Suggestion: Get the AtariAge games on the new VCS

[zzip]

a lot of the talk has been around 2600/Stella,  but AA has homebrews for many other Atari platforms.   Another issue is some platforms need OS/System roms, which are not freely distributable.   I believe there are free replacements for ST and 8-bit computers, and that may or may not be a workaround.   But I think systems like Jaguar and Lynx still need the copyrighted roms?

[Kr0tki]

14 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

True, but DOSBox isn't Stella.  It's also possible that GOG has negotiated licensing terms with the necessary parties to make that kind of distribution legally-permissible.

They haven't - they simply abide to the GPL.

15 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

My guess is that the issue is with including ROMs with Stella; this is usually prohibited by most emulators' licences.

That's not true for most emulators. Stephen already elaborated more in the caseof Stella.

[+x=usr(1536)]

5 hours ago, Kr0tki said:

They haven't - they simply abide to the GPL.

 

Which is nice of them, but the GPL is not the be-all, end-all of licensing.  There is nothing that prevents additional licenses also being part of a software distribution, and if the author includes instructions to not bundle ROMs with their emulator, that's as valid as including the GPL on its own.

 

Quote

That's not true for most emulators. Stephen already elaborated more in the caseof Stella.

 

Stella does not represent all (or even most) emulators, and what Stella may or may not do as regards licensing does not necessarily reflect other emulators' requirements.

 

Of the emulation projects that I've contributed to over the past (almost) 25 years at this point, 'don't bundle ROMs' has been a very definite part of their licences, and also for ones that I have not directly had involvement with beyond being an end user.

Edited January 21, 2021 by x=usr(1536)

[mr_me]

The Atari800 emulator, which covers the 5200, A7800 and MAME, Handy for lynx emulation, Altirra, all have similar GPL licenses.  System and game roms, even those that are distributed free of charge, are almost all copyrighted and require permission to distribute.  Emulator developers don't want to be part of illegal distribution.  However, if they didn't want a rom copyright holder to include a copy of their emulator, they would have chosen a different license for their emulator.  Argon is an example of an emulator (including 2600, 7800, lynx) that have developed their own system roms and have copies of various game roms, including homebrews, available with permissions.

 

If homebrew roms were to be made available in the atari vcs store then any atari SA owned system rom would only be there with the permission of stari sa.  Since they would be making money from these sales, I don't any reason they wouldn't.

Edited January 21, 2021 by mr_me

[+x=usr(1536)]

Not going to go in circles regarding licensing issues; having done enough of this in my professional life over the years, it's quite frankly mind-numbingly boring to me.

 

What I will say, though, is that it's all a moot point unless Albert wants it to happen.  We car argue the minutiae until the cows come home, but if AA isn't interested then anything anyone may have to say on the matter is wasting time, effort, and energy.

[mr_me]

It's up to whoever holds the copyrights on each game rom. If that is atariage then yeah their permission is required.

[+x=usr(1536)]

4 minutes ago, mr_me said:

It's up to whoever holds the copyrights on each game rom. If that is atariage then yeah their permission is required.

Correct, but I wasn't referring to game rights.  My question was along the much more fundamental lines of, "Does AA even care to sell games in the VCS Store in the first place?"

 

If the answer to that is no, then everything else is a moot point and we're just farting into the wind.

[mr_me]

Does atariage have exclusive rights to these games?  If they don't, it's just between the copyright holder, probably the developer, and atari sa.  I don't know what the potential market is for these games; I'd say if Atari SA isn't interested it's a moot point.

Edited January 21, 2021 by mr_me

[+x=usr(1536)]

*Yawn*

[zzip]

43 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Does atariage have exclusive rights to these games?  If they don't, it's just between the copyright holder, probably the developer, and atari sa.  I don't know what the potential market is for these games; I'd say if Atari SA isn't interested it's a moot point.

Price might be an issue.  Fans of homebrew are happy to pay the prices AA asks,  but the general public would likely balk at the prices.  I could see Youtubers making outrage videos about how Atari is gouging VCS owners.  So Atari could demand a much lower price to list these games. 

 

It might be better if AA just sold digital copies directly, and you run them in sandbox mode on the emulator of your choice.

[Mockduck]

In an unrelated discussion today someone linked to the medium article where revshare was explained:

 

Revenue Sharing
One aspect of our effort to support and encourage the development community is by charging low platform fees, allowing for a competitive revenue sharing framework in the Atari VCS store.

Publishers and developers will receive an 88 percent (88%) revenue share on all Atari VCS-exclusive titles, or an 80 percent (80%) share on non-exclusive titles, approved and placed in the Atari VCS store.

 

link: https://atarivcs.medium.com/guidance-for-atari-vcs-content-developers-go-760d5522370d

 

[leech]

On 1/19/2021 at 9:11 AM, Mockduck said:

I would need to look up Atari's cut, they stated it at some point during the pre-launch, but IIRC it is less than the industry standard 30%. 

It is 20% or 12% for exclusives

 

(Edit, oops replied before the link was posted)

Edited January 23, 2021 by leech

[zzip]

I noticed that the box the Atari VCS comes in has a screenshot of the homebrew "Adventure II" on the back.   Maybe it means they have something in the works?