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So, to what extent can we talk about MAME?

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Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
Eh, I have been trying to think of a way to elaborate on this, but I really can't think of anything, so I'll just pose the simple, somewhat vaguely worded question, to what extent can we talk about MAME?

Or has there been anther topic on this in the past that I missed.
 
You can talk about emulators.
ToS said:
E. Emulation/Piracy

The topics of emulation and piracy, including the technical nature of emulators and ROM images, hardware modification technology, as well as their effect on the industry as a political topic are deemed to be generally acceptable.

Linking to pirate download sites, directions on how to get pirated software to work, reviews or impressions of pirated software will all result in the banning of the user in question.
Click to expand...
 
I'm fairly certain that this is all true:

- Don't talk about piracy. Don't question other's ways of getting their ROMs, whether they dumped them or illegally downloaded them... unless they magically have some pre-release game. Then the mods will deal with that.

- Emulation != piracy. Not only would arguing otherwise probably end with a ban, but emulation is legal anyway.

With that said, people have talked about MAME without getting in trouble. (Actually, I remember a thread where a guy specifically said he downloaded ROMs without getting in trouble...) MAME is only emulation, no different from emulating Gamecube/Wii games or PS2 games, which have huge threads. The only difference is the way the emulated games are obtained.
 
MAME is factually the best thing you can do with a computer. My life would be a furious ball of nothing without it.
 
Well, let's be real.

Someone talks about Dolphin:
It's highly possible that they own the disk, and highly possible for them to have ripped it themselves, even though it's fairly improbable that they statistically did.
legal score card: (2 yes, 1 no)

Someone talks about a NES emulator:
It's highly possible that they own the cartridge, but highly improbable that they dumped it themselves considering technical needs.
legal score card: (1 yes, 1 no)

Someone talks about MAME:
It's highly improbable that they own the arcade machine, highly improbable that they dumped it themselves, and basically inconceivable that they would really have gone through the trouble to do so were they to have the cabinet anyways.
legal score card: (0 yes, 3 no)


Point:
MAME is probably the most freely discussed and accepted form of copyright-violating downloading for video games across the internet - referenced openly in many locations by noticeable people within the industry - and also the most direct and obvious way of admitting that you just downloaded a ROM illegally.

The tolerance seems mostly surrounded by the simple facts that there's really very few chances to play these games without the emulator's assistance, a prohibitive cost structure associated with authentic ownership, relative scarcity of functional equipment, abnormal space requirements needed to maintain, and a collector's market barrier to owning them legally.

Doesn't really change the facts of the matter regarding what's going on.

Still, I bet if you really pressed toward an honest and off-the-record discussion, most people who are enthusiasts not only use it, but do so without any guilt or remorse, due to some combination of the reasons states above.


Just my thoughts on the matter.
 
Hunahan said:
Someone talks about Dolphin:
It's highly possible that they own the disk, and highly possible for them to have ripped it themselves, even though it's fairly improbable that they statistically did.
legal score card: (2 yes, 1 no)

Someone talks about a NES emulator:
It's highly possible that they own the cartridge, but highly improbable that they dumped it themselves considering technical needs.
legal score card: (1 yes, 1 no)

Someone talks about MAME:
It's highly improbable that they own the arcade machine, highly improbable that they dumped it themselves, and basically inconceivable that they would really have gone through the trouble to do so were they to have the cabinet anyways.
legal score card: (0 yes, 3 no)
Click to expand...

That's all perfectly true, but also perfectly irrelevant. It doesn't change the fact that we're talking about an emulator, and not the acquisition of dumps regardless of the "probability" of most people having legally acquired them. That's really all there is to it.

Besides, MAME is generally about the preservation of classics that would otherwise disappear in time. If the MAME team only cared about giving people a way to play free games they wouldn't bother listening to various company requests to keep their games off it (that's why we don't see any CAVE shooters post-Guwange on MAME) or keep all emulation cpu-bound for accuracy instead of offloading work to the gpu and using various tricks and workarounds to get the latest games running.

I'm not going to start justifying my use of it because there is no reason for me to do so, but in my case I'd say about a third of my entire collection was bought because I tried it on MAME first. Dodonpachi on psx, Cotton/Cotton 2 on PCE/Saturn, Twinkle Star Sprites, KOF2002, Metal Slug Complete, Afterburner 2, Fantasy Zone, Garou MOTW, Mars Matrix, Twinbee, Parodius, and tons more. Anything I liked on MAME that had a respectable console port I bought.

Some of them I actually haven't even opened yet and just keep playing it on MAME though. :lol
 
Hunahan said:
Well, let's be real.

Someone talks about Dolphin:
It's highly possible that they own the disk, and highly possible for them to have ripped it themselves, even though it's fairly improbable that they statistically did.
legal score card: (2 yes, 1 no)

Someone talks about a NES emulator:
It's highly possible that they own the cartridge, but highly improbable that they dumped it themselves considering technical needs.
legal score card: (1 yes, 1 no)

Someone talks about MAME:
It's highly improbable that they own the arcade machine, highly improbable that they dumped it themselves, and basically inconceivable that they would really have gone through the trouble to do so were they to have the cabinet anyways.
legal score card: (0 yes, 3 no)


Point:
MAME is probably the most freely discussed and accepted form of copyright-violating downloading for video games across the internet - referenced openly in many locations by noticeable people within the industry - and also the most direct and obvious way of admitting that you just downloaded a ROM illegally.

The tolerance seems mostly surrounded by the simple facts that there's really very few chances to play these games without the emulator's assistance, a prohibitive cost structure associated with authentic ownership, relative scarcity of functional equipment, abnormal space requirements needed to maintain, and a collector's market barrier to owning them legally.

Doesn't really change the facts of the matter regarding what's going on.

Still, I bet if you really pressed toward an honest and off-the-record discussion, most people who are enthusiasts not only use it, but do so without any guilt or remorse, due to some combination of the reasons states above.


Just my thoughts on the matter.
Click to expand...
Very well said.

I like to buy games (i.e. legally), and one of the things that makes me sad is that there are a lot of old games, be they NES, arcade, or even PC, that I may be very likely to find, let alone have the system for. I might be interested in a SNES game or two, but am I going to try to find a SNES on ebay and deal with hooking it up to a TV and using the controllers? Some would love to, but it's too much hassle for me. I would rather not play the game. I got the Advance Wars GBA games so I could play them on my DS, but it was a pain to track them down on eBay and bid for them etc. If it were a question of an arcade cabinet...yeah, no way am I getting one. I'd rather not play the game than deal with the space/price etc.

So, long story short, I wish there was a way to legally purchase such things as long as it remains illegally to play them for free. Recent case for me -- I want to try Grim Fandango and The Neverhood, but they are apparently not available on ANY digital download service that's not sketchy, at least that I'm aware of. The only alternative seems to be trying to find the CDROM, i.e. paying $30-70 on somewhere like Amazon for a game that's many years old. I might consider that, but that still seems quite high for me. It feels like there should be a market for reasonably priced, legal emulated/old PC games, but for whatever reason (difficulty acquiring rights, perceived lack of interest) it doesn't seem to happen.

Luka said:
That's all perfectly true, but also perfectly irrelevant. It doesn't change the fact that we're talking about an emulator, and not the acquisition of dumps regardless of the "probability" of most people having legally acquired them. That's really all there is to it.
Click to expand...
It may be irrelevant for the situation of "getting banned from NeoGAF", but otherwise it's certainly relevant. If you admit that what he is saying/implying is true -- that hardly anyone who plays games on MAME acquired the ROM legally -- then those people are all breaking the law if they're in the U.S.A. etc. etc. It may be a silly law, they may not be hurting anyone, and so on, but if you admit that most people acquire ROMs through illegal means (to say nothing of whether the DMCA prevents you from getting some of them yourself, I am not a lawyer)...then you admit that most of the aforementioned people are breaking the law. *shrug*

But yeah, for discussions here I suppose it's fair to say it is not relevant.
 
Licenced emulation software, for older, long since defunct systems, would have been awesome. I wonder if it will ever happen one day.

Blizzard, you should contact GOG.com about Grim Fandango and The Neverhood. I'm sure that you're not the only person looking for a digital version of that game.

ps - Two Worlds is available on GOG.com... Wasn't that game from 2008?
 
Blizzard said:
It may be irrelevant for the situation of "getting banned from NeoGAF", but otherwise it's certainly relevant. If you admit that what he is saying/implying is true -- that hardly anyone who plays games on MAME acquired the ROM legally -- then those people are all breaking the law if they're in the U.S.A. etc. etc. It may be a silly law, they may not be hurting anyone, and so on, but if you admit that most people acquire ROMs through illegal means (to say nothing of whether the DMCA prevents you from getting some of them yourself, I am not a lawyer)...then you admit that most of the aforementioned people are breaking the law. *shrug*

But yeah, for discussions here I suppose it's fair to say it is not relevant.
Click to expand...

We have no shortage of discussions on the legality and morality of various forms of piracy on gaf, let alone the rest of the internet. In a situation like this I feel there is no reason to complicate the issue beyond what is immediately acceptable. That was the question after all.
 
luka said:
That's all perfectly true, but also perfectly irrelevant. It doesn't change the fact that we're talking about an emulator, and not the acquisition of dumps regardless of the "probability" of most people having legally acquired them. That's really all there is to it.
Click to expand...
It's kind of odd to stop a quote right before the word "Point:" and then claim that it was irrelevant.

luka said:
Besides, MAME is generally about the preservation of classics that would otherwise disappear in time.
Click to expand...
That's actually not true.

The MAME project was originally about people who were interested in figuring out how old arcade machines work. It was a technical inquiry, not a game-preservation methodology.

The fact that there is a following of people who utilize the work to play old games that they don't have access to is incidental.


luka said:
I'm not going to start justifying my use of it because there is no reason for me to do so,
Click to expand...
That's fine. I never asked you to.

bonesmccoy said:
Licenced emulation software, for older, long since defunct systems, would have been awesome. I wonder if it will ever happen one day.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure whether to blame execution or interest, but Game Room on Xbox is basically this without any form of success.
 
Hunahan said:
It's kind of odd to stop a quote right before the word "Point:" and then claim that it was irrelevant.
Click to expand...

Your point was pretty clear. I'm just saying it doesn't really have any relevance to whether or not it is acceptable to discuss MAME.

That's actually not true.

The MAME project was originally about people who were interested in figuring out how old arcade machines work. It was a technical inquiry, not a game-preservation methodology.

The fact that there is a following of people who utilize the work to play old games that they don't have access to is incidental.
Click to expand...

You're right about that but I don't feel it changes my point much. MAME was not intended to be developed as a way to give people free games illegally.

That's fine. I never asked you to.
Click to expand...

No need to take offense to that. It was to no one in particular.
 
Hunahan said:
I'm not sure whether to blame execution or interest, but Game Room on Xbox is basically this without any form of success.
Click to expand...
Hmm, I didn't know about that. I know Wii and the DS-ish systems (eventually?) have that sort of thing on virtual console, too (though locked to a single system, right? rargh).

That's a good point about contacting GoG. I suppose it's worth a shot to drop an email or something.
 
Hunahan said:
Well, let's be real.

Someone talks about Dolphin:
It's highly possible that they own the disk, and highly possible for them to have ripped it themselves, even though it's fairly improbable that they statistically did.
legal score card: (2 yes, 1 no)

Someone talks about a NES emulator:
It's highly possible that they own the cartridge, but highly improbable that they dumped it themselves considering technical needs.
legal score card: (1 yes, 1 no)

Someone talks about MAME:
It's highly improbable that they own the arcade machine, highly improbable that they dumped it themselves, and basically inconceivable that they would really have gone through the trouble to do so were they to have the cabinet anyways.
legal score card: (0 yes, 3 no)


Point:
MAME is probably the most freely discussed and accepted form of copyright-violating downloading for video games across the internet - referenced openly in many locations by noticeable people within the industry - and also the most direct and obvious way of admitting that you just downloaded a ROM illegally.

The tolerance seems mostly surrounded by the simple facts that there's really very few chances to play these games without the emulator's assistance, a prohibitive cost structure associated with authentic ownership, relative scarcity of functional equipment, abnormal space requirements needed to maintain, and a collector's market barrier to owning them legally.

Doesn't really change the facts of the matter regarding what's going on.

Still, I bet if you really pressed toward an honest and off-the-record discussion, most people who are enthusiasts not only use it, but do so without any guilt or remorse, due to some combination of the reasons states above.


Just my thoughts on the matter.
Click to expand...
I own a few PCB Boards for games (Like I have the Aerofighter board! And an Arkonid one), but I will admit I have no clue how the hell I would dump the things.

But if I wanted to pose for a High Score Challenge on say, Bal Cube, a rare Japanese only Arkanoid game made 1996 by Metro (Is this even the same Metro as Metro3D?), I find it very unlikely for GAF Mods to look the otherway to the fact that its improbably unlikely anyone to own the game.

I'm not sure whether to blame execution or interest, but Game Room on Xbox is basically this without any form of success.
Click to expand...
It helps to put good games up. If they put some more recentish shumps up, I would be all over it.
 
MAME is the only emulator i dont get. version i grabbed...you dont just select a ROM, there's like a huge list for some reason and even the ones i do have dont want to load. i have no idea what im doing wrong here, never had trouble with any other emus.
 
IrishNinja said:
MAME is the only emulator i dont get. version i grabbed...you dont just select a ROM, there's like a huge list for some reason and even the ones i do have dont want to load. i have no idea what im doing wrong here, never had trouble with any other emus.
Click to expand...

MAME compatible rom dumps work differently than other emulators using an interchangeable file system for each version of the games that have slightly differing assets. As people create and upload new and more complete dumps the program's rom index gets updated to reflect the latest accurate versions and any changes made to the archive titles. This means even though your rom set may work 100% with your current version, a future update could require different files or names present within an archive and won't be recognized.

It's a pain in the ass but it's all in the name of accuracy.
 
IrishNinja said:
MAME is the only emulator i dont get. version i grabbed...you dont just select a ROM, there's like a huge list for some reason and even the ones i do have dont want to load. i have no idea what im doing wrong here, never had trouble with any other emus.
Click to expand...
MameUI makes it much much easier to use. Its more or less Mame, but with a User Interface!

Its not terribly hard to launch a game though a .bat file though.
 
Drkirby said:
MameUI makes it much much easier to use. Its more or less Mame, but with a User Interface!

Its not terribly hard to launch a game though a .bat file though.
Click to expand...

Regular MAME has a simple GUI too though (at least now it does). I never had use batch files. I stopped using MameUI because of auditing issues.
 
luka said:
Regular MAME has a simple GUI too though (at least now it does). I never had use batch files. I stopped using MameUI because of auditing issues.
Click to expand...
I don't think it did back in like 2005. Only reason I remember the year is because I wondered what they were going to do after version '.99'. Version '.100'!
 
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