Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie

thelostsoul

@crush Out of curiosity I looked it up. The quote in question from https://web.archive.org/web/20071007155940/http://www.vectrexnews.com/faq/vectrex-faq-60.txt:

8.0) Legal issues

8.1) Isn't copying the games by burning EPROMs stealing or violating a
copyright?

If the system is "dead" then no money is lost by making copies of
something which otherwise would never be available. Even so, it is a
fuzzy matter and technically the answer should probably be, "YES."
Fortunately, Smith Engineering [Jay Smith] has given permission to make
copies of all Vectrex related materials (manuals, games, overlays, etc.)
as long as it is not for profit.

The author of the document claims that J. Smith gave permission to make copies. I would like want to see the permission he gave. Even if this is correct, this just means you are given permission to copy (for backup?), not to distribute the copies. Right?

I couldn't find any other related info. So based on this, I doubt that downloading and distributing Vectrex games is gone free. To be honest, I doubt that anything would happen, but from legal perspective is this really correct? The author of the document isn't even the license holder of the subject and he itself is just interpreting the law and gives the answer "probably yes". That's not exactly 100% clear on this topic to me.

Crush

@thelostsoul said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

The author of the document claims that J. Smith gave permission to make copies. I would like want to see the permission he gave. Even if this is correct, this just means you are given permission to copy (for backup?), not to distribute the copies. Right?

It says copy as long as it is not for profit, if this was a legal document it would indeed cover distribution. but like you said it's not from the owner of the rights.

furthermore this doc is from when the Vectrex scene was still very much alive in the 90s, I'm afraid if you require further information on the topic, you'd have to find it on archived forum sites from that era.
I doubt any of the email addresses are still relevant, and whether the written letter of Jay Smith still exists.

This is the info that is available at the moment unfortunately, and people can do with it as they wish, i should have cleared all this up in my original post.
In any event, the info has been shared, without any links to roms.
Hope this helps.

Clyde

@crush Thanks for trying to give as much information as possible.

Please don't take our inquiries as overly pedantic; there are just too many myths, falsities and half-truths out there in such matters. Thus, we (as far as I know @thelostsoul from previous posts) are very sceptical by default if people claim that copyrighted material is free to download, use or copy under more or less specific circumstances. In many cases, its most probably just passed-on misinformation or wishful thinking. The real giveaways tend to be well documented and traceable in my experience.

That said, thanks again for your elaborate, objective, and honest answer.

Folly

Hi all,

A while ago I found some cool Konami Remakes on the internet with source code included on a website that seems to be a backup of an old abandoned website :
https://mog.jorito.net/
These games have no licence and some have the GNU/GNU2 licence.
So they can be shared.
So I used them for tests in the Box86/wine thread.
Later I was able to compile 3 of them and make ports for them.

A few days ago I found a new website from one of the makers of these Konami Remakes :
https://braingames.santiontanon.dev/
He has not yet included the the Konami Remakes on his website, but he is planning to do so.
On his website he already included some other games for MSX, CPC and PC that can be freely downloaded.

I was able to contact him, this was his reaction :
Cool!! Glad to hear you were able to run the remakes!!! I definitively want to bring them back to my new website, and I was hoping to go through the original source code and make sure they still compile in modern Mac/Windows/Linux. But it’d be also great if they can compile directly for the raspberry pi!

My idea was to make all the source code available in GitHub. But I haven’t yet found the time to do it. Hopefully I’ll put it up soon! But in the meantime, by all means feel free to share.

santi

Here I posted my ports :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/28345/old-computer-appreciation-thread/1079

Crush

@mitu said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

Capcom Beat Em Up Bundle for PS4, Xbox One and Steam (Windows). Includes 7 arcade games:
Final Fight, Captain Commando, The King of Dragons, Knights of the Round and Warriors of Fate, Armored Warriors and Battle Circuit. Both International and JP versions available and has online multiplayer, save states, achievements.

Can anyone please confirm if the actual roms are included in the pc version and compatible with retropie?

themazingness

@crush said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

@mitu said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

Capcom Beat Em Up Bundle for PS4, Xbox One and Steam (Windows). Includes 7 arcade games:
Final Fight, Captain Commando, The King of Dragons, Knights of the Round and Warriors of Fate, Armored Warriors and Battle Circuit. Both International and JP versions available and has online multiplayer, save states, achievements.

Can anyone please confirm if the actual roms are included in the pc version and compatible with retropie?

They are not included.

Crush

Found some more and you'll get roms for multiple systems.

I haven't bought these yet so i cant comment much on it, but it looks pretty nice.

Escape 2042 - The Truth Defenders
Atari STe / Gameboy / PC / Sega Megadrive Genesis / Jaguar
$12,00 at https://orionsoft.itch.io/escape2042

Zia and the goddesses of magic
PS1 / Dreamcast / PC Windows
$12 at https://orionsoft.itch.io/zia-and-the-goddesses-of-magic

And they got a few more but they look less intresting to me and i don't wanna type anymore so you can see them over @ https://orionsoft.itch.io/

Crush

Who else missed this game being released on the PSX last year? and it's free :-)

Download: http://netyaroze-europe.com/Media/Downloads
Some background: https://www.engadget.com/playstation-ps1-indie-game-magic-castle-205946277.html

Folly

@crush

That's a cool game you posted !

themazingness

I have not verified this will work in Linapple for the RetroPie, and I recognize this thread has mostly been for console games (DOSBox was excluded in the original post), but this project is pretty awesome. It reminds me of the AD&D Gold Box games.

Lawless Legends is a cRPG for Apple II that is far into development and is open for testing: http://www.lawlesslegends.com/

Ancient Legends is a complete cRPG for Apple II in the same engine: https://8bitweapon.com/2016/07/21/our-rpg-ancient-legends-released

The Outlaw Editor lets you make your own cRPGs for the Apple II (much like the Gold Box games had the Unlimited Adventures software, or in this century like the Neverwinter Nights games): https://github.com/badvision/lawless-legends/tree/master/OutlawEditor

thelostsoul

@benmclean

Rock 'n Roll Racing for the SNES is available for free from Blizzard (disguised as a "Windows" version by bundling the ROM with ZSNES) under the "Classic Games" tab on Battle.net.

The game is not available in the list anymore. But you can download it with a direct link, and add Lost Vikings to the list too:

Seen this in a post in Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/lovo2z/you_can_get_all_games_from_the_blizzard_arcade/ Also someone states Rock 'n Roll Racing is a demo version without music and only 3 tracks. I did not test this to confirm.

mitu

A few MSX games have been ~~made~~ freeware by one of the original author(s) (CAS Cremers) from Parallax Software.

See https://msx.org/news/en/parallax-games-freeware. The list of games is:

Vectron (1989)
Arc (1990)
Magnar (1992)
Black Cyclon (1993)
Blade Lords (1994)
Akin (1995)

lionel_Z80

Hello,
The "SNK 40th Anniversary Collection" (PC version) has some arcade games that may be converted into MAME compatible files thanks to the script STEAM-865940.sh [https://gitlab.com/vaiski/romextract/-/blob/master/scripts/STEAM-865940.sh](link url) available at https://gitlab.com/vaiski/romextract.

I created another script to extract games that the previous script did not extract, namely:

Marvin's Maze
Athena
Guerrilla War
Ikari Warriors
TNK III
Paddle Mania
Victory Road
Alpha Mission (ASO: Armored Scrum Object)

My script is available at https://github.com/lioneltrs/buildROM
Note: "SNK 40th Anniversary Collection" is included in Amazon Prime membership until March 31, 2021.
Regards,
Lionel

Clyde

@lionel_z80 said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

Note: "SNK 40th Anniversary Collection" is included in Amazon Prime membership until March 31, 2021.

Could you please elaborate on this? I'm in the 30-day trial Prime program right now which I plan to cancel before it expires.

Which region's Amazon does offer this, and what does one have to do to there to get it? I searched for "SNK 40th Anniversary Collection" on amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, and amazon.de (my region), but couldn't find anything about this offer.

lionel_Z80

@clyde
Hi, it is available (in Europe for me, in France) on https://gaming.amazon.com/home
Here is a screenshot: it is on the right on the picture.

Regards,
Lionel

themazingness

@clyde The free games require either installing Twitch or Amazon Games (on PC). You can claim them in those applications or on the website lionel linked. You can also go to Twitch's website and click on notifications which will say what games and loot are free, and it links to the same website lionel mentioned. I personally find the apps easier if you aren't bothering with the loot for f2p games.

Clyde

@lionel_z80 @themazingness Thanks! I'll look into that. I didn't know about that part of Amazon.

themazingness

I recognize the original post excludes DOSBox games, but I wanted to point this out since they're free. Aside from the Rock N Roll Racing SNES as the original post mentions, they also have The Lost Vikings and Blackthorne available which are DOSBox games. All are free, in addition to Diablo II (not verified for the latter, but I have verified the other three games).

Note that Rock N Roll Racing rom is named ROCK.bin and needs to be renamed to a .sfc file for use in most SNES emulators.

https://www.blizzard.com/en-us/download?show=classic

Auster

The developer of Micro Mages also released another NES homebrew, Böbl, on Itchio:
https://morphcatgames.itch.io/bobl
It's a free game, but you can pay for it if you want

Folly

@auster

Already played Böbl a bit.
Nice game 👍