MAME Changing License To Fully Libre One

jones_supa writes: The source code of MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) has long been freely available, but it's never been completely libre. Instead, it's been available under a modified BSD license that prohibits, among other things, commercial use of the code. MAME engineer Miodrag Milanovic explains that such a license was put in place to deter "misuse of MAME in illegal ways," but it also kept legitimate commercial entities doing business with the software. Examples of such could be museums that charge entry fees from using MAME in their exhibits, or copyright holders rereleasing vintage games encapsulated inside MAME. Now the project wants to go fully open. Milanovic continues: "Our aim is to help legal license owners in distributing their games based on MAME platform, and to make MAME become a learning tool for developers working on development boards." As of yet, there are no specific details about the new license.

Comments

Re:Sadly I don't think it's going to help

[serviscope_minor]

few things are played better on a joystick than other controls, and those that are tend to be things you buy specialist joysticks for even on PC (flight sims etc.).

I disagree: games have an element of being designed around the control mechanism. Old arcade games are better played on a joystick (I bought one for the purpose) than a game pad because they were designed with that in mind. The feel is right. In much the same way, console games would suck on an arcade joystick and many PC games (i.e. the ones requiring a mouse---could you imagine playing one of the mousy real time strategy games without a mouse?) suck on consoles. And that's not even getting on to the (multi) touch screen based games for phones and tablets which would suck without such an interface.

And don't forget the weird control games like Tempest (which is amazing, but requires arcade hardware---specifically a spinner sort of thing) or even whac-a-mole which is immense fun but requires a large, dedicated machine as the input device. Whenever I'm at the seaside (which is where you still find arcades in blighty) with my SO we always seek out a whac-a-mole (or equivalent) machine for a small tournament. Usually followed by one of those two player games with arcade guns where you shoot at hoards of enemies.

No modern games play well on joysticks because they're rare so no one writes games for them. That's not a "things were better in the days of yore" nostalgia trip, it's just an observation that the hardware has changed and games must necessarily use what is available.

One of my favourites is Robotron. Technically it plays on a game pad, but it is much more fun on dual arcade joysticks.