MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: Saw something strange on Starcade

> Just curious, to help those of us who don't really understand the world of arcade
> enthusiasts so well ... what would be the value of this undiscovered revision? Would
> you really be that excited about a version of Donkey Kong that had yellow for the
> high score text instead of red? Or was it that you'd have been hoping for some other
> differences in the revision that would be interesting? Even then, what would the
> value be? It's not like there is nostalgia to play again a revision of a game that
> you never would have played or seen before. If the timings or something had been
> slightly different, would it be that thrilling?
>
> I absolutely don't mean to belittle your interests or your enthusiasm; this is really
> meant as an honest question because I'd like to understand arcade history enthusiasts
> a little better. I read about the various obscure revisions of obscure games that are
> being discovered and talked about excitedly on the front page of mameworld.info all
> of the time, and aside from trying to infer what the excitement is about from all of
> the posts, I don't really know because I'm not part of that scene. Once again, not
> belittling it - just trying to understand better something that is a bit of a mystery
> to me. Thank you!

The goal of most people involved with MAME (and even many of the users) is documentation and preservation. By those criteria, a previously unknown revision is always worth finding, even if the differences from known versions are trivial. I think the excitement mostly stems from the idea that we're essentially saving these games from extinction. They get scarcer as hardware fails or is destroyed, and a rare revision is that much closer to being lost forever. There's probably also a touch of Pokemon syndrome at work, completeness for completeness sake, even if the practical differences are minimal.