Well, cross Rec Room Masters off the list

[DJQuad]

So I was looking around for some DIY cab builds for my next build, particularly http://www.homearcadesystems.com. 

 

If you are looking for an extremely easy and economical way to add an AMAZING game library to your Xtension Emulator Edition Controller, we strongly recommend Home Arcade Systems. They are officially endorsed by Rec Room Masters LLC and able to provide you a pre-configured Hyperspin, plug-and-play drive that will definitely change your life forever! This is the PERFECT addition to any Xtension Arcade cabinet and or Emulator Edition Controller!

 

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR Home Arcade Systems drive today!

 

I ranted in another thread about there needs to be a better way, but for the purposes of this thread, are there any companies like Rec Room Masters that sell builds that don't recommend these bs HyperSpin drives?

[madhatter3339]

I built my first cab after I saw some cabs a guy named Knievel from Canada had built!! I always wanted an arcade game but couldn't decide on just one game! I saw his cabs and realized they were multicades and was floored!! Started searching around and found a handful of frontends and different builds!! I've built quite a few now and I would have to say build it yourself and customize a frontend yourself!! You'll get the satisfaction of saying I did that myself and you'll know how to fix whatever is wrong with it!! Just my two cents!!! Good luck whatever route you take!!

[lildivaaa]

Hey All,

 

Speaking from my own, personal experience...Rec Room Masters is a very reputable company and offer great solutions to the retro and modern arcade enthusiasts. I've personally met the owner of Rec Room Masters a few times (I live in Georgia, where Rec Room Masters is located...in fact, just a few miles away). He's a stand-up guy and will do anything to help you out. If there's every any problem or issue, he will personally make it right.

 

That said...I'm not sure if Rec Room Masters "knows" what they're getting themselves into by partnering up with Home Arcade Systems. The guy who does this, Chris Upchurch, has been a thorn in the side of many in the HyperSpin/Retro arcade community for some time. And the one BIG beef I, and others, have with him is the way he sells his pre-configed hard drives.

 

Don't get me wrong, if someone is out there creating a pre-configed SETUP for HyperSpin (keep that word in mind, SETUP)...that's all fine and well. The problem is Mr. Upchurch also included ALL the GAME ROMs need for every system he included in his hard drive builds. If he was simply selling a pre-configed SETUP, with setup meaning a ready-to-go configuration for HyperSpin, RocketLauncher, all the themes, wheels, videos, etc, etc....that's fine. BUT.....selling these drives WITH THE COPYRIGHTED GAMES ON BOARD AS WELL.....a MAJOR DON'T F#@%ING DO IT!!!

 

Look...it's basically like this. HyperSpin is FREE, the emulators themselves are FREE (mostly noted as "for educational purposes only"), the game ROMs are LEGALLY not FREE (and yes, anyone in the emulator community knows how to get your hands on them if you really want them). The idea, since the creation of emulators has ALWAYS been.....keep the emulators and game ROMs separate. NEVER provide them together as a package on a hard drive or website. That, in itself, is just inviting trouble and a sure way to get the attention of certain copyright holders/law enforcement agencies. You NEVER see an emulator website offering direct links to game ROMs or even hinting at where to find them. By the same token, you NEVER see ROMs website offering direct links to emulators or even hinting at where to find those either.

 

The fear is that the moment someone is caught selling/providing emulators and game ROMs together...that will be the beginning of the end of these wonderful FREE resources, like MAME or HyperSpin, we now so much take for granted. It's about protecting the emulator community, PERIOD.

 

I'll leave you with this information. Just looking at one emulator, for this example MAME, they're website CLEARLY answers the LEGAL questions surrounding the inclusion of the game ROMs with these hard drives Mr. Upchurch is selling.

 

Quotes directly from MAME's FAQ:

How do I legally obtain ROMs or disk images to run on MAME?

You have several options:

• You can obtain a license to them by purchasing one via a distributor or vendor who has proper authority to do so.
• You can download one of the ROM sets that have been released for free to the public for non-commerical use.
• You can purchase an actual arcade PCB, read the ROMs or disks yourself, and let MAME use that data.

Beyond these options, you are on your own.

Isn't copying ROMs a legal gray area?

No, it's not. You are not permitted to make copies of software without the copyright owner's permission. This is a black & white issue.

Can't game ROMs be considered abandonware?

No. Even the companies that went under had their assets purchased by somebody, and that person is the copyright owner.

What about those arcade cabinets on eBay that come with all the ROMs?

If the seller does not have a proper license to include the ROMs with his system, he is not allowed to legally include any ROMs with his system. If he has purchased a license to the ROMs in your name from a distributor or vendor with legitimate licenses, then he is okay to include them with the cabinet. After signing an agreement, cabinet owners that include legitimate licensed ROMs may be permitted to include a version of MAME that runs those ROMs and nothing more.

What about those guys who burn DVDs of ROMs for the price of the media?

What they are doing is just as illegal as selling the ROMs outright. As long as somebody owns the copyright, making illegal copies is illegal, period. If someone went on the internet and started a business of selling cheap copies of the latest U2 album for the price of media, do you think they would get away with it?

Even worse, a lot of these folks like to claim that they are helping the project. In fact, they only create more problems for the MAME team. We are not associated with these people in any way regardless of how "official" they may attempt to appear. You are only helping criminals make a profit through selling software they have no right to sell. Anybody using the MAME name and/or logo to sell such products is also in violation of the MAME trademark.

But isn't there a special DMCA exemption that makes ROM copying legal?

No, you have misread the exemptions. The exemption allows people to reverse engineer the copy protection or encryption in computer programs that are obsolete. The exemption simply means that figuring out how these obsolete programs worked is not illegal according to the DMCA. It does not have any effect on the legality of violating the copyright on computer programs, which is what you are doing if you make copies of ROMs.

But isn't it OK to download and "try" ROMs for 24 hours?

This is an urban legend that was made up by people who put ROMs up for download on their sites, in order to justify the fact that they were breaking the law. There is nothing like this in any copyright law.

If I buy a cabinet with legitimate ROMs, can I set it up in a public place to make money?

Absolutely not. Not only is it against the MAME license to use MAME for commercial purposes, but ROMs are typically only licensed for personal, non-commercial purposes.

[gigapig]

lildivaaa, thank you for your informative post. I will add that even though Hyperspin, Rocketlauncher and the free emulators are of free to download but they are not to be sold by others unless they have express permission.

Now Mr Upchurch must have god on his side of be extremely dumb to include copyrighted materials on the product he sells en masse. I have a wife and family and would not put them at risk just for money, but money is all most people care about.

If the Rec Room guy has a good product then he is also jeopardising his business by including illegal Roms and not for profit software.

It's all been getting quite out of hand over the last few years and someone will be made an example of.

[lildivaaa]

Thank you gigapig for your support and your additional information.

Also...I emailed the owner of Rec Room Masters to inform him of this discussion and asked that he read it over for himself. Honestly, I don't think he understands what Mr. Upchurch is REALLY offering in the drives he sells. My hope is that once he reads this information that he will contact Mr. Upchurch and break the business arrangement they've made. Like you said...somewhere, sometime...someone will be made an example of after being caught selling game ROMs on drives like this...and I don't want to see innocent people/businesses get brought down in the wake of it.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[DJQuad]

Thanks for the info guys. 

 

Now Mr Upchurch must have god on his side of be extremely dumb to include copyrighted materials on the product he sells en masse. I have a wife and family and would not put them at risk just for money, but money is all most people care about.

If the Rec Room guy has a good product then he is also jeopardising his business by including illegal Roms and not for profit software.

It's all been getting quite out of hand over the last few years and someone will be made an example of.

 

I agree. Rec Room Masters didn't actually include the drive, but "recommending" and "endorsing" Home Arcade Systems was probably just as bad.

 

I say was because that verbiage has been removed from the Rec Room Masters site. I'm still on the fence about them since they knowingly promoted something illegal, but removing it is a step in the right direction.

 

I still don't know what "Pre-Configured to MAME Straight Out-Of-The-Box" means though.

[chapple32]

are there any trusted websites where I can find roms? I got a pretty good head start from a friend but I don't have any Super Nintendo Entertainment System roms and that is one of my favorite systems. Are the ahk files at hyperlink a database of all roms? and if so how can I go about downloading them? everytime I try and login with my hyperlink forum account the website does not accept/deny my login information and just requests it again. any help any of you may provide would be greatly appreciated.

 

while that question is off topic to this forum I know a few people who have purchased just the cabinet from rec room masters and they do make an amazing product that has stood up so far for my friends over the course of 5-6 years

[kylecp1979]

I have a recroom master cab I like it a lot and there support is excellent. The only problem I had was the instructions sucked but I heard there better now.

 

This was before they were partners with chris upchurch. I don't really see why this would be a factor in buying a cab from them none of the money goes to chris.

[DJQuad]

I don't really see why this would be a factor in buying a cab from them none of the money goes to chris.

 

Like I said, for me, it was because they recommended and endorsed his illegal and immoral business. Just my opinion.

[RecRoomMasters]

This our first post on this forum as we wanted to address this issue personally as the concern is definitely recognized.

 

Our goal was simply to promote an easy to use 3rd party option to obtain a legal library as the process of installing emulators, front ends and games can be very time consuming and not always an option for many of our customers. Unfortunately, not everyone has the time to invest in the process and that has always been an issue for us.

 

On many occasions over the past 7 years, we have been approached by several organizations that offer a complete service distributing formatted drives and have we always steered clear. We DO NOT, nor have we ever sold games, ROM's and or software and only manufacture and distribute our own line of Xtension TM branded controllers and cabinets. A few months ago, we were approached by Home Arcade Systems at our warehouse and did meet in person. We were in fact very impressed on how his company had invested a very large amount of resources in legal fees and licensing agreements so there would be no negative concerns. "GameTap" almost had it right with there $9.95 per month subscription service proving that concept possible however, they fell short in moving to an online only streaming format and ditching the DRM driven downloaded app.

 

We would never recommend or endorse any illegal or immoral business activity and will remove our online recommendation until we communicate your concerns to Home Arcade Systems directly. We wanted to take this opportunity to officially apologize if we offended anyone in our recommendation. 

 

Thank you all for your continued support and understanding in this matter!

 

Owner

Rec Room Masters LLC

[gigapig]

Thank you for stopping by the forum and clearing that up RecRoomMasters.

Just out of interest, you used the word "Organisations" to describe those who approached you. Were they really legal businesses and not just some guy in a basement?

I understand there are businesses that can supply arcade Roms, but I'd be interested to know if it's possible to have the legal rights to supply every Rom from Pong to Halo and still make a profit. I suppose you have to pay royalties to each manufacturer or publisher.

Thank you.

[lildivaaa]

I understand there are businesses that can supply arcade Roms, but I'd be interested to know if it's possible to have the legal rights to supply every Rom from Pong to Halo and still make a profit. I suppose you have to pay royalties to each manufacturer or publisher.

Yes...that is something I've thought myself. Chris Upchurch said to Rec Room Masters that he'd paid large legal fees to obtain the licensing for the games he provides with his drive. I'm calling BS on that, complete BS. He's providing EVERY game that EVERY current emulator supports. So...Mr. Upchurch, what you're saying is you've paid the licensing fees for EVERY SINGLE GAME, from Pong on up to the most modern games offered via emulators? Look, check him out for yourself. Goto YouTube and do a search for Home Arcade Systems. There, you will not find a company with an employee head count. It's just Mr. Upchurch, sitting in his home, cranking out copy after copy of 4TB hard drives with ROMs that he could not have possibly paid all the proper legal fees for, no matter what he may have told Rec Room Masters. If he's done so (stretch of the imagination, but ok) them Mr. Upchurch needs to provide the legal information that supports his claims.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[JoyStickKilla]

 

This our first post on this forum as we wanted to address this issue personally as the concern is definitely recognized.

 

Our goal was simply to promote an easy to use 3rd party option to obtain a legal library as the process of installing emulators, front ends and games can be very time consuming and not always an option for many of our customers. Unfortunately, not everyone has the time to invest in the process and that has always been an issue for us.

 

On many occasions over the past 7 years, we have been approached by several organizations that offer a complete service distributing formatted drives and have we always steered clear. We DO NOT, nor have we ever sold games, ROM's and or software and only manufacture and distribute our own line of Xtension TM branded controllers and cabinets. A few months ago, we were approached by Home Arcade Systems at our warehouse and did meet in person. We were in fact very impressed on how his company had invested a very large amount of resources in legal fees and licensing agreements so there would be no negative concerns. "GameTap" almost had it right with there $9.95 per month subscription service proving that concept possible however, they fell short in moving to an online only streaming format and ditching the DRM driven downloaded app.

 

We would never recommend or endorse any illegal or immoral business activity and will remove our online recommendation until we communicate your concerns to Home Arcade Systems directly. We wanted to take this opportunity to officially apologize if we offended anyone in our recommendation. 

 

Thank you all for your continued support and understanding in this matter!

 

Owner

Rec Room Masters LLC

 

 

 

This is probably the most bloated message I have ever seen. Chris Upchurch has ZERO agreements with any companies out there. Please don't try to make excuses like that when the community and you know it is false. The drives comes with games from THOUSANDS of companies that hold copyrights on them. The fact you think we will believe he has legal permission to include all of those is pretty asinine. Not to mention the fact the big wigs like Nintendo, Sega, etc and etc would NEVER and I mean NEVER give anyone permission or their backing to sell a product like that. This doesn't even include the fact that he is most hated around here for taking the stuff people around here create and using it on his drive and without even a thank you. He actually has many videos bashing this community.

 

I was on the verge of buying an arcade cab from you guys as well as some friends I was recommending to you guys. Myself and them will be looking elsewhere now as I am sure many others will be as this info continues to spread across the arcade community. Good job, you guys just pulled the pin on a grenade that is going to explode in your face. 

[damageinc86]

Yeah, i'm sorry, unless chris upchuck is sitting on a fortune we don't know about then there is no possible way in this entire galaxy that he has licensing agreements for the thousands upon thousands of games that he boasts about in his youtube videos.  NO, F$%@&NG WAY.  End of story.  The fact that RecRoomMasters could honestly believe someone when they say that is beyond me.  Just goes to show, having a company with fancy equipment and a title does nothing to increase the amount of common sense residing within an individual.  This is amazing.

[DJQuad]

 

A few months ago, we were approached by Home Arcade Systems at our warehouse and did meet in person. We were in fact very impressed on how his company had invested a very large amount of resources in legal fees and licensing agreements so there would be no negative concerns.

 

Did you do ANY research on this guy or just take his word for it?

 

Do you really believe he has proper licensing for over 41,000 games, selling over 150 emulators when it's against most if not of all of their terms, selling media, videos, wheels, etc he obtained through HyperSpin, RocketLauncher, and EmuMovies for profit?

 

Edit: Apparently you also missed the big red warning on the front page - Lately people have been selling hard drives or services with HyperSpin on it. We advise against buying these as HyperSpin is free but only distributed through this site. Do not trust from another source. Also while we are always trying to streamline the experience transferring someones setup doesnt always work out too well. We have been inundated with complaints that people got ripped off by HyperSpin because these sites claim to be us or affiliated with us. Only trust HyperSpin from HyperSpin-Fe.com

 

You cannot be in this business for over 7 years and not be aware of all this.

 

You have got to be kidding me. Sorry, but we don't buy it.

[JoyStickKilla]

They know exactly who he is and what he does and the legalities behind it. He didn't show them anything to do with legal fees or licensing agreements. The thought they could use that as an excuse with a community like this is dumbfounded. They just made themselves look even worse by passing off lies. And yes we know you are sitting there reading this thread RRM.

[gigapig]

I would love to have heard the sales pitches from Mr Upchurch.

Dear Nintendopes

Allow me to introduce myself. I am some guy on YouTube and my proposal is thus.

I would like to supply your entire back catalogue on a very big hard drive including bios files and I'll even through in some naked photo's of me and Reggie.

You need do nothing as I have already illegally obtained all the files, all you need do is sign this document and agree to not expect a penny from any sales I make.

As a gesture I will send you one of my broken drives and if you have any issues with it just head over to my support forum at Hyperspin-FE.com and my sucker staff will be more than glad to help.

Yours hopefully

Mr Upyours

P.S. I will be selling your property on YouTube as they make it easy to sell illegal shit on there.

[JoyStickKilla]

Dear Mr Upyours,

 

We are so glad that you have decided to email us with regards to selling the many thousands of games that we hold license to. While it is our intellectual property that funds our company we have decided why the hell not. You seem so cool on your videos that we just can't say no. Please, continue to sell our games and make that dough because as you know us here at Nintendo are already pretty filthy rich. Go ahead and make it rain dollar bills and roll around naked in your profits(we do that sometimes here as well).

 

Sincerely,

Rich Nintendo dude who doesn't care about IP.

[wesfranks]

Hey Gigapig, did you tell that guy about the "beer me" button and the benefits of Platinum? Least he could do.

 

Drinks, all around!!!!!!!

[DJQuad]

RecRoomMasters has scurried away. One ridiculous "public statement" then gone after the community called them out asking some very legitimate questions in response. How "political" was that?

 

Making a deal with the devil didn't work out so well. As JoyStickKilla mentioned, the grenade just blew up.

 

RecRoomMasters you really screwed up. Instead of owning up to your horrid decision, you tried to make excuses defending it which offended the community even more. The community here sees right through that. There is no possible way you were just "ignorant" and for you to use that as an excuse is more than offensive.

 

So let's actually be honest. You are more than aware of Chris. You knew what he was doing is illegal and immoral. You tried to make that solution a viable option in order to increase sales for your cabs. You thought "recommending and endorsing" him would be good to increase sales.

 

Some in the community actually tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. They've had great experiences with your builds, and believe me the kits are great. You seemed like a great guy as well. That was up until you endorsed Chris, knowing full-well it was a gamble. You tried to offer it, and little did you know the community would call you out. Stop playing dumb.

[kylecp1979]

Wow rec room masters would of been better off not even commenting at all.

 

Do they really think we are all that stupid? I'm sure most if not all of us have been collecting roms for years I think we would know a little about copyright laws.

 

They make great cabs and have excellent service but that had to be the dumbest statement they could of made.

[gigapig]

Give the guy a chance to respond, he may over at Chris's going over the contracts.

[lildivaaa]

Give the guy a chance to respond, he may over at Chris's going over the contracts.

I agree. Let's please give Rec Room the chance to respond about this. In all fairness, Rec Room may not have known all the facts about Upchurch before endorsing him. Rec Room may have very well been lied to just so Upchurch could increase his sales. That sounds a bit move believable to me.

In any case...I know this subject is a very hot button with the emulator community. I think that Rec Room may understand the full picture now from everything we've all aired as grievances with Upchurch. Let's give them the fair opportunity to respond to the community. I know that Rec Room is a very bid supporter of the arcade/emulator community and would never do anything intentional to disrupt or harm our community.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[wesfranks]

Hey, I'm with Giga. Give the guy a chance to talk. He did remove the references from his website, if not completely from his sales pitch.

 

Just hope he hasn't locked himself into a niche market just for arcade cabinets (maybe makes stuff for IKEA or something). Selling a cabinet for an arcade is definitely going to lead to referral to a drive seller to "simplify" things for the customer. Just like he is probably not telling people to build their own computers in an open tray for better ventilation and cpu/memory/chipset compatibility. Probably refers them to a PC guy.

 

Wonder a few things-

  How do you close the deal for a cabinet without getting into the legality of "games" acquisition or does he just reassure the customer that everything is OK and legal.

  What his split is with the driver reseller. A referral has to have some value.

  Whether he also referred customers to the excellent customer service that is inevitably provided by this site and not the drive reseller.

 

Oh, and he has probably logged off and is the "guest" you see at the bottom of the page. Hellurr, we see you.

 

edit: now he's gone.

[JoyStickKilla]

I agree. Let's please give Rec Room the chance to respond about this. In all fairness, Rec Room may not have known all the facts about Upchurch before endorsing him. Rec Room may have very well been lied to just so Upchurch could increase his sales. That sounds a bit move believable to me.

In any case...I know this subject is a very hot button with the emulator community. I think that Rec Room may understand the full picture now from everything we've all aired as grievances with Upchurch. Let's give them the fair opportunity to respond to the community. I know that Rec Room is a very bid supporter of the arcade/emulator community and would never do anything intentional to disrupt or harm our community.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

 

Not even a chance they don't know. They make arcade cabinets, they know very well about the rom scene and all that. It very well may be they aren't aware of his status in this community for everything he takes with no praise but bashing but they know very well his business is not legimate/legal in any way, shape or form.

 

That's why so many RRM videos have been popping up from Chris. They did a little you gimme some products and I will give you some customer shout outs.