Another person selling Retropie - Pixel Arcades

[simonster]

Hi, I didn't know where else to put this.

A company called pixelarcades (.co.uk). Is selling Arcade style cabinets, console conversions and Raspberry Pis with controllers and SD cards preloaded with Retropie and all manner of roms pre-installed.

It is clearly Retropie (it is using runcommand in their videos on their Facebook page), is there anything that can be done to disassociate the illegal distribution of this with the Retropie project and stop the sale of these items?

Si

[lilbud]

Just looking at the site...$400 DOLLARS FOR A SNES PI?!?!?!?

What the F people

[markyh444]

@lilbud Added value of RetroPie mate. This packaged software doesn't come for free, people spend their spare time doing this and deserve to be rewarded!

Hang on, did these people help develop RetroPie...?

[Capeman]

They're also grabbing random assets off the forum. I made this image as a boot graphic. Gotta love the leeches of the internet...

[simonster]

It Looks like they are sponsoring the the North East Retro Gaming show. Is it worth contacting the organisers to advise them of the potential of linking up with a company distributing ROMs illegally (let alone the RetroPie software itself)? Or do you think they are actually the organisers of the event?

[markyh444]

@simonster definitely contact them.

[Nismo]

@simonster not only the roms or retropie, most of emulator has licenses that don't let you sell them, and it doesn't work without emulators...

[UDb23]

@Capeman Did you contact them about it?

[UDb23]

I think it's the case that Retropie creators contact these people asap.

@Buzz: any update on registering Retropie trade mark in Europe ?

[InsecureSpike]

@simonster said in Another person selling Retropie - Pixel Arcades:

North East Retro Gaming show

i just PM'd RayGun @AttractMode, as their supplying that too

[simonster]

I contacted the organisers of the North East Retro Gaming Show, I haven't heard anything back, but if they at least ask questions, it will be interesting.

[simonster]

The North East Retro Gaming Show's response was "You need to take this up with Pixel Arcades. Your fight is with them."

Basically, I get the feeling that they are of the opinion Pixel Arcades are funding their event and therefore don't want to know about it.

[UDb23]

@simonster seems so.

[BuZz]

https://twitter.com/RetroPieProject/status/856530821934665729

Their twitter account now seems removed. A clear conscience then!

Their website is hosted on godaddy

host pixelarcades.co.uk
pixelarcades.co.uk has address 160.153.136.1

Feel fee to email abuse [at] godaddy.com to let them know they have a customer selling systems with 26,000 pirated games on (provide a link to a page as evidence). They also sell retropie (can tell from some screenshots I saw) but don't mention that on their site as far as I can see.

[UDb23]

@BuZz They show "how to" videos for Retropie on their facebook page... so they are using Retropie.

What about creating an "official" standard text that any Retropie forum users can use to send (read submerge) by e-mail to people like these ?

[simonster]

I've emailed godaddy and Paypal (given that's who process their payments) and we'll see what happens.

[herb_fargus]

@simonster i was thinking of throwing a convention for the war against drugs, in order to fundraise I figured we could just sell drugs to fund it.

[BuZz]

@simonster sorry it should have been [at] godaddy.com btw

[simonster]

Thanks @BuZz , I worked it out anyway.

[BuZz]

I wrote an email to the event.

Regarding your sponsorship by Pixel Arcades:

I heard you replied to a user who already emailed you:
"You need to take this up with Pixel Arcades. Your fight is with them."

It is disappointing to hear you don't mind about being sponsored by a
company who profits from selling other peoples work (RetroPie with
thousands of copyrighted games). This damages our reputation and
threatens the project.

An event funded by Piracy - not a good image for a Retro Gaming event.

Looks like we may need to highlight this on our website, as well as
twitter feed - Not sure that will be the press you want though. (we
mentioned it on twitter already -
https://twitter.com/RetroPieProject/status/856530821934665729) - they
were quick to shut off the twitter account.

I would recommend you separate yourselves from this company - It's a bad
association for emulation and exactly the sort of thing that gets
emulation projects closed down. People profiting from selling ROMs are
no better than someone selling pirated DVDs down the market.

I suspect it's more than them being sponsored by some 3rd party company. Says on the website about machines being "for sale" after, so I wonder if they quite closely linked etc. Perhaps they are actually helping run the event or maybe it's the same people.

It's a shame that people feel the need to profit on the work of others. If they want to sell arcade machines - fine. No need to include copyrighted games. It's pretty obvious why they do - to add value - to make more money.