> But you have heard from a previous Arcade Op manager and the woes to the business, > and still there is ignorance to the fact.
I think he's wrong in blaming MAME on the demise of the business. The death of arcades was a thing in popular culture even before MAME existed. Since then, the number of things people do instead of going to arcades has skyrocketed, and the quality of games on PCs, consoles, and handhelds/phones has shot well past anything available in arcades.
> Why is it so hard to embrace that Mame revolutionized the arcade business strategy > and move on.
Seriously? What changes to the arcade business strategy have occured as a specific result of emulators? Be specific. Because from what I've seen, arcades are running the same business strategy they did in 1981, except that the games are far less compelling. Even in Japan that's not a great model.
> If these roms didn't get leaked to the internet, Mame would still be > here, just the nice side effect of playing them would not.
It would be quite difficult to emulate something without the roms. Operators posting images to repair machines is what launched hobbyist emulation in the first place.
> Better to have five images of the game ROM, stored, locked away than to have millions > floating around the globe.
So you think Marble Madness II is the best-preserved game in history then?
> Besides most people I come across only have collections based on pre 106 anyway.
This goes against your OMG MAME IS SINGLE-HANDEDLY RUINING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY argument, if nothing we dumped after 0.106 will be downloaded by EEEVUL PYERITS.
> I applaud the efforts, but isn't the project nearing the end with the inclusion of > MESS as MESS is a more challenging and interesting enterprise?
On the contrary, MESS is both less challenging and more interesting than the parade of x86 garbage people like xiaou2 have been paying too much for since 1996.