make a 'test' ROM available to Registered Users!

[blackfrancis75]

Most people aren't going to shell out $10 for something if they don't have any confidence it will work.
You really should make at least one ROM available to Registered Users so they can load it in their Mame instance and verify that it can even work.

[Hot Trout]

Whice rom set do we do this for? We have hundreds of thousands of roms for hundreds of platforms. Are you suggesting we offer 'TEST' roms for every section.

Anyone that looks through the forums or the 'hall of fame' or the members comments will very quickly see that we do not supply anything that will not work. This does not however cover some users lack of knowledge when working with different emulators and to that end we then offer direct support through our forums.

The idea of test roms is subjective and not sensible.

[blackfrancis75]

You could offer a few ROMs for games that nobody would pay to play (of which, yes, there are many hundreds), so there's no chance it would hurt you financially.
It then becomes a question of why wouldn't you do it?
User-comments can easily be astroturfed, and when people visit a site and continually encounter dead-ends that require pre-payment instead of providing a tiny part of the site's functionality as a goodwill gesture, it begins to feel like a sham.

[Hot Trout]

You could offer a few ROMs for games that nobody would pay to play (of which, yes, there are many hundreds), so there's no chance it would hurt you financially. It then becomes a question of why wouldn't you do it?

We already do this for the vast majority of sections, over 98% in fact. We also already do it for MAME with the 0.31 and 0.36 sets only requiring user registration to download them.

User-comments can easily be astroturfed, and when people visit a site and continually encounter dead-ends that require pre-payment instead of providing a tiny part of the site's functionality as a goodwill gesture, it begins to feel like a sham.

Not only is a 'tiny part of the sites functionality' available for free but 98% of the 'sites functionality' is available for free, that my friend is the vast majority. The sheer weight of evidence in the forum of the age of the site, numbers of members, comments, good will gestures, donations, lack of complaints and thanks from users would convince anyone that we are real and sincere in our mission and have been for a long time.

I receive many comments about the collections and resource that we provide here and never once has anyone ever hinted at anything being a sham. Not in 14 years.

[crustyasp46]

@ blackfrancis75
" User-comments can easily be astroturfed, and when people visit a site and continually encounter dead-ends that require pre-payment instead of providing a tiny part of the site's functionality as a goodwill gesture, it begins to feel like a sham."


Providing a tiny part of the site's functionality as a goodwill gesture is offered already whether as a guest or as registered, you can go to either the roms or emulator section and download to your hearts content. With some restrictions on the larger rom sets and at slower download speeds.

But on the whole if you have doubts about the integrity of the site, there is enough FREE to satisfy almost any gamer.

Looking at the bottom of the main forum page will show you that there are more users on the site as guest and downloading the Free Goodwill, than registered or unlimited members.

If you still have doubts regarding the site, no one is forcing you to donate for the faster download speed. The donation allows you to areas otherwise restricted to registered users, ie the larger rom files that eat bandwidth. Asking for a donation to those files is a reasonable request and helps offset the cost of offering the site.

Searching the internet, you can find with difficulty most of the content offered here, but unlike TOC it is not all offered on one convenient site.

A sham ??? if you feel that way, it is your choice to donate or not.

My own personal feeling and not that of the site, is that the only sham occurring here is yourself, trying to leech more free goodness from the site. Harsh? but my view.

[Kherr]

You could offer a few ROMs for games that nobody would pay to play (of which, yes, there are many hundreds), so there's no chance it would hurt you financially.
It then becomes a question of why wouldn't you do it?
User-comments can easily be astroturfed, and when people visit a site and continually encounter dead-ends that require pre-payment instead of providing a tiny part of the site's functionality as a goodwill gesture, it begins to feel like a sham.

As Hot Trout already said, we already offer the vast majority of the site for free, whether registered or not. The only sections that one would require donating to gain access to can be found in the List of Unlimited User Only Areas.

I just did the math, and only 10.6% (rounded up) of the gaming/computing systems are locked to Unlimited Members. That means that approximately 89.4% of the gaming/computing systems are completely FREE to anyone, registered or otherwise. And this is only listing systems, not actual rom counts from each of the 50 locked systems in comparison the the ROM counts of the 425 remaining systems that are completely FREE, So it could very well be less that's locked to Unlimited Members only.

Quite simply put: We do not need to offer free "test" ROMs from the sections that are locked down to Unlimited Members because they could test out other ROMs from the free sections and find that we only offer the highest quality ROMs possible, and check quite often to make sure that the ROMs we are posting are completely free of viruses and other forms of malware not to mention fully functional and not broken in the slightest. Also, we're not like the "other ROM sites" out there - we don't require you to vote or make you only able to download a few a day... we're completely free with no strings attached. That's saying something.

Should certain ROMs or sections of ROMs become broken or non-functional, we always and IMMEDIATELY resolve the issues so that they are perfectly functional and working again as fast as we possibly can. We are human, so we are subject to having some errors crop up now and then; nothing is perfect.