Humble Neo Geo Bundle seems to be using Frank Cifaldi's old GameTap emulator

V

vid

Member
Update 1:

McBradders said:
Mystery solved;

http://www.dotemu.com/Letter/NeoGeo.html
Click to expand...


All's well that ends well, and I'll stand by my statement that this is a pretty good selling point for the bundle.

---

Update 2:

The emulator can't be credited to Frank, I misunderstood the tweet and jumped the gun on his involvement.

https://twitter.com/frankcifaldi/status/674665415109304320

---

Source: Frank's Twitter

To summarize, someone unpacked the .exe for Art of Fighting 2 that was included with the current Humble Bundle and found a graphic that seems to indicate that it's running on one of the emulators used back when GameTap was still a thing. Don't jump to any conclusions, it's possibly a legit acquisition, but it's interesting all the same.

Additionally, Frank's involvement with said emulator explains a lot about why GameTap had some truly incredible Neo Geo emulation, and makes me wonder if he was involved with their Sega Saturn emulation as well. But yeah, if this is on the up and up, it's actually a pretty good selling point for this bundle. If not... then, dang, that's pretty scummy.

Searched. Unpack and steal my source code if old.
 
P

PantsuJo

Member
Extremely interesting, thanks. I'll take the bundle in the next days. I still hope to get some steam keys of the games but, whatever, it's still a great package.
 
S

SixMachine

Member
I had a friend message me on Steam about this.

https://twitter.com/Foxhack/status/674371627103096832

edit: though admittingly, I'm not the kind of guy who knows a lot of technical details, you can probably try dm this twitter for questions. If I am jumping to conclusions or getting anything off, please correct me. If it is legal, then it's all good.

Edit2: dotemu has made a statement that everything is legal.
 
Tarin02543

Tarin02543

Member
This is awesome, finally a way to play neo geo games.

Can I download these games and play them without a browser?
 
G

Game Guru

Member
If we have confirmation that it is using Cifaldi's old GameTap emulator, then how could these ROMs also be using Nebula... Unless of course, GameTap was using Nebula as their emulator back when it was a thing, in which case why didn't anyone notice GameTap using Nebula back then?
 
C

c0de

Member
vid said:
[...] and makes me wonder if he was involved with their Sega Saturn emulation as well.
Click to expand...

I only got aware of Gametap due to this thread and... there is another working emulator out there for Saturn that is not Yabause and SSF?
 
V

vid

Member
c0de said:
I only got aware of Gametap due to this thread and... there is another working emulator out there for Saturn that is not Yabause and SSF?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure. All I know is that there were Saturn games functioning on GameTap back in 2006 when Saturn emulation felt a lot like banging two rocks together.
 
MrCunningham

MrCunningham

Member
SixMachine said:
I had a friend message me on Steam about this. Basically, don't buy the humble bundle, they are basically repacking roms that have been around for years that you can play on MAME. This tweet dives into the files.
Click to expand...

Well the ROM set is fair game for SNK Playmore and DotEmu, it's not like the person who originally dumped those ROM's can claim ownership on them. It is also not uncommon for developers of emulated compilations to pull their ROM's off the internet.

The real problem here is the emulator that they are using. That is terrible.
 
C

c0de

Member
vid said:
I'm not sure. All I know is that there were Saturn games functioning on GameTap back in 2006 when Saturn emulation felt a lot like banging two rocks together.
Click to expand...

Thanks for reply. Well, in 2006 there was already SSF but yeah, SSF is what it is.
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
uncelestial said:
If the purchases benefit the IP holders, who cares how the executable was constructed?
Click to expand...

The thing I'm curious about is that if SNK themselves were to provide the Neo Geo games digitally, would they do it in the form of having all the data in a compressed file like this HB?
 
N

nded

Member
SNK allowing the distribution of ROMs of their own software that somebody else ripped implies that they're either lazy or don't care, but I don't think it's any less legit than if they ripped it themselves. DotEmu potentially stealing someone else's code would be a more serious offense. Hopefully they can explain themselves.
 
J

japtor

Member
uncelestial said:
If the purchases benefit the IP holders, who cares how the executable was constructed?
Click to expand...
It screws the emulator devs if there was no agreement there for commercial use. Plus it kinda violates this little blurb on the emulator page:
NEBULA is free and can be freely distributed as long as it is not packaged along with ROMs.
Click to expand...
Edit: yeah the ROMs are just kind of an amusing side note, it's the emulator itself that's the big deal.
 
F

Faustek

Member
Yeah you could throw them into mame and just play.

This is amusing as fuck as this will actually be the third time ever I can actually say

I bought these roms.
Click to expand...

Not that I dumped them from a cartridge or made an iso of something I own but bought a buncha roms from the IP holder. That my dear friends is amusing as hell to me.
 
MrCunningham

MrCunningham

Member
japtor said:
It screws the emulator devs if there was no agreement there for commercial use. Plus it kinda violates this little blurb on the emulator page:

Edit: yeah the ROMs are just kind of an amusing side note, it's the emulator itself that's the big deal.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the blurb is totally void in this case. It is meaningless because SNK Playmore owns the IP's for all those ROM's. There is nothing that can stop them from using ripped ROM's that they found online.

But the emulator is someone elses work, and even though it does emulate the Neo-Geo hardware, SNK Playmore/ DotEmu cannot take claim on it and use it freely if it is closed source. Open source might be a little different if they make a claim that they aren't selling the emulator but the ROM packaged with it. But as the OP says, maybe SNK Playmore acquired these emulators legally? I dunno.
 
G

Game Guru

Member
MrCunningham said:
Yeah, the blurb is totally void in this case. It is meaningless because SNK Playmore owns the IP's for all those ROM's. There is nothing that can stop them from using ripped ROM's that they found online.

But the emulator is someone else s work, and even though it does emulate the Neo-Geo hardware, they cannot take claim on it and use it freely if it is closed source. Open source might be a little different if they make a claim that they aren't selling the emulator but the ROM packaged with it. But as the OP says, maybe SNK Playmore acquired these emulators legally? I dunno.
Click to expand...

Well, are we completely sure the emulator is, in fact, Nebula? We know it's Cifaldi's old GameTap emulator and the rights to GameTap are currently with Metaboli. It is possible that DotEmu licensed their emulator from Metaboli in which case, the emulator is legal.
 
U

uncelestial

Member
japtor said:
It screws the emulator devs if there was no agreement there for commercial use. Plus it kinda violates this little blurb on the emulator page:
Click to expand...
The emulator dev is an IP holder. Frank doesn't even know if that code was licensed. Unless DotEmu is run by idiots, it probably was.
 
Z

Zaptruder

Banned
It's like a snake that eats its own tail.

On one hand, it's legitamized all the pirated roms out there in the sense - you can't tell if you have the paid for or pirated copy through the file itself.

And on the other hand, it's not like the IP holders were going to try sue people for pirating their stuff...

So might as well just make money out of it the cheapest way possible.

Not like the people that were going to pirate would stop doing it just because they ripped their own stuff and made their own emu - and not like the people that would've paid for it wouldn't have paid for it just because they didn't rip their own stuff and didn't make their own emu.

It is amusing though, but it makes sense.

*edit* Unless of course they didn't pay for the use of the emulator... in which case, lol. Crooks and rubes all around.
 
C

chaobreaker

Member
I think we should withold any judgement on DotEmu and SNK until we get an official statement... Or when Humble Bundle quietly removes the bundle.
 
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