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> > If the company wishes to protect a console version, they can contact us just as
> Cave
> > > and Arika have in the past. (In Arika's case, they made more copies of the game
> > than
> > > Xbox 360s have ever sold in Japan, with predictable 2600 ET-like results, but
> > MAMEdev
> > > did remove the games as we were asked).
> >
> > But then nobody decided to ask them first, they just did it, and only did you
> remove
> > it, after the fact. Right?
> >
> > I do not see that as a positive.
> >
> > Sorry no kudos for you.
>
> You might like to rethink things.
>
> Plenty of people have asked the "major" companies. Not a single one as far as I can
> tell has ever said "Yes". There is either no answer (which implies "No") or else
> there is a definite "No".
>
> Here's one example: In the very early days of arcade emulation, Dave Spicer
> (Sparcade) and I exchanged many, many dozens (perhaps 100's) of emails. In 1995/96, I
> offered a lot of money (think 6 figures !) to back him to take his arcade emulator
> and make it a commercial product with 100% legal / licensed games. The BIG problem -
> and the reason the project never went commercial - was the permissions. No-one would
> grant any. No-one even wanted to discuss money / licensing fees. No-one would talk
> about it. The "right person" was never there to talk to. No-one would answer letters.
> No-one would return phone calls. They just wanted to sit on their IP. Their focus was
> the future. Not old or ancient games from their past.
>
> If people asked before emulating, then there would be ZERO emulation. Many of the
> games supported by projects like MAME are preserved ONLY because these projects saved
> them, and often they were saved just in time. Many games would already be lost to
> oblivion if things were left to the IP holders. In many cases, they don't even have a
> backup of their source code.
>
> The fact that there are now some freeware games for MAME doesn't mean anything. These
> were only released long after MAME had become a success (emulating dozens of games,
> with wide distribution).
>
> If MAME had been a project that was still trying to emulate it's first game with full
> permission of the IP owner, and had approached any of the very nice people who have
> now released their games as freeware, then would they have said "YES" ?
>
> I'm all for you doing research about this for your thesis. However, you need to keep
> an open mind. It sounds like you have already decided on what your answers are, long
> before you've done the research and probably long before you have even thought what
> the real questions should be.
>
> Where are your interviews with emulator devs, IP holders, etc ? Where are your
> surveys of these people ? Where's your literature review ? Where have you tested your
> claims ? e.g. write to a selection of IP holders to ask them about licensing their
> games for your own hypothetical emulation project, and see how far you get. Then, and
> only then, will you know what the real situation is.
>
> If you are coming to conclusions, you'd better have solid evidence to backup all of
> your findings, or your thesis wont be worth anything.