Selling homemade arcade cabinets

Jimmy · Post by **Jimmy** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 2:32 pm

Is there any sort of a demand for homemade arcade cabinets? I don't expect that they'd reach as high as the real ones, but what do you think?

johnbjuice · Post by **johnbjuice** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 7:31 pm

My friend homemade an arcade cabinet w/ a coinslot and everything, it had like 20 classic games on it (Dig-Dug, Pac Man, Galaga, etc.). Round Table Pizza lets him rent a space for his machine (Costs him like $5 a month) and he gets to keep all the profits. He rakes in about $20-50 a month!

He said he wants to add some more modern games to it, like Metal Slug. I am so jealous - I wish I had a steady source of free income like that!

Plus whenever we go to Round Table, we get free arcade games!

bgnome · Post by **bgnome** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:04 pm

johnbjuice wrote:My friend homemade an arcade cabinet w/ a coinslot and everything, it had like 20 classic games on it (Dig-Dug, Pac Man, Galaga, etc.). Round Table Pizza lets him rent a space for his machine (Costs him like $5 a month) and he gets to keep all the profits. He rakes in about $20-50 a month!

He said he wants to add some more modern games to it, like Metal Slug. I am so jealous - I wish I had a steady source of free income like that!

Plus whenever we go to Round Table, we get free arcade games!

sounds like you would run into licensing issues, especially charging others to play..

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:13 pm

bgnome wrote:
johnbjuice wrote:My friend homemade an arcade cabinet w/ a coinslot and everything, it had like 20 classic games on it (Dig-Dug, Pac Man, Galaga, etc.). Round Table Pizza lets him rent a space for his machine (Costs him like $5 a month) and he gets to keep all the profits. He rakes in about $20-50 a month!

He said he wants to add some more modern games to it, like Metal Slug. I am so jealous - I wish I had a steady source of free income like that!

Plus whenever we go to Round Table, we get free arcade games!
sounds like you would run into licensing issues, especially charging others to play..

I was thinking the same thing, especially since you more than likely downloaded the games. To get past the pay for games, just say that the money payed turns on the machine, so he is paying for the machine to have power. You're just a nice guy, so you let him play some games with the machine he payed to power.

Jimmy · Post by **Jimmy** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:05 pm

*Machine requires $50 to power flux capacitor.

Krepticor · Post by **Krepticor** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:58 am

not if the games are so old that they are considered abandonware...

so tell your friend to stay away from emus on like NAOMI boards (ha) and more modern metal slugs that don't have the liscense out... umm technically the roms for the metal slug collections are well, a different rom, so there inlys a loop hole if needed...

and As long as the pizza place places an out of order sign when the men in black walk by...

~Krepticor

PS I no way condone behavior pertaining to illegal acts, just check out copyright laws before doing anthing really serious...

johnbjuice · Post by **johnbjuice** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 12:58 pm

I never said whether or not the arcade machine was legal...or if I condoned such illegality...

Obviously if I didn't care about the legal issues I would've tried something similar ages ago.

loup · Post by **loup** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 9:49 am

Krepticor wrote:not if the games are so old that they are considered abandonware...

Even if they truly were abandonware, charging for the games would still be illegal. The reason that "abandonware" makes it anywhere is that people don't charge for playing or distributing the game, and so the copyright owner kind of turns a blind eye. So, unless the video game being played was made before 1912 (or 1937 depending on who owned the copyright) or you can prove that the copyright lapsed before 1989 (march 1, 1989, copyright renewal became automatic, before that it had to be publicly announced,) you should assume that charging people to play the game, without the appropriate license, is illegal

arfink · Post by **arfink** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 7:36 pm

Well, if you make 20 to 50 dollars that's plenty enough to get some real Jamma boards or Metal Slug. No need to emulate when you can get the real deal for a good price. Other thing is that the Jamma stuff is much tougher than PC based hardware, and it can take a lot more abuse without breaking.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 8:22 pm

arfink wrote:Well, if you make 20 to 50 dollars that's plenty enough to get some real Jamma boards or Metal Slug. No need to emulate when you can get the real deal for a good price. Other thing is that the Jamma stuff is much tougher than PC based hardware, and it can take a lot more abuse without breaking.

Is that legal to charge people to play it? Thats kinda been the problem.

arfink · Post by **arfink** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 7:16 am

Well, if you buy the real deal hardware, of course you can charge people to play it! That is, after all, what all arcade operators do. As for emulating, I have seen Ultracade kit machines in local arcades which play games which I know are being emulated, but they never get busted. Heck, the arcade is in the Mall of America, one of the biggest malls of all time. You'd think if they were going to get busted they would have already. Besides, console manufacturers don't really need to worry much, not even Nintendo with their Wii virtual console, because most people don't care to get off their bums and actually do some walking over to the local arcade to play, so it's not a threat. Everyone seems to want their life served up to them on a silver platter. Not that I'm saying that one's life ought to consist solely of videogames, but...

Bibin · Post by **Bibin** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 2:10 pm

loup wrote:
Krepticor wrote:not if the games are so old that they are considered abandonware...
Even if they truly were abandonware, charging for the games would still be illegal. The reason that "abandonware" makes it anywhere is that people don't charge for playing or distributing the game, and so the copyright owner kind of turns a blind eye. So, unless the video game being played was made before 1912 (or 1937 depending on who owned the copyright) or you can prove that the copyright lapsed before 1989 (march 1, 1989, copyright renewal became automatic, before that it had to be publicly announced,) you should assume that charging people to play the game, without the appropriate license, is illegal

Then there's the fact that the first video game was made in 1951. "tennis for two".

ganonbanned · Post by **ganonbanned** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 3:38 pm

Jimmy wrote:*Machine requires $50 to power flux capacitor.

http://www.monkeyrivertown.com/brains.php?ART=641

arfink · Post by **arfink** » Tue May 01, 2007 11:33 am

My suggestion: go ahead and build a homemade cab with mame for your own use: probably no one will sue your socks off. But for other people, save yourself a headache and use Jamma surplus off eBay. It's fairly cheap, and it's easier to work with, and you can actually charge people money to play.

Jimmy · Post by **Jimmy** » Thu May 03, 2007 2:31 pm

I live in Alaska, and I doubt anyone would make a big deal about it.

And if they did, I would just say that I was charging money so I could maintain the optimum condition of the cabinets and upgrades or something like that.