MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - Re: Nintendo Power 900 points too much for Neo Geo games.

Classic oldskool games are worth a lot of money in regards to back catalog sales and the huge amount of retrogamers out there. All they needs are decent frontends and packaging since the games are already developed.

The problem is that the companies usually screw up the implementation royally.

I'm still very ticked off with Namco and Taito for their classic arcade game compilations on CD-ROM. The problem is the malware that claims to be "copy protection" that's embedded within those botched PC releases. It took me an hour to track down why my system was unstable right down to buggy and paranoid StarForce and other "copy protection" malware.

The end result? A P2P downloading frenzy. Well, at least from I can see from what I'm hosting upon my end to keep the classics alive (no links, sorry folks).

So I'm stuck with those retail CD-ROMs and can't really run them without risking my system stability. That's the bad news.

The good news? That' my license to use clean ROMs since I technically have legit retail silver CD-ROMs from Namco and Taito. I just don't use the official company frontend to run them. :-)

I'm sure it may be possible to extract the actual ROM code from the CD-ROMs. The thing is that I already have a clean source already. Though, from a technical standpoint, it would be an interesting reverse-engineering project.

Legal ROMs are a part of history and I consider them priceless. Sadly, it appears that the major companies who own the blockbuster titles don't know how to do legit releases without creating that clean black market of ROM downloads via P2P and elsewhere.

Virtual consoles are a step within the right direction with the ease of use and convenience. It's just that you have to consider how much you'd spend for the actual cart or arcade game credits in the long run. I'll leave that to the individual to decide if it's worth it.

Technically-advanced computer users already know about emulation and sources for clean games already. Sadly, they're the minority. The majority remains clueless about computers in general and are usually the ones who get burned either by bogus malware-laden topsites or by actual legit shrinkwrapped retail releases.

--Bekki

Combating functional illiteracy with latex-clad drama since the '80s, because old video games rule!