> People will continue the bullshit story FOREVER. But why? 16 years and they're > holding hope that if we pretend to believe the story he will come around and release > the dump. It's madness. > > He won't release the roms because then it would no longer draw crowds to calx or be > worth 40K. Hardly anyone would care to play it anymore and it would drop in value. > Nothing changed in 16 years. I told people they were full of shit then and they're > loaded with it now.
At this point I'd be surprised if there's anybody who wants to play it, who is willing to go to events where it sometimes appears that hasn't already played it. There are other far more interesting / significant / worth playing things at these shows than a failed prototype that looks and apparently plays like somebody in Korea saw the original and thought 'hey we can do that too!' Heck, if you really want Marble Madness without any analog controls just play one of the home games based around the same theme. It's not even the most interesting of the Atari prototypes that are unreleased.
So honestly I'm not sure how much of an excuse it is at all, it might just be the legitimate reason.
But yes, lots of people make excuses for not dumping things all the time, because they think it will devalue their collection, or they want to be the only one who can play it, or they think it will see an ever increasingly unlikely official release or re-release and don't want to upset somebody.
The 'not allowed to release' reason is actually one of the more legitimate ones, especially if you've already had direct contact with the developer. I know for a fact there are other people in that position too.
A more stupid situation is Danger Express, for which support was added to MAME, the roms were posted on a few forums, then the whole thing withdrawn because somebody here complained about it, and said that unless it was taken out we wouldn't see anything in the future (I don't think said person has provided anything since anyway) Apparently the internet *does* have an undo button tho, because it's basically impossible to find now.