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StarROMs Co-Founder Talks Legal ROMs
CaptMondo writes "If you love the old quarter-sucking arcade games of the past and want to be able to download and play the ROMs for them legally, StarROMs (as mentioned previously here on /.), has stepped in and made this possible. PerformancePCCanada has an interview with StarROMs co-founder Frank Leibly, discussing how they convinced Atari to make purchasing ROMs legal for their long-time game fans, but still making it worth StarROMs' while." The interview also notes StarROMs will be "...increasing our offering of classic arcade games, and... expanding into console titles, starting out with the classic Atari console games."
As I read elsewhere, no you can't. You need JAMMA, as MAME states in the EULA that you can't use it for profit. Starroms no doubt also have the same provision, as they'd surely want a cut.
God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
There are places that do this, generally along side computer game rentals. Most pay an extra fee to the game maker for permission to rent the use of their games. Many just say, hey we are renting out the computers, which happen to have games already installed on them. This second process while technically illigal is generally accepted and software makers ignore them, except the few that actually have a procedure in place for someone to pay for the right to rent, then they encourage the rental place to pay the fee.
You mean this? The rom is out there, though it's not fully emulated yet. That would account for so few places having it.
Laser Ghost seems to be encrypted, so it will be added to mame and other emulators at some point, just not quite yet.
Since Sega doesn't offer the less popular titles in its catalog, maybe you could find another way to pay the company - say, purchase a retro title you wouldn't have otherwise.