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What do you think about the roms controversy?

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Itchigo:
So VPF pulled it's Gottlieb roms. Another site had a 22 million dollar judgement against them for Nintendo roms.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjezda/couple-who-ran-rom-site-to-pay-nintendo-dollar12-million

I said this 3 years ago at Vpinball.com
I’ll say this again. Eventually some misguided individual is going to go to the wrong person and convince them that money is being lost, and that’ll be the end. Is your cab backed up??? Do you not need any more tables?

Supposedly Gottlieb wants $50,000 per rom, is that really worth it????

I should say that I have never hosted roms here. There were many other sites that had them, so I figured I didn't need the liability. I guess I was right.  :Green:

Humid:
The ongoing increase in digital sales and digital products has caught up to this hobby. Years ago no one expected a resurgence in retro game sales. I predicted years ago, as I harvested old console roms from sites that it wouldn't last forever. Mainly because they don't make games as imaginatively and fun as they once did. Hence the return of the Charger, Mustang and Camaro automobiles that reflect the fun styling of the past. Glad I have all my Gottlieb roms tucked away. 

kencaine:
Well, I just went over to VPF and read the posts about the take-down. I know the ROMs images are available through the net still. I would bet that Gottlieb will be trolling around to have them all taken down. And that is their right, I suppose. I would not have such a big issue if Gottlieb made a site where one could buy/download the ROM images for individual games instead of just taking their ball and going home.

The rights are owned by the Mondial Group (http://mondialgroup.com). They have set up a lousy web site (http://gottliebpin.com) for Gottlieb pinball stuff. Only thing there are links to other sites for buying products and none of them carry the ROMs.

A better practice would be to have a web site where the ROMs could be downloaded, cheaply, buck or two, than to completely remove them from everywhere. I would pay a few bucks for a ROM image to run a VP game. If Zen can produce full games with Bally/Williams ROMs for about $3 a game the costs for just the ROMs should be in line with this price.

Itchigo:

--- Quote from: Humid on December 18, 2018, 11:01:41 PM ---The ongoing increase in digital sales and digital products has caught up to this hobby. Years ago no one expected a resurgence in retro game sales. I predicted years ago, as I harvested old console roms from sites that it wouldn't last forever. Mainly because they don't make games as imaginatively and fun as they once did. Hence the return of the Charger, Mustang and Camaro automobiles that reflect the fun styling of the past. Glad I have all my Gottlieb roms tucked away.

--- End quote ---

Very true about no one expected this. In a way VPF is partly responsible because of their commercialization of the hobby. Not just them mind you, but they are a major site where people talk about spending money on the hobby- that attracts attention. If no one talked about spending money on their cabs, and it was desktop only, I'm guessing it would have taken longer for this to happen.

Totally agree about the classics. Them young whippersnappers can't come up with any (good) new ideas, so we rehash the old ones. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to tell some kids to get off my lawn... :Whistle:

kencaine:
they don't make games as imaginatively and fun as they once did

I have to disagree with this statement. I think games today are as good as they every have been, maybe better, and cars too. We only tend to remember the very best from the past simply because they were the very best. There were a lot of dog games made that we are better off forgetting. Cars, can you say Yugo and LeCar and AMC Javlin. The folks that recreate VP games don't make the lousy games that people don't play. Your not seeing too many Chicago Coin games being made as there is not much interest in playing them.

And now, back to the ROMs to keep the discussion 'on topic'. I don't think it would be all that difficult to re-engineer some of the early ROMs for use in VP. Would it be a violation of IP if I wrote a new ROM or script that could be used in VP to simulate the Gottlieb ROMs. For instance, Haunted House, the total functionality of the ROMs is not that significant over an EM game. It is not a deep rule set. The game/music sounds could be recorded from an actual table. Perhaps new ROMs could breathe new life into old machines and game play. Maybe we should look at this as an opportunity.

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