Ver cool. I like how in one move Rick basically cratered the A list market, MM prices plunged, AFM and CC and MB all took hits, people wondered how it would work out. Next move? Raise the prices on CV, TOTAN and FH.

All we need now is a RICK WHERE IS THE NEW CODE? thread!

Why? Last time I checked, with the exception of a couple boutique projects America's Most Haunted, none of the pinball we enjoy is open source. It's cool that people like Ben want to release games that way, but it's not really something that's reasonable to expect. Even if Rick wanted to, I'm fairly certain the license terms for these Williams games wouldn't allow it.

I'm excited about the possibilities myself. The real question in my mind, that Rick probably doesn't want to address now, is are we going to see re-releases of these titles, like physical MMr style, to accompany the new code? Because that would be a pretty natural way to leverage the extra software development frankly.

I did see someone who attended Rick's presentation try and make reference to this, but they said something about TOM instead or TOTAN or CV. I didn't see anyone else talking about it, so I kinda discounted it and moved on.

I understand the objection to DRM in principle, but in this case what's the practical ramification? It's not like it's a transformative media like audio files or video or eBooks, where DRM could unfairly lock you into a platform (say Kindle etc). You're not going to take the software and run it on different hardware, this is a pretty closed system.

Again, just comparing it to TOTAN now, what is it that you can do with the existing game that you couldn't with this new system? If anything it sounds like there's actually a lot more flexibility than before. Just seems unfair to Rick and this project to say that DRM ruins it when that's the status quo that we've accepted for so long.

Seems to me there wouldn't be 4, there would be 2, and one of them isn't tourney viable. Take TOTAN, no one is playing it in tournaments now, the rules aren't friendly for it. If it is in a tournament then it's only because it's using the known set of 2.0 rules that are.

I get your point about fracturing, but practically speaking it seems like it wouldn't be an issue, there would be just one tournament game set. MAYBE two if there was a "new TOTAN game" and a "old TOTAN game with new tournament adjustments", but if the new one had say, the new translite, it wouldn't be confusing.

I do get your viewpoint, I think there's probably a clause in my Ars Technica contract that says I have to hate DRM, because you're right, it ultimately burdens the end user and rarely proves all that effective. I'm just struggling to see see the practical downsides in this particular case.

Now all that said, to argue your side, isn't Capcom's DRM part of the reason the whole "build more BBB and Kingpins" was such a difficult endeavor?

Hey Gerry, does P-ROC have support for DRM?

I doubt you'll ever see an official one, it's a licensed property. One cool thing about this 2.0 stuff is it's giving new life to the old original themes.

Too bad the JM movie sucked, the original story is great.

Since we're throwing around acronyms like IP and DRM, let's add another one. FUD.

Um, like BoP 2.0? Am I missing something? Last time I checked that was approved and P-ROC, no?

Personally I love CCC, but let's at least stick to facts.

Sure, maybe, or maybe not. You're speculating with no basis, and throwing around ridiculous words like "monopoly".

As long as we're wildly speculating based on no information here's my guess: Any P-ROC project that's connected to a game Rick wants to remake is gonna have issues getting approved. Because Rick can't roll that into his new hardware plan and monetize it. That means the P-ROC version would dilute the market for the remake.

There isn't any demand for a $8k Bride of Pinbot remake, so it wasn't a problem.

Just my guess.

Pinball Game Genie.

game_genie-jpg.jpg

There's no grey area there, if you're distributing you're distributing, you can't make the "well they had it already" argument. But if you're only distributing code, no assets, and the code calls the assets that are already in the game, that's a different matter.

The thing is, it's not really all that ambiguous most of the time. The example above, it's infringement, sorry. You cannot redistribute the main game ROM. You can write code that calls things on the ROM, and distribute that code, but the ROM itself contains data you don't have the rights to.

Your code could be on a daughter board that modified calls to the main ROM, which is essentially what a Game Genie does, and that would be fine. That's basically the same model that ColorDMD uses, they aren't distributing any of the dots for their titles, just codes that intercepts them mid stream and modifies them.

That would be fine, PPS or Williams has no say over your code so long as it doesn't contain their IP. Assuming that there's nothing that violates the DMCA about the patch, I don't know if there's DRM involved here. Anyone who tried to set up a burning service for others would be running afoul of distributing IP they don't have the rights to though.

Sure, always a risk I suppose. Maybe you could get the EFF to take your side of the case. Rick clearly understands the boundaries here, I don't see frivolous lawsuits over non WMS IP being anything someone should be worried about. Frankly the audience for something like "download this code, rip your ROM, patch it, and burn a new one" is pretty limited.

This seems like a healthy discussion to me, but it's also bordering on paranoid. The lines are pretty clear here. You can't distribute WMS IP, but you can write original code that talks to WMS hardware. People can say "it's 20 year old code, it should be free!" but it's not, and anyone with even a little investment in the conversation knows it's not.

I love CCC, but it only survived by flying under the radar. Now there's big money involved, we are talking millions here, and everything that was underground is getting a spotlight.

Oh man, if you have titles that have been colorized then don't wait, ColorDMD is a "can never go back" upgrade once you've got it in your game in full color.

You know, maybe not the best time to use that acronym, I had to read that sentence a couple times.

Wasn't the BoP 2.0 kit that was similar more like $1400?

Funhouse 2.0 was Kevin. So that's dead for now until someone who's not a pariah and a liar picks it up.

The Jpop games were gonna be done with Jpop. Excuse me while I at the idea that giving him another project to not finish is a good idea.

So while I think the 2.0 concept is still great, it's obvious the right people to mess with it are still out there.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to daydream about a Fathom remake, with optional 2.0 rules, and full RGB LEDs under clear inserts ...