a world without MAME....

[Kid Ice]

What if MAME never came out?

Do you think the classic gaming landscape would be significantly altered? How?

Do you think retro compilations for consoles would be more numerous and/or aggressively marketed? More popular (or less?)

What if it came as a commercial product, with a per-ROM fee?

[Flack]

That's an interesting question.

MAME has definitely bridged the gap between PC owners and arcade games. I would imagine that there are games out there now that are "extinct". In other words, maybe low run games or unpopular games that have all been converted into newer, bigger money makers. In the future, I think more games will disappear. Someday, all the working Dragon's Lair laser disc players may burn up, or all the discs may become scratched. I think without MAME, there are many games that we would never get the chance to experience.

I think if MAME had never existed, we would probably see a few more of those classic arcade collections for consoles, and less common and less popular games would just be "gone".

[kainemaxwell]

Very intresting question. Like Flack, I think we'd see fewer classic game complimation packs and remakes of classics now.

[Jorpho]

Well, without MAME, there would probably still have been arcade emulators. They would just be much more limited and decentralized, assuming Reply+ did not rise to prominence.