Author Topic: starting a business selling cabs with games (Read 2687 times)

BeachRunnerJoe · « **on:** February 23, 2009, 11:57:58 pm »

I apologize in advance if this is the wrong forum or if this question has been exhausted many times over, but I did a search and I got way too many results to find what I was looking for. I probably just don't know the proper terminology to properly find what I'm searching for.

I've come up with a great design for a cab (inspired by the many genius cab builders on this forum) and would like to build and sell it, but it's obviously only as good as the games you can play on it. I'd like to include about 100 or so of the favorites and classics, like galaga, millipede, street fighter, mortal kombat, etc., and I have no clue how to go about legally obtaining and distributing these games with my cabinet. Can anybody point me in a direction where I can find more information about this process?

Thanks so much in advance for all your help!

surface tension · « **Reply #1 on:** February 24, 2009, 03:06:13 am »

Your only realistic option is bundling with retail packs. The only place selling licensed ROMS to run on MAME was StarRoms, and they stopped trading a couple of years back. They were also Atari only.

BeachRunnerJoe · « **Reply #2 on:** February 24, 2009, 04:39:13 pm »

thanks for your help!

I did a search for retail packs and couldn't find anything. What are these retail packs? Are they CDs with MAME roms? Where can I find them?

Thanks again,
Joe

HaRuMaN · « **Reply #3 on:** February 24, 2009, 04:46:53 pm »

Quote from: BeachRunnerJoe on February 24, 2009, 04:39:13 pm

Are they CDs with MAME roms? Where can I find them?

Nope. That is not legal.

BobA · « **Reply #4 on:** February 24, 2009, 04:53:18 pm »

Try google for Namco, or Atari, or Midway or Capcom arcade collections for the PC. You may not be ready to start selling cabs with games if you do not know what collections of games are available for your cabs.

BeachRunnerJoe · « **Reply #5 on:** February 24, 2009, 05:44:49 pm »

Quote

Try google for Namco, or Atari, or Midway or Capcom arcade collections for the PC. You may not be ready to start selling cabs with games if you do not know what collections of games are available for your cabs.

Keen observation! Why do you think I'm asking?

Thanks for the tip!

anormalgeek · « **Reply #6 on:** February 24, 2009, 05:57:23 pm »

They mean something like this:

http://www.ebgames.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=43669

Each of the major publishers (capcom, atari, etc.) generally sells some game collections like this. Also you can't sell MAME itself even though it is a free program. Its part of the license.

Blanka · « **Reply #7 on:** February 24, 2009, 06:06:33 pm »

Yeah, Mame has a stinking license. It's some weird self-made crappy legal document. Not GNU, Apache, Mozilla or something general.
Don't know how some of the multi-pack makers did it, but they used mame-code as well.
Let's hope Nicola Salmoria will see the light sometime and publish the stuff GNU or so.

Timstuff · « **Reply #8 on:** February 24, 2009, 06:07:08 pm »

Officially licensed Arcade anthology CDs are your best bet, since I'm not aware of any legal alternatives. Also, the PC version of Street Fighter 4 is coming out soon.

Jack Burton · « **Reply #9 on:** February 24, 2009, 06:53:23 pm »

To give the greatest selection of games I would recommend installing a Playstation 2 into your cabs. There were many releases of 90's arcade games and compilations of 80's arcade games for the PSX and PS2 platforms.

Also the easiest for the consumer to use.

RayB · « **Reply #10 on:** February 24, 2009, 07:15:23 pm »

Another caveat: Just because you can buy a collection of games does not mean you get the legal right to re-sell it; Though you could just give them away for free with purchase.

(Tried contacting the rights owners to secure licenses?)

Paul Olson · « **Reply #11 on:** February 24, 2009, 08:48:44 pm »

Quote from: Blanka on February 24, 2009, 06:06:33 pm

Yeah, Mame has a stinking license. It's some weird self-made crappy legal document. Not GNU, Apache, Mozilla or something general.
Don't know how some of the multi-pack makers did it, but they used mame-code as well.
Let's hope Nicola Salmoria will see the light sometime and publish the stuff GNU or so.

I don't know how that would be seeing the light from his perspective. His license is intended to keep people from doing things with his software that he doesn't want them to do. I can't see how one of the other licenses would make that better. I know a lot of people here want to make money off MAME, but wanting it doesn't make it an entitlement. MAME is free to use, and you are allowed to customize it however you want, as long as you don't release any changes that are against the license. That seems like a pretty generous license to me.

Turnarcades · « **Reply #12 on:** February 24, 2009, 09:35:38 pm »

Quote

You may not be ready to start selling cabs with games if you do not know what collections of games are available for your cabs.

Ditto. If you're one of the many people who've contacted me by e-mail asking for business tips, don't say you weren't told. More power to anyone who creates a small business out of this hobby (see guys like st, andy, randy, haruman, divemaster, lizardlick, everyone who I can't think of at the moment and myself) but most will tell you that having the patience to read up and use your own head will get you the answers you want. Most of these guys will have done a lot of ground work before asking questions like a novice expecting a quick return.

When it comes to building cabs, there's a lot more to it than throwing together some nicked plans and justifying the price with MAME software to get a massive profit and quick sale. Guys like that appear on craigslist every day and regularly get booted by right-minded members here. I can only speak for myself of course when I say you primarily need to be a hobbyist before you consider a business venture in this area. I imagine most of the guys mentioned would say the same, and the fact you are unaware as to MAME's legal status suggests you are far from being clued up enough for this hobby, let alone a business.

Of course I withdraw this statement and apologise if you are a genuine hobbyist and have more knowledge and self-motivation than it appears in writing so far.

BeachRunnerJoe · « **Reply #13 on:** February 25, 2009, 02:03:49 pm »

Quote

Of course I withdraw this statement and apologise if you are a genuine hobbyist and have more knowledge and self-motivation than it appears in writing so far.

Truth be told, I've been a member on this forum for almost five years now and just started under a different username because I was having issues with my old user account that weren't being resolved by the moderators. While I've been a hobbyist for almost five years, this is the first time I've considered starting a side business making and selling cabs. But I agree, diligence is a definite must have in this venture and while I've been doing my own research on this matter, it doesn't hurt to ask for wisdom from those who know more than I do. If it did, there would be no good reason for this forum to exist.

Thanks for yours and everyones help on this, god bless the interweb!

CathalDublin · « **Reply #14 on:** February 25, 2009, 02:39:33 pm »

are the multigame boards site sells copyright violations - removed by saint sell legal? if so use them

BobA · « **Reply #15 on:** February 25, 2009, 03:16:08 pm »

Most of the multiboards use ROMs illegally and violate the MAME license.

Blanka · « **Reply #16 on:** February 25, 2009, 03:49:53 pm »

Quote from: Paul Olson on February 24, 2009, 08:48:44 pm

I know a lot of people here want to make money off MAME, but wanting it doesn't make it an entitlement. MAME is free to use, and you are allowed to customize it however you want, as long as you don't release any changes that are against the license. That seems like a pretty generous license to me.

What is bad about making money with it? Money can be catalysing the project into much nicer things. The thing with GNU is that you can make money with it yet the code stays available to others as well.
Imagine Apple or Microsoft putting MAME code into iTunes and Mediaplayer with a real good front-end, making good deals with Namco, Taito and co for legal authentic ROM downloads and thus reaching 100 times the audience MAME reaches now. No problem with that IMO. No-one is able to make deals with Nintendo for a license for example. But if Steve Jobs wants a deal with Nintendo, he will get it. And we will get the ROM's, even if we need to get a real Donkey Kong through the iTunes store, I don't care.
Take Virtual Box for example. It was a nice virtualisation homebrew project. Now Sun runs it and the program became very decent, yet it remains open source and free to use. And it has come much further last year as all years before.
The MAME team does very nice stuff, but you must agree they also limit the project with their strict rules.

Ginsu Victim · « **Reply #17 on:** February 25, 2009, 04:24:00 pm »

Quote

What is bad about making money with it?

Because the license says not to.

You want MAME development to stop? Start taking advantage of their hard work and it could become a reality.

Quote

The MAME team does very nice stuff, but you must agree they also limit the project with their strict rules.

They know what they're doing. We're not talking about idiots here....

sean-o-mac · « **Reply #18 on:** February 25, 2009, 04:33:24 pm »

Man, you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few dozen games when it comes to licensing games from big corporations. And Im pretty sure its for a limited time, then your rights expire and you cant make a profit anymore from your machines. Not to mention you still have to pay for manufacturing the arcades, distribution, taxes & so on. Sounds like a huge job.

anormalgeek · « **Reply #19 on:** February 25, 2009, 06:26:05 pm »

The big arcade companies leave the MAME guys alone for the most part. I would bet the non-commercial use part of the license is a huge part of that. Selling a cabinet that only needs roms is easy for most people to figure out, selling one that is a bare PC seems like a daunting task to many.

Granted I don't know how successful any company would be in suing the MAME dev team, but all they would need to do is harass them with DMCA violations for circumventing DRM until they give up the project or go broke.

BeachRunnerJoe · « **Reply #20 on:** February 25, 2009, 06:29:52 pm »

After looking into this some more over the last couple days, it seems like the game bundles are the best approach. I looked into other businesses that are making and selling cabs and they're either shipping with no games, freeware games, or these bundled PC ports. It looks like XArcade just plops a playstation console into their cabinets and ships with playstation games that include the arcade classics. It seems to me the best approach to take would be to build a typical mame arcade cab with a PC in it, but instead of installing MAME or any other emulators, just install these game bundles and be sure to ship with the original CD. I've looked into the many PC arcade game bundles on amazon, but does anyone know if somebody's already compiled a list of these that are currently available? If not, I might build such a list and post it on here for others to use.

CathalDublin · « **Reply #21 on:** February 25, 2009, 06:40:09 pm »

Can you not ship with mameUI no roms installed

CheffoJeffo · « **Reply #22 on:** February 25, 2009, 06:50:54 pm »

+1 to game bundles, but I agree with RayB's caution

FWIW, I believe that the MAME license is limiting for a reason -- it keeps the MAMEDevs out of too much trouble. At the end of the day, there seems to be a dog's breakfast of IP issues that the MAMEDevs probably don't want to deal with and who can blame them for all of the vast sums of money that they rake in ?

And, no, you can't just ship mameUI without ROMs ...

http://mamedev.org/legal.html

CathalDublin · « **Reply #23 on:** February 25, 2009, 07:33:35 pm »

how are these companies getting away with selling the boards if they are illegal?
site links removed as they sell copyright violations --- saint

CheffoJeffo · « **Reply #24 on:** February 25, 2009, 07:58:32 pm »

I would guess because the IP owners aren't yet interested in coming after the folks who would buy them (e.g. arcade geeks).

There are "legalish" emulator boards out there, but you need to understand what you are looking at with each board.

For example, in your second link, every multi board is running MAME (even those little bitty boards), in violation of the MAME license and without licensed ROMs and for WAY more than available from elsewhere.

Turnarcades · « **Reply #25 on:** February 25, 2009, 08:01:18 pm »

Quote from: cynos on February 25, 2009, 07:33:35 pm

how are these companies getting away with selling the boards if they are illegal?
site links removed as they sell copyright violations --- saint

Dunno, but I'll bet this quote and links will be removed quicker than you can fart. Links to these type of boards are not allowed.

It's likely they have just stayed under the radar as they do not mention MAME or emulation in their descriptions. Only the big guns like Nintendo and Sony tend to snoop the net regularly for rom sites and activity like this. If it's not any of their games or not in their interest they just don't care enough. Early atari games and smaller, now-defunct game houses are less bothered by it all, and even mighty Capcom made a statement somewhere about turning a blind eye to the sprite rips people were using for MUGEN translation as it does not really dent their profits, but keeps interest alive in their games. If you've noticed on many rom sites in the last two years, certain games will have been demanded to be removed (ie Mario games, Sonic games etc.) yet other releases by the big companies remain and the sites stay open. It could be the case that even those taking a stand on piracy so forcefully like Nintendo are actually quite happy to allow other old games they create to be kept alive - possibly because the damage is small and in the long run they want to test the longevity of their games and have experienced gamers retain interest in their work, possibly helping future sales of new games.

All purely speculation of course.......

CathalDublin · « **Reply #26 on:** February 25, 2009, 08:15:57 pm »

alrite understand,
I think your best bet would be try figure out which boards are legal and ship with the most legal one

that way you will be shipping a fully jamma compatatable arcade suitable for the user to buy original boards and run a pc in if they want, you could even sell a pc to jamma rig aswell for extra so they can just plug their own pc in.
Thats what I'd do anyway

Ummon · « **Reply #27 on:** February 25, 2009, 09:39:21 pm »

Quote from: BeachRunnerJoe on February 25, 2009, 06:29:52 pm

After looking into this some more over the last couple days, it seems like the game bundles are the best approach. I looked into other businesses that are making and selling cabs and they're either shipping with no games, freeware games, or these bundled PC ports. It looks like XArcade just plops a playstation console into their cabinets and ships with playstation games that include the arcade classics. It seems to me the best approach to take would be to build a typical mame arcade cab with a PC in it, but instead of installing MAME or any other emulators, just install these game bundles and be sure to ship with the original CD. I've looked into the many PC arcade game bundles on amazon, but does anyone know if somebody's already compiled a list of these that are currently available? If not, I might build such a list and post it on here for others to use.

You might look into both that and the PSX idea suggested above, and maybe offer whichever the buyer might want.

BeachRunnerJoe · « **Reply #28 on:** February 26, 2009, 01:30:47 pm »

thanks for imparting the wisdom, everyone! I've learned a lot over the last few days due largely in part to this discussion and your help.

I'm going to work on compiling a list of currently available and supported PC arcade game bundles and post it for others to use (if at all useful

)

BeachRunnerJoe · « **Reply #29 on:** August 18, 2009, 12:01:44 am »

so does that mean this business is breaking the law?

http://drinkngame.com

how are they allowed to pre-load it with mame roms?

bishmasterb · « **Reply #30 on:** August 18, 2009, 01:03:15 am »

I spoke to a firm that handles the Williams licensing a few years back when I was seriously considering a venture with arcade cabinets. I can't recall the details precisely, but it was in the ballpark of $10K upfront and 10% or so of gross sales, which seemed fairly reasonable. Namco wouldn't even talk to us unless the numbers were a lot larger than we were prepared to deal with.

surface tension · « **Reply #31 on:** August 18, 2009, 02:22:53 am »

Quote from: BeachRunnerJoe on August 18, 2009, 12:01:44 am

so does that mean this business is breaking the law?

http://drinkngame.com

how are they allowed to pre-load it with mame roms?

These are retail packs running through the GameEx front-end. Though they are suggesting it will play all the old console and arcade stuff, ("including bootlegs, unlicensed and hacked games") which is a bit naughty.

BeachRunnerJoe · « **Reply #32 on:** August 18, 2009, 03:40:24 am »

are you sure those are retail packs? i'm not so sure, there are games on that list (i.e. street fighter 2 CE, 720, etc.) that i can't find in retail packs anywhere.

surface tension · « **Reply #33 on:** August 18, 2009, 04:35:48 am »

I'm pretty sure. I don't have those two titles, but have a similar setup for my systems.

720 is on Midway Arcade treasures
http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/midway-arcade-treasures

and SF2 CE is on Capcom Arcade hits
http://www.amazon.com/Capcom-Arcade-Hits-Three-Compatible-pc/dp/B000E4N1CQ

LeedsFan · « **Reply #34 on:** August 18, 2009, 04:53:38 am »

Not wishing to derail the thread but I was toying with this idea also. But without the games as such, just the cabs as a kit. But the idea was to be a desktop replica of something like a Galaga cabinet, or Space Invaders. Something small and compact but a copy of the original (well the top half anyway).

But then I got to thinking about the copyright of the artwork etc. Would I be able to make a Pacman desktop as a kit for example and sell it? I wouldn't have thought so, but then I thought about people that sell the artwork for our projects and how they do it? I'd basically be selling the same artwork on but in packs containing bits of wood. (i.e. kits). I'd have to source the artwork from one of these people anyway as I don't have that expertise, so it's mot like I'd be doing them out of any business.

Now you're probably thinking "whats the point of a cab with no game(s)?" Well I'd point people in the right direction of course. I know full well I can't supply roms with these kits. Maybe install some roms that are freely distributable? I dunno if I could do that even. I know I cannot sell Mame, but it's the cab I'm selling. Mame would be installed free. Or does that not wash?

I am literally toying with the idea. Please don't flame if I'm way out of line with this thinking. If it's totally illegal then so be it.... consider it quashed.

EwJ · « **Reply #35 on:** August 18, 2009, 08:56:16 am »

Quote from: LeedsFan on August 18, 2009, 04:53:38 am

Or does that not wash?

Does not wash. See reply #22.

RayB · « **Reply #36 on:** August 18, 2009, 11:58:37 am »

Also, to answer your thought about the artwork, Namco has licensed one company only to reproduce Galaga, and Pacman artwork, and that's TwoBits. They sue others (or they *did* a few years ago).

So that's a no on using the replica art as well.


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