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Is there some "friction" in the classic gaming community?

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paigeoliver:
The main friction comes from two things.

People who chop the front off a cabinet and install a larger control panel. I'll call these dumpstercades, because the minute that is done they are destined for the dumpster.

People who mame out complete DEDICATED games. This is really common, see a current thread about a newbie asking for tips on how to install a frankenpanel on his complete dedicated Galaga.

Also, if your Mame cabinet has a visible television set, computer monitor, or if the control panel size is altered, or god forbid it has a premade control panel bolted on then the entire collecting community and a smaller portion of the mame community will consider you to be an idiot.

Want to avoid friction, it is really simple, use converted cabinets. And DON'T put up web pages showing yourself ripping apart, painting over and otherwise ruining dedicated games. If you have an empty dedicated cabinet and use that then be sure and note that on your web page.

Many of us here are very active in  both communities, so we understand both points of view. I have personally already made all the mistakes, and it does hurt me to watch you guys get all excited about making the same mistakes.

I have

trusted Klov for a pinout and fried two boards because of it (SCI is not JAMMA, my SCI cabinet killed my Double Dragon board because of this and my Double Dragon cabinet killed my SCI board).

Bolted an oversize control panel onto a Defender cabinet. It looked terrible and didn't feel a bit natural, and real life people commented on it. I took it off later.

accidently broken a monitor neck.

powered up a monitor without an isolation transformer and horked it out.

Ruined a Pac-man cabinet by doing modifications.

thought an 8-way stick would be OK for 4-way games, it isn't.


Get the picture!!  ;D

mahuti:
I get friction from the collectors because I run the arcade art library (a collection of arcade game art for download. Some collectors don't want me to put art out into the world with easy access, because "if the repro houses can't make money off of the popular stuff, they won't ever reproduce insert rare arcade game name marquee/bezel/cpo, etc"

My initial reaction was "that's just crazy" but I can kind of see their point. I just think there is PLENTY of room for both of us. At one point I tried to hold out an olive branch to promote legitimate repro houses on my site, but my post on the subject (and the complaining posts that started it) was deleted. I feel for people that want to get affordable arcade art screenprinted to "accurately" reproduce their original, but frankly, a repro is a repro, no matter how hiqh quality. You might as well have a choice about where you get it done. For some, the desire for and lack of a "perfect" screenprinted repro might be extremely painful, but for a large majority, it's  better to have access to the artwork to take it where they want.

I love arcade games. And I love helping other people relive their youth. I would hate to know  that I had made some repro guy lose lots of money and thus hurt the cause, but the possibility of that scenario is too nebulous for me to give up the library and my pursuits for that "what if." Especially when most of the feedback for me has been overwhelmingly positive.  

Anyway, I don't visit rgvac anymore. I might have stigma attached  ;D Whether there is an unwritten animosity between the 2 groups, I don't know, but there is definitely love within this one.

Gunstar Hero:
I think... and don't kill me for this if I'm wrong... alot of classic arcade collectors are being hurt by their hobby suddenly being "popular."

It's like, now you have people bastardizing the "purity" of their hobby. It used to be if you had a board, and a buddy had a board, and you each wanted to play something different you'd maybe just swap, or lend or even just give them a board you might have laying around. MAME and ROMS have all but rendered that practice obsolete, and with the advent of evilBay and "arcade collecting" now everyone is convinced that every piece of crap JAMMA game out there is worth $1000, not to mention the ---daisies--- trying to get $5000 for a goddam MAME cab. I mean, what the hell is that about?

It's hard not to hate MAME people when everyone is trying to make a buck (or a thousand) off of everyone else.

But... so far since I've been visiting these  boards, I've seen people offer parts and services for free... and answer the most inane questions dozens of times... and seen real pride taken in fine workmanship... and experienced a healthy (sometimes TOO healthy!) desire to preserve arcade life.

Really, in any hobby you're going to have extremists. Examples? PS2 vs. XBOX. Ford vs. Chevy. Marvel vs. Cap... I mean DC.  8)

But in the end, whether you post/lurk on BYOAC, KLOV, RVGAC ect. we all do it because we love the games.

I say, MAME or Jamma or Classic or Console collectors unite! Let's all hate the laserdisc people!!

Okay, just kidding.  ;D

Really.

Look, I'll run Daphne to prove it!

Okay.  ;)

LeedsFan:

--- Quote from: paigeoliver on October 21, 2004, 07:14:59 pm ---People who chop the front off a cabinet and install a larger control panel. I'll call these dumpstercades, because the minute that is done they are destined for the dumpster.

People who mame out complete DEDICATED games. This is really common, see a current thread about a newbie asking for tips on how to install a frankenpanel on his complete dedicated Galaga.

Also, if your Mame cabinet has a visible television set, computer monitor, or if the control panel size is altered, or god forbid it has a premade control panel bolted on then the entire collecting community and a smaller portion of the mame community will consider you to be an idiot.

--- End quote ---

Well, I'm pleased to say that I haven't done ANY of these things with my project. But being totally new to this hobby I  could have easily strayed into one of these areas.

There are some interersting points made here, and I never realised how large and generally very helpful this community is. I think a lot of that is due to most of us being in our late 20's or our 30's so you don't get many idiots spoiling the atmos. Well, I haven't seen any anyway.  :)

And I agree that the one thing that everyone has in common is their love for the games themselves.

Minwah:
It's understandable collectors have a bad view of MAME'ers when you see some of the hideous things people do, like jigsaw off the front of some nice classic cab to stick a 10 foot wide control panel on it :P

In reality I think most people, here in particular like to see dedicated cabs saved rather than MAME'd, but many collectors probably don't realise this.

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