Complete MAME rom dvd's?

[Wolf9545]

I was looking around on the internet and I found some sites that allow you to buy around cd's/dvd's with a complete set of MAME roms on it. I found this site, http://www.freemame.us/shop/index.php?productID=121. I was wondering if this is a good site and any other info people can give me on this idea? Thanks.

[NE146]

Personally I think buying that is a ripoff.. but I guess it's a viable alternative if you can't figure out how to download them yourself or your connection's too slow. But it's just kind of crazy someone would be selling those things in the first place.

 

Personally I find alt.binaries.emulators.mame more than sufficient to keep my stuff current. Or if you want to go the torrents route I think you can find full roms at http://www.pleasuredome.org.uk/mameftpgroup/index.php although torrents to me are a last resort

[DanBoris]

I was looking around on the internet and I found some sites that allow you to buy around cd's/dvd's with a complete set of MAME roms on it. I found this site, http://www.freemame.us/shop/index.php?productID=121. I was wondering if this is a good site and any other info people can give me on this idea? Thanks.

 

I don't know anything about that specific site, but if these people have no problem breaking the law in selling something like this, they probably wouldn't have a problem ripping you off, and if they did you would have no re-course since you are buying something illegal.

 

Dan

[yuppicide]

There are some reputable sites, but honestly I haven't looked in awhile. I think buying a complete current set is a viable option for some because you are getting everything all in one easy shot. Then all you would need to do is the minor updates when they come out.

[keilbaca]

There are some reputable sites, but honestly I haven't looked in awhile. I think buying a complete current set is a viable option for some because you are getting everything all in one easy shot. Then all you would need to do is the minor updates when they come out.

 

Especially because there's a lot of updates now, that would be a great starter kit if you so claim.

 

Oh and you're not actually paying for the roms themselves, you're paying for the DVD's and the shipping.

[Dauber]

Okay...I must be missing something, but....what's actually "free" on the "FreeMAME" site???

[Paranoid]

I don't know anything about that specific site, but if these people have no problem breaking the law in selling something like this, they probably wouldn't have a problem ripping you off, and if they did you would have no re-course since you are buying something illegal.

 

Dan

 

These guys are often *every* bit as comitted and genuine in their passion for MAME as any hardcore retro collector here on Atari Age. The guys who copy MAME sets on DVD as a service often have a policy page, and you can get a feel for what drives them by reading this.

 

Almost ANYONE doing this is doing it as a passion, not as a business, and certainly not to get rich. I think it shows a tremendous lack of understanding to assume that they're "breaking the law" for monetary gain. As far as I've ever seen, most of the people who do this probably lose money in the long run.

[Ze_ro]

FYI, there is a complete MAME 0.107 flood going on in alt.binaries.emulators.mame right this moment... so if you don't know how to use the newsgroups, now's a good time to figure them out.

 

And there are a ton of private trackers out there that have torrents of the full rom set (and CHD's if you want) available. Torrents are perfect for stuff like this, because you can choose which files you don't want to download, and those that you specifically want can be set as high priorities so they'll get downloaded first.

 

Basically, there are plenty of free options for getting a complete rom set, even if you're on a slow connection.

 

--Zero

[Paranoid]

Torrents is a good bet I was going to mention.

 

Paying the copy fee isn't a bad way to go, either though.

[DanBoris]

I don't know anything about that specific site, but if these people have no problem breaking the law in selling something like this, they probably wouldn't have a problem ripping you off, and if they did you would have no re-course since you are buying something illegal.

 

Dan

 

These guys are often *every* bit as comitted and genuine in their passion for MAME as any hardcore retro collector here on Atari Age. The guys who copy MAME sets on DVD as a service often have a policy page, and you can get a feel for what drives them by reading this.

 

Almost ANYONE doing this is doing it as a passion, not as a business, and certainly not to get rich. I think it shows a tremendous lack of understanding to assume that they're "breaking the law" for monetary gain. As far as I've ever seen, most of the people who do this probably lose money in the long run.

 

Trust me, as a member of the MAME development team, I understand the situation. Yes, you are correct not everyone is doing this for monetary gain but there are some that are. The MAME team has contantly had to battle with people who abuse MAME for non-legitmate commercial purposes. People who sell ROMS of disks and associate these closely with MAME by using the MAME name, or actually including MAME along with the ROMS (which is against the license), put MAME in a very negative light and may drawn the attention of the copyright holders. The MAME team does everything it can to protect the original goals of the project which are to document and preserve these games. They also support legitimate projects that secure legal rights to the games, in the hopes that more companies will allow thier games to be re-released in a legal manor.

 

Dan

[Paranoid]

Trust me, as a member of the MAME development team, I understand the situation. Yes, you are correct not everyone is doing this for monetary gain but there are some that are. The MAME team has contantly had to battle with people who abuse MAME for non-legitmate commercial purposes. People who sell ROMS of disks and associate these closely with MAME by using the MAME name, or actually including MAME along with the ROMS (which is against the license), put MAME in a very negative light and may drawn the attention of the copyright holders. The MAME team does everything it can to protect the original goals of the project which are to document and preserve these games. They also support legitimate projects that secure legal rights to the games, in the hopes that more companies will allow thier games to be re-released in a legal manor.

 

Dan

 

Ok. Now you're saying something a lot different than your original post, and I can completely agree with this. I've been saying for awhile that someone needs to start an iGames site where you can download legally licensed ROMs with DMRs built into them.

 

Hey... if you're part of the development team, and you want to do something to encourage the manfuacturers to get on board... there you go. Push to have DMR incorperated in the ROM format, even if it means a complete overhaul of the ROM encoding method.

 

You do that, and you get the manufacturers selling their titles for $.99/rom, you'll have a legitimate business model that will make them tons of money. It is a matter of WHEN... not if... and MAME might as well be the one that innovates the standards...

[DanBoris]

Ok. Now you're saying something a lot different than your original post, and I can completely agree with this. I've been saying for awhile that someone needs to start an iGames site where you can download legally licensed ROMs with DMRs built into them.

 

Hey... if you're part of the development team, and you want to do something to encourage the manfuacturers to get on board... there you go. Push to have DMR incorperated in the ROM format, even if it means a complete overhaul of the ROM encoding method.

 

You do that, and you get the manufacturers selling their titles for $.99/rom, you'll have a legitimate business model that will make them tons of money. It is a matter of WHEN... not if... and MAME might as well be the one that innovates the standards...

 

There was a site that was doing basically that, Starroms, but unfortunetly they in-explicably closed up shop earlier this year, don't know if there was ever a public explination of why. Hopefully someone else will attempt this, since I agree with you selling old roms at a low cost would probably generate a lot of business.

 

Dan

[Paranoid]

 

 

There was a site that was doing basically that, Starroms, but unfortunetly they in-explicably closed up shop earlier this year, don't know if there was ever a public explination of why. Hopefully someone else will attempt this, since I agree with you selling old roms at a low cost would probably generate a lot of business.

 

Dan

 

I imagine right now the DRM issues are the problem. I bet someone is working on a solution right now. But if they're not, they should be. First person that does that is going to corner the market. If you price the roms reasonably and make up your money on gross sales, it will succeed.

[DanBoris]

 

 

There was a site that was doing basically that, Starroms, but unfortunetly they in-explicably closed up shop earlier this year, don't know if there was ever a public explination of why. Hopefully someone else will attempt this, since I agree with you selling old roms at a low cost would probably generate a lot of business.

 

Dan

 

I imagine right now the DRM issues are the problem. I bet someone is working on a solution right now. But if they're not, they should be. First person that does that is going to corner the market. If you price the roms reasonably and make up your money on gross sales, it will succeed.

 

I don't know that you would even have to bother with DRM. Since all these ROMS are already floating around out there on the net and are quite easy to find, there really is no point in protecting them with DRM, if someone really wants a copy for free they don't need to get it from the guy who downloaded it from a legitimate site, they could just get it off another site.

 

Also, I think it would be hard to come up with a DRM scheme that was permissive enough to allow you to play the game as you wanted to. Atari 2600 emulators for example run on a ton of platforms, PC, Mac, Linux, Dreamcast, GP2X, etc. It would be hard to come up with a DRM scheme that would work across all platforms.

 

Dan

[Paranoid]

I don't know that you would even have to bother with DRM. Since all these ROMS are already floating around out there on the net and are quite easy to find, there really is no point in protecting them with DRM, if someone really wants a copy for free they don't need to get it from the guy who downloaded it from a legitimate site, they could just get it off another site.

 

Also, I think it would be hard to come up with a DRM scheme that was permissive enough to allow you to play the game as you wanted to. Atari 2600 emulators for example run on a ton of platforms, PC, Mac, Linux, Dreamcast, GP2X, etc. It would be hard to come up with a DRM scheme that would work across all platforms.

 

Dan

 

You could argue the same thing was true with music. All those titles were out there, and were quite easy to find. The recording industry just wasn't going to get on board until there was some way to protect their content. The DRM becomes a "value-add". Your music is protected, it is YOUR music. It can only be copied to YOUR devices... yada yada yada.

 

iTunes was hugely successful because most people WANT to be "legal" and are willing to pay a reasonable fee to use something.

 

The multiple device platforms could be a revenue generator for the successful company, too. The way I see it, you're going to have an engine, much like iTunes... that is the emulator. You'll need that engine on multiple platforms. Make the engines for particular platforms a pay feature... for example, PC and Mac, free download... xBox, $15 on XBox DVD mailed from the iGames store.

 

Although in all honesty, the non PC platforms are already a MINORITY of a fringe, and I doubt a store like this would have to be too concerned with them... any growth would undoubtedly be on Win and Mac platforms.

[yuppicide]

I found the best option is torrent. I downloaded via Pleasuredome. You have to register with them, but it's free. All they ask in return is that you seed as well.

 

So, you don't have to download a complete set everytime. Just the updated portion.

[Paranoid]

That is how I got my complete set. Well, actually, a friend did the Torrent, then we burnt copies of his DVDs. THAT is the BEST method. But lacking a friend that will do it for you, doing it yourself isn't that much of a bother.