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Arcade ROMs for Download, Legally

Posted by simoniker on from the could-be-a-constructive-step? dept.

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."

23 of 338 comments (clear)

  1. $2-$6 a game!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can go to the video game store and buy used games cheaper.

    1. Re:$2-$6 a game!? by Blondie-Wan · · Score: 4, Informative
      I can go to the video game store and buy used games cheaper.

      Used home console games, yes. Not used coin-op arcade games. Yeah, I know, these aren't full games, but just the ROM images - but then, you're not paying the $25 to $2000 or whatever you might pay for the actual physical machine, either.

    2. Re:$2-$6 a game!? by steveha · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Back in the day, we would spend 25 cents to play video games once. For the cost of 8 to 24 plays, you can legally own the game, and play it as many times as you like -- hundreds of times, even.

      These will look and play exactly like the original games, because guess what -- they are the original games. The only difference will be that you will be using your own controller, instead of a possibly better (or possibly half-broken) controller at an arcade.

      Today, I can go down to the local movie theater (no arcades anywhere near my home) and I can play Hydro Thunder for $1 a game. Or I can buy the Playstation version of Hydro Thunder for $30, and it isn't even exactly the same game (the graphics were simplified a bit for the Playstation). So Hydro Thunder costs 30 plays to own, more than these ROM images.

      This is a perfectly fair price.

      steveha

      --
      lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    3. Re:$2-$6 a game!? by macrom · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think $2 is a reasonable price at all. They must be charging a dollar a k! They should sell them for the old arcade prices - 25cents a rom.

      But the old arcade price wasa $.25 per PLAY. I think it's safe to say that many of us here spent WAAAY more than that on single games. Don't even TRY and tell me that you spent less than $6 in your entire life on Gauntlet or Gauntlet II (presuming you played it, of course).

      If you could travel back in time and tell a teenager that for $6 he/she could play a game as much as they like for all eternity, they'd pony it up in a heartbeat. I know I would have. Today, people gripe because everything isn't free and won't cough up a couple of bucks to revel in their youth.

      Maybe you would rather spend hundreds, nay thousands, of dollars buying these games individually from eBay, praying that they still worked so you didn't have to spend your weekends pouring over wiring diagrams that you printed from some JPEGs on a classic arcade site?

  2. Well way to generate stories from reply threads! by inteller · · Score: 4, Funny

    If only I didn't already have all the ROMs I might be inclined to buy some!

  3. I hope this works... by chosen_my_foot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Hmmm... by SugoiMonkey · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  5. It's a good idea... by The+Human+Cow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    The Human Cow - bringing you scrumtrelescence since 1995
    1. Re:It's a good idea... by xkenny13 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'd have no problem plunking down $6 for a game.

      Actually, neither would I. My next question is ... is this "Play at your own risk?" Does this fall under the same rules as any other software (CD/DVD, etc) that once you bought it, it's yours? What if the ROM has defects? Do you get your money back?

      For instance, the copy of Galaga I have doesn't include the sound when your ship blows up. One could argue that it's a pretty minor point, but if I'm paying cold, hard cash, I'd want a *perfect* copy.

      Do I have a right to complain about the bug, and for a measly $6, will anyone listen?

  6. Games industry copies music industry? by gilesjuk · · Score: 4, Funny

    By making even more money out of old back catalogue technology that broke even a couple of decades ago.

  7. Re:ok... by kryptkpr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well I, for one, welcome our old, pixelated overlords.

    --
    DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
  8. Why do I care if it's legal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Why do I care if it's legal? by JustAnotherReader · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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.

      Who cares if the original programmer is making money or not? If the company was still in business and the original programmer quit his job does that make it OK to steal the ROMs? Of course not.

      Sorry, but your argument has some pretty shaky logic. If somebody owns some desert land that they never use is it ok to go start a brush fire? Of course not, but maybe that's too destructive of an example. Is it ok to do some gold mining on their land? Rock collecting? How about 4 wheel drive offroading?

      It's not YOUR land and it's not YOUR property so YOU don't get to choose whether or not YOU want to pay to use it or not.

      It's the same way with these ROMS. So what if the original developing company isn't selling the game currently. I'm betting that the StartROMs is paying the current owners something. So yes, the owner of the copyright IS making some money.

      I think $2 to $6 per game is perfectly reasonable price to pay for a legal copy. It's totally irresponsible to say that because the original programmer or original company isn't making any money off of these licenses that it's OK to just steal their software.

  9. Legal console emulation by extrarice · · Score: 4, Informative

    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."
    1. Re:Legal console emulation by JayBlalock · · Score: 4, Insightful
      That's actually a very interesting test of legal theory. Go read their FAQ on how their setup works. Apparently Nintendo considered their claim, while a bit shaky, stable enough to not be worth going after.

      On the other hand, it seems like, if they get too many users, the service would become useless.

      --
      Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
  10. Supporting MAME? by pavon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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)

  11. Not for Commercial Use by Milky28 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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..."

  12. hmm by dtfinch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  13. Re:Tetris et al? by The+Lynxpro · · Score: 5, Informative

    >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*
  14. We need compulsory licensing by CoughDropAddict · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  15. More on Marble Man... by Schlemphfer · · Score: 4, Informative
    From the summary: And no, they don't have Marble Man.

    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?
  16. Vector games on Raster monitors by El_Smack · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  17. Bittorrent Links to the mame0.72 Romset by t0qer · · Score: 4, Informative

    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