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Arcade ROMs for Download, Legally
jgoeres writes "StarROMs, Inc. has just launched a pay-per-download service for classic arcade ROM sets. These are what you need to make your emulator fun and legal. This aims to bring ROM collection & emulator use out of the semi-underground and turn it into profit, but will it fly? They currently have about 60 games, all from the various incarnations of Atari over the years, with more on the way. Prices range from about $2 to about $6 per game. And no, they don't have Marble Man."
I can go to the video game store and buy used games cheaper.
If only I didn't already have all the ROMs I might be inclined to buy some!
It'd be nice if this stayed legal and we could all get ROMs for unattainable games in a legal way. Somehow I feel that there's going to be one bad company that will ruin it for everyone.
This is like that iTunes store Apple is trying to pull on us, isn't it? HA, I'm not going to fall for that.
What about Mame and http://www.classicgaming.com ? That's pretty free...
I like this idea, but until there's a reason (lawsuits or whatever) for people to be scared of illegally downloading ROMs, they're not going to want to pay for them. In the public's eyes there's nothing wrong with downloading a 15+ year old game because many of the companies are defunct now, and if they're not they probably won't care anyway.
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It seems almost wrong to play Jumpan on an AMD 1800+, but it is such a pain to plug in the 386, or Commodore 64.
Good luck with the ROM plan. I hope it fares better than the "legal MP3" industry.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
By making even more money out of old back catalogue technology that broke even a couple of decades ago.
Okay, I DARE someone to come up with a "Well, I for one welcome our new ________ overloards" post for this story.
Double-dare!
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It's already moral, what with them being 20 years old and generating no revenue for the original coders, artists and musicians, which is all I care about. Whether the company which bought up the company which bought up the company which did the work makes any money from their sale is not interesting to me.
Console Classix (www.consoleclassix.com) has a legal console emulation service, offering titles for the NES, SNES, Genesis and Atari 2600.
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
The site mentions that a portion of their profits goes towards supporting unnamed emulators. On a different page explaining how to play the game, the only emulator they link to is MAME. Does this mean that they are supporting MAME?
(sorry I don't have url's to the specific pages - the site is slashdoted)
Though some of these are just simply fantastic games. 720 Degrees - I dunno WHAT kind of controller you'd be able to find to play it like the original. And who has a dual joystick setup to play Battlezone with? :) The Griffin PowerMate is just _made_ for games like Tempest, though. I'll take one in black, thanks.
Kind of a cool idea to legalize the ROM's of your favorite derelict console. My biggest problem with it is that they don't supply or support an emulator. It's basically all at your own risk, and if it doesn't work, too bad.
;)
On the flip side I'd love to actually see this sort of thing take off and, get licenses out for games and emulators for other systems. Not to mention it's nice to have a piece of history without the ritual blowing, rubbing alcohol, smashing and praying for hours, for one round of Double Dragon
As a gamer sometimes all the new fancy-smancy graphics from the X-Box and PS2 and the like are cool, but dammit, sometimes Gannon or Bowser just need to get owned!
Here's a sample of the software license. "This License allows you to use the Software on a single personal computer for non-commercial entertainment purposes only..."
Businesses like to make as much money as they can.
Shocking, I know.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Would the extreme gamer rather sign up, hand out their credit card number, and buy 60 Atari 2600 games for a sum price of about $320, or illegally download a small zip file containing 500 of them in about 30 seconds after 2 minutes of searching on Google?
I don't condone piracy but that's the reality of the situation. Same with music & such. The problem with media sales nowadays is that there are no bulk discounts, in a time where reproduction costs nothing and the aim should be to get the max of price time quantity from each consumer. Someone who wants 60 games rather than 6 is willing to pay more than the person who wants 6, but not 10 times more, because the average enjoyment they'll get out of each is less. So that kind of person, though willing to spend more than the average consumer, is completely cut out of the market and has to resort to more extreme measures like piracy to get what they want.
>why would anyone want to pay more than 0 cent to download Atari's Tetris to play on an emulator
>if it's for hardcore Atari fans, they SHOULD still have a real Atari at home.
Explain your statement, please. The *real* Atari version of Tetris is a port of the Atari Games Corp. arcade edition. It was marketed by Tengen, the subsidiary of Atari Games Corp. The game never appeared on any "Atari" branded console because the consols were marketed by Atari Corp. which was a separate company. Atari Inc. was split up in 1984 by Warner Communications (the owners since 1976) with the consumer videogame and computer division being sold off to ex-Commodore founder Jack Tramiel & Co. with a 75% stake, and the arcade division was labelled as Atari Games Corp. and the majority stake sold off to Namco of Japan until Time Warner regained control ala 1991. The home division became known as Atari Corp., Atari Computer Corp., and Atari Entertainment Electronics Corp through various stages. Atari Corp. had exclusive rights to the name "Atari" for the home market. Atari Games Corp. had the rights to "Atari" for the arcades. Thus when Atari Games decided to get a piece of the home videogame industry, they created the brand "Tengen." Thus you must be speaking of the infamous Tengen Tetris edition for the NES which was later yanked from the market when Nintendo proved nobody but them owned the actual rights to the game. The Nintendo version was inferior and was the reason why dealers were able to charge $90 and more for the contraband Tengen edition.
The one similar Tetris game made in the arcade by Atari Games that did appear on Atari Corp.'s Lynx game system was "Klax." This was because Time Warner forced Atari Games and Atari Corp. to make up with each other and sign a cross-licensing deal to port post-1984 Atari Games arcade titles over to Atari Corp. game consoles. And for an Atari fan, it was a great time since the 1984 Atari Schism/Diaspora (sic)...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Strictly speaking, that's not legal. You're only allowed to make your own copy of the work, not download someone else's. That one court decision against MP3.com, although silly, sort of cemented that one until a better challenge comes along.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
And the reason Nintendo doesn't do this with their own library of games is because they don't publish games for any platforms other than their own. And the reason you haven't seen a release like this for the Gamecube is because it has a limited market (nostalgia only sells so many copies) and it would cut into their eReader cards and classic ports to the GBA. Any other suggestions?
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
Imagine how useful services like this or the iTunes store could be if they were more comprehensive in the titles they carry.
Imagine how easy it would be to make them comprehensive if the copyright holders were forced to offer you a license at a predetermined rate, instead of having to negotiate deals with everyone separately.
Imagine how much revenue filesharing could generate for copyright holders if it was easy to purchase legal licenses for the files being shared at a reasonable rate. On our own terms (for example; MP3 and AAC are not a formats I wish to purchase music in).
I haven't thought about this terribly much, but compulsory licensing seems like it could be a solution to the standoff that currently exists between filesharers who won't give up filesharing and the industry that refuses to make it easy to legally purchase digital content.
Wow. That was definitely an out-of-the-blue observation.
As far as I'm concerned, Marble Madness was the supreme mid-1980s arcade game. I played that game hundreds of times in high school, and won it at least a dozen times. A couple things set it apart. It had a cool 3D-style isometric viewpoint, which was done infinitely more convincingly than similar presentations like Zaxxon. Plus, given how hard you had to throw that trackball around, you could get a legitimate workout playing Marble Madness.
I think Marble Madness was sort of a smart person's Donkey Kong. It had a great subtle sense of humor, and a Steve Jobsian attention to detail. Like, fr'instance, the marble you controlled had glitter in it that would roll around as the ball rolled. And it could die in several twisted ways, from shattering to getting eaten by acid. The graphics were some of the best yet for 1980s videogames, and the music was likewise sensational.
After Marble Madness' success, a sequel was inevitable. The trouble was, some genius in marketing thought that for people to identify with our beloved marble, it had to assume human qualities. Thus, Marble Man was born.
Unfortunately, Marble Man never quite got out of testing before the crashing arcade scene made Atari withdraw it from market. I'm not sure if anyone knows where the few original ROM's are anymore. But one thing's for sure...there are thousands of Marble Maniacs out there who would buy it in a heartbeat, just to see if the original was surpassed.
One last note. The creator of Marble Madness programmed the game at the tender age of about twenty. He's since gone on to do a number of successful games, including Ratchet & Clank on the Playstation 2.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
From the EULA:
You acknowledge that the Software in source
code form remains a confidential trade
secret of Atari and/or its suppliers and
therefore you agree not to attempt to
decipher, decompile, disassemble or
reverse engineer the Software or allow
others to do so, except to the extent
applicable laws specifically prohibit
such restriction. You further agree not
to modify or create derivative works of
the Software.
Me no like. But for two bucks, who's going to care?
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
...and a 360 degree joystick....that was quite a game...one of the best non-Atari arcade games from the early 80s...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Starfuckers Inc. is a reference to a Nine Inch Nails song.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
Vector games are the least satisfing games to play on MAME. Raster games look great on a 19" Wells Gardner 4900 or Electrohome G07 and crappy on your PC monitor, but MAME can fake the scanlines and pixelization to a point where it's OK. But vector games look *TERRIBLE* compared to a real G05 (for Asteroids) or G08 (For Tempest). And to play Star Wars on a med res, 25" Amplifone in the cockpit version is to see the face of God, whilst playing it on MAME with the mouse is to follow Lucifer down to Hell.
MAME is a good "gateway" drug though. I started with it, and now I own 7 dedicated full size classic video games.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
Bittorrent links to the mame romset, just because I felt like it.
MAME 0 72 ROMS 0-C
MAME 0 72 ROMS D-F
MAME 0 72 ROMS G-I
MAME 0 72 ROMS J-K
MAME 0 72 ROMS L-M
MAME 0 72 ROMS N-Q
MAME 0 72 ROMS R-Se
MAME 0 72 ROMS Sf-Sz
MAME 0 72 ROMS T-Z
Ummmm... The FAQ you just quoted was from ConsoleClassix.com.
The slashdot article is about StarRoms.com. They are two totally different things. This article has absolutely NOTHING TO DO WITH CONSOLECLASSIX.
The
you agree not to attempt to
decipher, decompile, disassemble or
reverse engineer the Software or allow
others to do so
It also goes on to disallow derivative works.
So, I can use these ROMs in an emulator (MAME) but if I have received said ROMs through your service, I cannot participate in development of any emulator. I'm sure that this was written for Atari's benefit but it's rather limiting.
I think they definately have a good idea, they just need to smooth out the implementation.
Actually, US copyright was set up to incentivize authors (not "creator[s]", or "inventor[s]"--a term that is typically used when discussing patent law, not copyright law) to write and publish more work. Copyright in the US was set up entirely for the benefit of the public. RMS has a very readable summary of the background of copyright and the common arguments used in discussions like these. It is aptly titled "Misinterpreting Copyright". It addresses virtually all of your points. I think you'll find that many of the ideas the GNU project expresses on these matters are quite interesting and worth repeating.
No, there is no "balance" being reached by copyright nor was there ever intended to be one. From the aforementioned text:
RMS' essay goes on to explain how the "balance" concept actually ends up reversing the underlying basis of copyright where, practically speaking, the public has to justify not giving publishers all sorts of new power under copyright law. This is exactly backwards from how copyright was intended to work--readers' interests are an end unto themselves, benefits for the publishers can only be justified so as to benefit the readers.
Actually, you're shooting your own argument in the foot by conflating ethics with law. Ethical conduct does not spring from laws. Although the following comes from a discussion of the word "theft" as the word is commonly misapplied to describing illicit copying, I think one particular paragraph of that essay is valuable here:
Sharing is neighborly and good and we should not build laws or use terms that suggests sharing is bad (like when some people, thankfully not you, call others "pirates").
I'm glad to see more people talking about the difference between transferring physical property versus
Digital Citizen
Here is the content of a very interesing message posted to the alt.games.mame newsgroup by "NoRomsMoron":
QUOTE:
THIS IS VERY BAD!
It's bad for the community. Why? Because these guys can now go around
and sue anyone who posts roms they have license to. Even if you
'already had them'. Burners are screwed.
It's bad for mamedev... How much fun is it to spend hours and hours
coding a game only to know some dipshit and 'his buddy' are getting
paid to sell roms that they didn't creat that you make work with your
free code!?
It's bad for the industry... The copyright holders will inevitably
feel compelled to 'defend' their copyrights which NO ONE disputes and
try to make a case that ancient rom sales are a viable business. I
think the MAME market as a true 'market' is VASTLY over-rated. It's a
closed community for the most part of Gen-X'ers and a few late-comers.
We already have most of the mame roms we want anyway. Then, all they
do is close down the distribution systems that exist, scare away
mamedevs and lose a bunch of money. Whoever did that deal at Atari is
a knucklehead.
It's just a bad 'taint' on the hobby which we all have tacitly agreed
to keep above board and defended from scammers/spammers and Ebayers
who try to sell roms over the last few years. If this proceeds.. do
you think any of us will go out of our way to pull Ebay ads down or
flame scammers? Why should we care anymore? Let the guys making the
money do all the work.
Mame is already a 'legitimate' project. No one is getting their front
doors kicked in for having roms or even trading them for free between
friends. MOST of the commercial value of the old games is gone.
Selling them online now only kills the future of the scene and pisses
of those in it... who by the way probably spend a HUGE amount on new
PCs, Video Game consoles and games than the average consumer.
That these Jackasses took it on themselves to 'help out the scene' is
a crock of SHIT. I would like to propose that mamedev code mame so
that whatever roms they're selling WON'T work on mame. If they want
to make money from Mame.. then they better get coding.... from
SCRATCH. Let's see how long they feel it's important to distribute
roms 'to preserve them'.
I would have respected them more (only a little) if they'd just come
out and said "Hey, we're poor, stupid s.o.b.s and we're going to try
to cash in on Mame under the guise of legality and damn the
consequences!"
They are raping the golden goose, killing it, and mounting it on their
wall.... and soon they will wonder where all their precious golden
eggs went and we'll all have moved on to other things because the
scene will have DIED.
Think I'm over reacting? Mark this message friends... it will be cold
comfort I'm afraid when you wonder how come Mame releases stopped
coming out except to remove games from the source code.
By all means... Boycott Starroms and try to persuade the boys there to
perhaps try to make money honestly by CREATING something rather than
stick their leaching little lips to the hindside of Mame Developers
and the community.
Man.. I'm pissed! I can't believe Atari did anything like this!!!
Someone talk me down... I'm gonna jump!
NoRomSmoRoN
END OF QUOTE
I think I agree with his take on this. What about you?
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
What's to say that I downloaded one and I said I paid for it from starroms. How does anyone know the difference? I have an Asteroids romset at home. I could easily say I paid for it and nobody would be the wiser.