> Yes I saw the Phoenix rush on eBay but to be fair I never saw a single one of them > sell to a buyer who I am aware of them running an arcade and planning to put it > there. So you're saying you are assuming eBay buyers are arcade operators. CPS2 was > probably the most popular arcade hardware ever made? And maybe the most collected by > gamers, but I don't have any numbers to back that up. >
I've seen a few reboot when I've been to arcades, they've been phoenix sets. They penetrated the market something special. I suspect the places that rent out the machines or whatever installed the phoenix kits first chance they got to reduce their maintenance costs.
> So are you saying the rule is any arcade game sold on eBay is eligible for MAME? It's > not putting them in MAME that is the problem, it's that there is a double standard.
A judgement call will be made on a case-by-case basis.
There are other things in MAME that were probably never operated outside of one arcade back in the day, things that were sold as conversion kits that ultimately nobody wanted so got tossed in the garbage instead, but 30 years later one that survived ends up being sold. You wouldn't argue those don't belong in MAME, typically they end up selling for quite a lot of money now too. I wouldn't say it was double standards, it's just trying to make a sensible call in each case.