Poll: Should No-Intro split unlicensed ROMs into separate DATs from licensed ROMs?

[omonim2007]

Virtual console and similiar should be considered as licensed IMO, But what about carts produced by companies like Limited Run Games? They have the permisson from the software copyright holder, but not from the platform owner.

Well the licensed flag has traditionally been used to mean "licensed by the platform holder". Anything that isn't licensed for IP usage would be marked as "pirate" I guess - there's a flag for that, used occasionally.

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As an aside: unlike what I said before, maybe there is no need for a separate dat, as long as the homebrew/aftermarket stuff is filtered out by default from search results and from the default dat downloads.

As mentioned, weren't there some cases where certain games that started out as unlicensed titles were later licensed by the console manufacturer without creating a new ROM revision? How should that be handled? ~Red

Sure, take a read this article and all sub-articles according to earlier games of Accolade: https://segaretro.org/Accolade

Similar things happened between Electronic Arts and Sega before they became partners. The American company forced the Japanese to deal with them with great concessions. Otherwise, they wouldn't pay Sega any royalties on the cartridges they make and sell. This is well documented in the book "Console Wars" written by Black J. Harris in 2014.

[Hiccup]

Virtual console and similiar should be considered as licensed IMO, But what about carts produced by companies like Limited Run Games? They have the permisson from the software copyright holder, but not from the platform owner.

Well the licensed flag has traditionally been used to mean "licensed by the platform holder". Anything that isn't licensed for IP usage would be marked as "pirate" I guess - there's a flag for that, used occasionally.

----

As an aside: unlike what I said before, maybe there is no need for a separate dat, as long as the homebrew/aftermarket stuff is filtered out by default from search results and from the default dat downloads.

As mentioned, weren't there some cases where certain games that started out as unlicensed titles were later licensed by the console manufacturer without creating a new ROM revision? How should that be handled? ~Red

I think we are going to go with filtering options in the daily pack (and search page) for homebrew/aftermarket, with those probably excluded by default, instead of a licensed/unlicensed split.

But for the record, I think it would be done how it is already with the licensed tag in the dats. I haven't checked, but I think that's probably by having the rom set as licensed, but with a note in the archive (or in each source, if the licensed and unlicensed carts are distinguishable).

[Arctic Circle System]

About the distinction between homebrew and unlicensed games, should I go with "homebrew is, always has been, and always will be free (in terms of price), while unlicensed games cost, have costed, or will cost money at some point in their lifespan" for now? It's an easier distinction than team size or something. ~Cherri

[Fugus]

About the distinction between homebrew and unlicensed games, should I go with "homebrew is, always has been, and always will be free (in terms of price), while unlicensed games cost, have costed, or will cost money at some point in their lifespan" for now? It's an easier distinction than team size or something. ~Cherri

Unlicensed means that the game was physically released within the games life time but was not licensed by the console manufacturer itself. A good example is Road Runner on the Nintendo, it was physically released on the system when it was active but Nintendo never gave them permission to do it. Another would be the Game Genie. Whether it was released by a single person or a team of thousands is irrelevant to this label.

Homebrew basically means it wasn't made by a company/store and generally never was actually released on the system. Emulators themselves are a good example of these.

Aftermarket means that it was made and physically released but it was after the console was declared dead.

At least that is as I understand it.

[KingMike]

Unlicensed and Aftermarket were primarily made to be sold as a commercial product, while Homebrew was primarily made for fun more than to make money.

That is how I would describe it, but those aren't very concrete explanations.

[Fugus]

The majority care about both licensed and unlicensed material when it comes to the systems as those were what were actually released from it.

As far as a separate database, I feel the separation should be along the lines of:

Database 1: Licensed and Unlicensed content along with any beta's, prototypes, or retroactively added stuff from the developers via stuff like the SNES Mini or Virtual Consoles and stuff.

Database 2: Homebrew and Aftermarket releases.

Database 1 would remain fairly stable with little activity as there is a pretty finite amount of stuff to it and the majority of what players look for.
Database 2 would be updated fairly regularly as that stuff is created pretty often as well but also the stuff the majority of people outside of the groups that like hacks typically won't care too much about.

Also, there should be VERY little overlap between those sets in the parent/child setups.

Edit: But honestly, separating the dats wouldn't impact too many when you think about it thanks to the Dat-O-Matic approach and could just as easily be handled with some preset ticks at the top.

Honestly, the best way to really address it would be some preset toggles at the top of the page when configuring what you want and have the preset also change the name of the dat so it doesn't overwrite another dat in someones manager similar to how they will have the Encrypted & Decrypted titles on some systems.

[Fugus]

@Rarenight

I said the MAJORITY care about it, not everyone. And that is not patently untrue.

And those 13 unlicensed betas would be included in the first dat because they are betas of a licensed or unlicensed game as opposed to an aftermarket or homebrew game. The licensed and unlicensed set has a pretty finite number of potential releases outside of Virtual Console and Mini-Console releases.

The Homebrew and Aftermarket on the other hand can potentially go on forever and will be updated pretty regularly because of it.

And as I mentioned before, the easiest option in my opinion was to just include the options in the Dat-O-Matic. Actually splitting them is something I would prefer but just the Dat-O-Matic would still solve 99% of the stuff people would like.

My personal suggestions
1) The ability to save peoples choices on a system for the data-o-matic, whether it be through cookies, an account or just an app on the persons computer that pulls it for them. That right there where they no longer had to worry about 20+ check boxes per system would help greatly for their choices and keep mistakes where a miss click can cause havok on their collection to a minimum.

2) Redo the region settings where instead of showing every combination of regions possible for the set it instead just includes a single list of regions and when you clicked, for instance, USA, it would include all games that had USA as one of its possible regions. Would reduce the issue of having to find the 15 choices for USA in a single dat down to just clicking USA.

3) Games that were finished but be labeled as "Beta" or "Proto" but instead be labeled as "UnReleased" as it is a finished product. As for what makes that qualification, if the game is just a single level or a proof of concept that isn't even a game or riddled with bugs, its keeps the old label, if it was completed and playable beginning to end and stable, it gets the "Unreleased" label.

4) A new label of "Superseded" for games where a newer, more stable, or more known version of it is released for the system. You can see my suggestion for it on another thread for how that would work.

5) Label stuff like the Game Genie, Game Shark, or X-Band as programs and other stuff like that as programs instead of just unlicensed as they weren't games and instead meant to either hack actual games or a utility to access them over a network or something else, but not an actual game unless one is actually built into it as well. Same goes for the Aging and Burning in Cartridges.

But the point of separating Homebrew and Aftermarket from Licensed and Unlicensed games is a really sound one and logical when you think about it. How many games do you see that would belong in both of those lists?

[Fugus]

@Rarenight

My personal view on why it is logical, it actually shrinks how much they have to actively deal with when they are updating each of them from their point and for the end users point it can actually make it easier to see what they are dealing with.

If it is one of the users who don't care about the aftermarket or homebrew and wants to stick specifically to the actual stuff that came out or at least were made by the developers of the time, they will see when that dat is updated which won't be very often which can save an albeit negligible amount of bandwidth on the sites end while a decent amount of time on the users end hitting 20+ configuration buttons to get the dat they are using to compare to see what all has changed.

If it is someone who wants to mess with the homebrew and aftermarket, they can use both dats and can see which exactly was changed and when and it would make it easier to keep the lifespan and aftermarket/homebrew separate from them.

There are actual reasons to justify splitting it for the ease of the end user to the bandwidth of the site to the size of the dats themselves and maintaining them. Especially since the licensed/unlicensed dat would not really be getting updated very often by comparison to the aftermarket/homebrew. Whether they are compelling enough to warrant splitting them can be debatable but there are reasons to do it.

As I said though, I would be happy just to have more options on the Dat-O-Matic, the ability to save our selections, and have presets with unique titles which would be plenty enough for the vast majority of the end users.

[KingMike]

These ROMs are unlicensed betas that "were actually released" at the time the Game Boy Advance was commercially viable. And yet only a few archivists would care about collecting and playing them. The average person does not care about 13 betas for the same game.

The average person is also not going to care to finish every single finished and retail released shovelware game either.

[Fugus]

The average person is also not going to care to finish every single finished and retail released shovelware game either.

The average person isn't going to care to finish every single official game, unlicensed game, hacked game or anything else either. If that was the reason this stuff was done then the entire No-Intro and ReDump collections would lose all meaning.

The point isn't to give them every possible game that they want to complete and leaving out the rest, the point is to collect and preserve the collection while organizing them well enough for people to be able to see what they have and what is able to be played versus what is there just because it was made.

[Fugus]

@RareNight

The thing is, splitting it doesn't remove one of them or making them harder to manage, not in the slightest and actually makes it easier to manage overall with 2 smaller sets with one of them rarely being changed as things go on.

Having 2 smaller lists versus 1 larger list doesn't take away from the goal in the slightest, it just makes it more organized in what each part is. There is nothing arbitrary about splitting a system between stuff that was made during the systems lifetime with the intent of being used on the system against ones that were made afterward from people who aren't part of the original company or even had an actual release.

As far as why not splitting for Beta's and Prototypes, because they are related to the actual games in those lists.
Why not split for Virtual Console, because those are related to the games on those lists or at least made by the companies who owned them.
Why not split for Pirates? Because they were made during the systems lifetime to be sold on that system.
Why not split for programs like game genie? Because they were made for the systems.

And none of those really impact much even if there were a split because splitting them didn't deleted them or remove that list.

Don't get me wrong, I have no issues with the systems being monolithic as they are and just updating the Dat-O-Matic would be more than enough, just arguing that there is actual merit to splitting them with benefits to the casual user to the people running it.

Number 1 on my wish list for the Dat-O-Matic is the ability to save your configurations for each system so you don't have to keep reselecting everything every time you want to check something which alone is something I am betting would help solve much of these debates because going through it can be tedious which is fine except having to do it every time and the consequences if you aren't paying enough attention and miss click doing so.

[Fugus]

@RareNight

It isn't a purity test, its flat out a defining trait of that section. Not saying that they weren't real enough or they weren't gamey enough or any of that crap.

Flat out, was the game either made during that systems lifespan or later released by the companies that did? If so, Dat #1.
If the game wasn't made made during that systems lifespan and not by the major companies that did, it goes in Dat #2.

For No-Intro to be in the purity test thing, then it would have to start excluding actual games from being included at all even if they objectively fit the criteria of them being the game. The moment they start removing Captain Novalin from the SNES Databases because it was a crappy game THEN you can call it a purity test.

But to not remove a single game from the lists and instead sorting them by objectively definable trait is not a purity test it's just being organized.

To follow your line of logic, the stores and companies shouldn't be allowed to sort brown and white rice into 2 different types because that's setting a purity test on them and they should just be called rice.

And breaking the dats into smaller sections with cleanly defined types inside them would be the simplest solutions, leaving them as a convoluted mess that REQUIRES an extra program to sort them effectively would be needless complexity.

If you prefer the ReDump solution, that is your opinion, my opinion is that while their goal you admirable, their method of handling the dats is lazy and requires other apps to tailor them to what you need even if that is possible. The Dat-O-Matic is infinitely superior to what they have going on and the moment they include their own Dat-O-Matic or No-Intro started including a version of their stuff (even if only updated bi-monthly) it would be vastly superior and worth the wait time to check your collection.

Also, as far as ReDump goes, they are still behind the ball when it comes to the formats they are using when RVZ and CHD are both superior to ISO and Bin/Cue at this point as they are both lossless and able to decompress to those formats while also being able to be used while in those files. I can understand keeping dats for those formats would be much better if they included support for the superior formats as well. Their refusal to keep track of those formats would be similar to if No-Intro refused to keep track of Decrypted roms and only was willing to audit the encrypted ones.

[KingMike]

Cooly Skunk is an odd case, though.
It is a demo version that was released during the console lifespan.
We just never saw the full version released.
It was just fortune for the preservationists that the demo was a quickly created mod of what the full version would've been, and was able to be partially reverted with mods. (I know at least the code that quits out after a couple levels was restored, I can't remember if someone figured out how to restore the deactivated password feature.)

[Fugus]

@RareNight

Splitting based on the criteria I said IS logical and consistent.

Notice I said within the systems lifespan OR released by the companies on virtual console or their equivalents (IE Sega-Mini).

Having a prototype of a commercial game that was made within the games lifespan would still be included because it was supposed to be a commercial game released within the games lifespan. If Cool Skunky was a game made by the major developers during the consoles lifespan and never released, that should be within the first criteria.

And paid homebrew made within the consoles lifespan, you got any examples of that? Because most of those paid "Homebrew" that was made within a systems lifespan wasn't typically labeled as homebrew but unlicensed.

Sir, you aren't showing me anything making this whole process messy, you are splitting hairs trying to pretend there isn't a logical separation between the two groups when there is.

And when did I say delete Homebrew and Aftermarket games from the No-Intro collections entirely? I said give them their own dats that is meant specifically for them and their type.

-Was the game made during the consoles lifetime with the intent to be distributed on the console? If so, Dat #1. Otherwise....
-Was the game added retroactively by those developers on something similar to the virtual console or mini-consoles? If so, Dat #1. Otherwise...
-Was the game during the consoles lifetime by someone other than the developers without the intent to be distributed on the console? If so, Dat #2.
-Was the game made outside of the consoles lifespan by someone other than the developers on something other than their retro services? If so, Dat#2

How hard is that to keep separate?
How many homebrew games were officially released on the console or it's retro-equivalent? If they are, they aren't Homebrew.
How many aftermarket games were officially released during the consoles lifetime or it's retro-equivalent? If they are, they aren't aftermarket.

These are pretty solid and objective separations here. Now if you want to make the argument that you think fewer people would bother with the aftermarket and homebrew stuff if they aren't included with the rest then feel free to make it, but that's the only real reason to avoid the separation.

[sCZther]

Once again quickly chiming in. I don't think this needs to be a big drama, we are all working for a common goal here and we should be mindful of that.

But to be fair, I agree with rarenight on this. The split definitions are always gonna be messy and have uncertainties. Mostly it is a system for platforms with strict licensing, standing on canonized sets by the collector community, ignoring the analogue nature of reality and it's many caveats. I do think that No-Intro as a project should have a clear goal of preservation and archival of information. Taking steps like having database entries for bad dumps and modifications, current focus on submitting metadata and pictures, all of this speaks of a project that is about documenting the true nature of the gaming landscape and not pandering to easy playability and streamlining of it's complexity. In the same way MAME tries to be mainly a project to document how the arcades work, emulation of them being just a direct descendant of that thinking. And how Ares the emulator is prioritising accuracy and readable code over speed.

Ultimately it is about the people putting it the work, and while I am doing my part, others are far more active in these regards. It will be up to people like Xuom and Hiccup to make the final decision and while it is good to know what other contributors think, it cannot be directly a vote based process. Making everything perfectly is hard and it will need dedicated people, but as far as this problem goes, it is an important distinction.

Once we start separating platforms into different DATs, we start becoming arbiters of what is "true gaming". I don't think that that is what we should be doing here. Sure, tag it, make it easily separable, but the default, I think, should be all-encompasing. Because otherwise we are lying about the purpose of the DATs. Primary you either want a complete overview of what exists, or you want to check your own dump. And for both of those, a richer database prevents nothing. Let the rom hoarders either go down the stream to some 1 rom 1 version modified pack. No-Intro has a status of going the extra mile, I would like it to be uphold and taken even further.