone.

A friend and I are looking into opening a game room/arcade.  I've been looking online for information, and have already printed out a license application.  I figured this forum would be a great place to lay some groundwork in the brainstorming phase.  

I have a few questions pertaining to how things work exactly...

1.  I won't be renting arcade cabinets, I'll have outright bought them.  Do I still need to give a percentage of my profits from the cabinets to the copyright owners?  If so, is there any way to obtain copyrights or permission to use them and keep all the coinage?    

2.  I've built a MAME cabinet before, and it is still fully functional.  For something like this, would I have to be granted permission by every game hosted on the machine to charge patrons to use it?

3.  I was thinking of setting up kiosks for systems like the NES, SNES, Genesis, and N64.  (Like the PS3 kiosk at Best Buy where users can play, but the system is under lock and key).  I would like to put a PC in each kiosk cabinet and emulate these systems.  Does the copyrights to these games hold true with the above?  

What I'm basically trying to say is ; is this doable, and is it going to cost me a bagillion dollars?

Thanks in advance for anyone with knowledge on the subject.


Turnarcades:

Good luck with the venture, I'm currently in talks about a very different arcade-orientated business but I can let you know what I've learned so far.

1. No, all profit will be yours. Buying and owning original machines gives you rights to use it, within the restrictions of your local laws. Not sure about the US, but in the UK these fall under the same licence as vending machines, which is why they can be sited in all kinds of locations. For low-win fruit machines and SWP machines you need a class 1 gaming licence, at around £2000 a year. For high-win machines you need the casino-level licence, which as I understand is well into 5 figures.

2. Forget MAME'd machines. There are way too many aspects that mean it cannot be used with commercial licences. Assuming you got permission from all involved (the OS designer, the FE designer, the MAME devs, plus of course the original game copyright owners), which is seriously doubtful, the licence fees for running games in this sense are astronomical, and you'd find local licences would not cover them anyway.

3. See above. No, no, no, no, no!

Give up now and save the headache.



versapak:


--- Quote from: katuuuz on November 15, 2009, 10:40:02 am ---Hi everyone.

A friend and I are looking into opening a game room/arcade.  I've been looking online for information, and have already printed out a license application.  I figured this forum would be a great place to lay some groundwork in the brainstorming phase.  

I have a few questions pertaining to how things work exactly...

1.  I won't be renting arcade cabinets, I'll have outright bought them.  Do I still need to give a percentage of my profits from the cabinets to the copyright owners?  If so, is there any way to obtain copyrights or permission to use them and keep all the coinage?    

2.  I've built a MAME cabinet before, and it is still fully functional.  For something like this, would I have to be granted permission by every game hosted on the machine to charge patrons to use it?

3.  I was thinking of setting up kiosks for systems like the NES, SNES, Genesis, and N64.  (Like the PS3 kiosk at Best Buy where users can play, but the system is under lock and key).  I would like to put a PC in each kiosk cabinet and emulate these systems.  Does the copyrights to these games hold true with the above?  

What I'm basically trying to say is ; is this doable, and is it going to cost me a bagillion dollars?

Thanks in advance for anyone with knowledge on the subject.


--- End quote ---


You won't get any permission or license to legally use any cabinets that run MAME or any console emulators, so that really isn't an issue of money at all.

As for legitimate machines and console kiosks...

I don't know, but I'm betting a lot of it depends on your own local region.




saint:

RE: MAME cabinet and/or emulation kiosks:

NO! NONONONONO! If you don't know why, you haven't done enough research to even contemplate opening an arcade. It is against the MAME license, and is illegal.

That said, if you're thinking of opening an arcade here is a list of threads you must read on the subject. Then, you'll likely want to find something smarter to do with your money, like burning it. It *is* possible to run such a business, but the days of mom n' pop arcade halls are dead. You need something bigger with something else to drive the business (bowling, restaurant, etc).

Read these:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=81552.0

Read this one three times:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=91583.msg961545#msg961545

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=88244.0

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=71083.0

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=25443.0

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=71148.0

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=43124.0

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=34200.0




--- Quote from: katuuuz on November 15, 2009, 10:40:02 am ---Hi everyone.

A friend and I are looking into opening a game room/arcade.  I've been looking online for information, and have already printed out a license application.  I figured this forum would be a great place to lay some groundwork in the brainstorming phase.  

I have a few questions pertaining to how things work exactly...

1.  I won't be renting arcade cabinets, I'll have outright bought them.  Do I still need to give a percentage of my profits from the cabinets to the copyright owners?  If so, is there any way to obtain copyrights or permission to use them and keep all the coinage?    

2.  I've built a MAME cabinet before, and it is still fully functional.  For something like this, would I have to be granted permission by every game hosted on the machine to charge patrons to use it?

3.  I was thinking of setting up kiosks for systems like the NES, SNES, Genesis, and N64.  (Like the PS3 kiosk at Best Buy where users can play, but the system is under lock and key).  I would like to put a PC in each kiosk cabinet and emulate these systems.  Does the copyrights to these games hold true with the above?  

What I'm basically trying to say is ; is this doable, and is it going to cost me a bagillion dollars?

Thanks in advance for anyone with knowledge on the subject.


--- End quote ---


CheffoJeffo:

What saint said.

There has also been an interesting series of articles in GameRoom Magazine recently about the demise of an arcade, as told by the owner. His story is much the same as others I have heard.

There have been a couple of initiatives lately that are progressing, but they are more geared towards the "hands-on museum" aspect and are being run by people who restore and repair their own games.

Don't underestimate the importance of machine maintenance and repair -- it can be technically demanding and costly if you can't do it yourself.

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