AGEMAME HQ

I know my opinion counts little in persuading MAMEDev to do anything, but I would much rather see the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator include any video arcade machine. For one thing, the current criteria for inclusion/non inclusion seem, at best, inconsistent. (Note the presence of Vliner and Merlin’s Money Maze in MAME, both of these titles are gambling games. Hell, Merlin’s Money Maze is more of a non-skill gambling game than half of the MAGE filelist!)

In particular, I can’t help feeling that the anti-gambling paranoia has led to many problems for me. I do not have all the skills to support everything, and those who do find it not worth their while to contribute, except for some, MAGE writing is a definite ‘back burner’ project. However, this policy has also led to at least 3 ROMsets sitting on my harddrive that should be in MAME, but are ignored because they run on the same hardware as some gambling games (Yes, I’m banging on about the Barquest games again, but everyone’s got to have an axe to grind, haven’t they?).

It’s often been said that the original reason why these games were dropped was a technical one - computer’s can’t pay out coins. They also can’t dole out tickets, but redemptions games are included.

So let’s decide this once and for all - games which use external hardware as part of their appeal: in, or out?