Arcade ROMs for Download, Legally 338
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."
$2-$6 a game!? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope this works... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a good idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do I care if it's legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$2-$6 a game!? (Score:2, Insightful)
And you can spend all day blowing on your cartidges trying to get them to work in your aging console.
Part of the beauty of ROM images is that they don't wear out like our favorite cartidges and consoles do.
wow, that's not a lotta games! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:$2-$6 a game!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Good Stuff! (Score:2, Insightful)
On the flip side I'd love to actually see this sort of thing take off and, get licenses out for games and emulators for other systems. Not to mention it's nice to have a piece of history without the ritual blowing, rubbing alcohol, smashing and praying for hours, for one round of Double Dragon
As a gamer sometimes all the new fancy-smancy graphics from the X-Box and PS2 and the like are cool, but dammit, sometimes Gannon or Bowser just need to get owned!
because (Score:3, Insightful)
Shocking, I know.
hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:$2-$6 a game!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, parent established the benefit that roms have over cartiges, yet you want it to be cheaper because... it doesn't cost them as much? Frankly you need to charge at least $2 a game so people take you seriously. Would I feel bad about pirating a $.50 game? at all?
Re:$2-$6 a game!? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:$2-$6 a game!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Legal console emulation (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, it seems like, if they get too many users, the service would become useless.
Re:$2-$6 a game!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's a good idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue of arcade ROMs illustrates perfectly the problem with our messed up copyright system. We can't legally play many old games because they are not for sale, nor will they ever be. The companies that made them are out of business, and their copyrights are either lost or packed away in some warehouse. They won't be dusted off and offered to the public, because it's not financially worth the trouble. This keeps ideas and information, in the form of old games, legally out of the public's hands. These ideas and information are roped off from the public not to benifit the creators of the games, the ostensible reason for copyright, but to protect the status quo of copyright in general, and keep "piracy" in all it's forms outside the law. This is not confined to old video games, but books, movies, recordings, and almost any form of expression.
gimme Gyruss.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not a troll (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:$2-$6 a game!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple did it with iTunes, why can't they do it with these ROMs?
Re:Why do I care if it's legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:$2-$6 a game!? (Score:3, Insightful)
$2-$6 a game? I pumped more than that into some of these machines in one afternoon when I was a kid. Especially Defender and Tempest. Grr... I just gave up on that on those a while. I someone had time-traveled back and told me that unlimited play would cost no more than $6, I wouldn't have believed them. If they had... well... I would have played anyway. I was adicted. Besides. Who wants to play games when their over 30 anyway. Oh. I forgot. This is Slashdot.
Renting games, not selling them (Score:1, Insightful)
That really isn't very much like what the article suggests, now is it? It seems you can't really get a clean version of the ROMS, and you can't keep them - it's a DRM thing.
Re:$2-$6 a game!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why do I care if it's legal? (Score:2, Insightful)
Copyright, as was originally written in the constitution, was supposed to last for about 15 years in order for the creator/inventor to get some money from the work they created. It was also possible to get an extension in rare circumstances where the creator/inventor was still making a significant profit off their creation. However, after that point the work would revert to the public domain so that society as a whole could benefit from their work at no cost. This was meant to be a very carefully balanced compromise between the needs of the individual and the needs of the group. However, thanks to lobbying by businesses like Disney such copyrights have been extended to many years after the copyright holder dies. Anyone with a little bit of knowledge about copyright can see that this blatantly goes against what our forefathers wanted (in fact strict copyright was one of the reasons we wanted to free ourselves from British rule, albeit minor). As a result I believe that it is more than moral to play a 15+ year old game without having to pay since if some greedy people didn't insist on changing the laws in their favor it would be in the public domain anyway.
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.
You are confusing physical property with intellectual property, they are not the same and should not be compared. Land cannot be copied or duplicated. IP, which is usually nothing more than an idea (or in the case of ROMS, raw data), can be easily copied at no cost to the creator in this day an age. Many others have used your argument in the past, however that does not make it correct. Even law is able to make the distinction since theft of property is a criminal offence and "theft" of IP is civil. That is a fact that few people understand because of people spreading disinformation such as your flawed argument. It is annoying and spreads the minconception to those who don't know any better.
Re:$2-$6 a game!? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:$2-$6 a game!? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Renting games, not selling them (Score:3, Insightful)
The slashdot article is about StarRoms.com [starroms.com]. They are two totally different things. This article has absolutely NOTHING TO DO WITH CONSOLECLASSIX.
Re:Why do I care if it's legal? (Score:3, Insightful)
Watch your terminology. You've been listening to the RIAA and MPAA too long. It isn't theft. Theft is a legal term that they are misuing. It is a violation of Copyright. Nothing was stolen (legally speaking). The person downloading a ROM didn't take it away from anyone else.
There is a qualitative and even quantitative different between the legal term theft and what people do when they download music, software, or ROMs illegally.
Is it ok to do some gold mining on their land?
No it would not be. Becuase if I did that, I'd have stolen gold from them. They would no longer have it. If, however, I downlaod a ROM that is part of their IP collection, they still have it. You example is not really hitting the mark. Sorry.
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.
Irresponsible? I don't see how that word realy pertains here. Perhaps you can clarify? Either way, I happen to agree with the previous poster. His assumption, though it was unstated, is that corporations should not be allowed to own copyrights or patents. That should be a right that falls solely to individualls, in so far as it should exist at all! His claim, therefore, that the original programmer isn't making money and so his download is morally acceptable is the same as saying, "I don't acknowledge corporate copyrights" which is both a moral stance and a resonable one.
-Tom