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

General No-Intro related discussions.
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N1zle
Posts: 2
Joined: 20 May 2023 14:55

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

Post by N1zle »

Hiccup wrote: 31 May 2023 14:09
N1zle wrote: 21 May 2023 15:05 Parent-clone DAT, however, has over a hundred missing files. Compared to the SIX on the standard, this sounded insane to me, so I compared the two and, sure enough, all those 90 missing are all Aftermarket, Homebrew and the such.
I think that's because the P/C fields haven't been filled out for those. That's not an inherent problem with the system, just an oversight with those particular entries atm.

But yeah I do get the appeal of being able to exclude the aftermarket stuff.
I understand that. But now imagine the extra hassle that is being put on the maintenance of those entries, just for the sake of merging. It would be WAY simpler to manage the Aftermarket/HB DAT and its subDATs (P/Clone and others) if it was its own entry, and keep the old DAT for the Licensed/Unreleased with a fixed number of games, with no (or rather, really low) chance of having mismatched DATs between Standard and PClone.
Hiccup
Datter
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Re: Poll: Should No-Intro split unlicensed ROMs into separate DATs from licensed ROMs?

Post by Hiccup »

N1zle wrote: 14 Sep 2023 01:59
Hiccup wrote: 31 May 2023 14:09
N1zle wrote: 21 May 2023 15:05 Parent-clone DAT, however, has over a hundred missing files. Compared to the SIX on the standard, this sounded insane to me, so I compared the two and, sure enough, all those 90 missing are all Aftermarket, Homebrew and the such.
I think that's because the P/C fields haven't been filled out for those. That's not an inherent problem with the system, just an oversight with those particular entries atm.

But yeah I do get the appeal of being able to exclude the aftermarket stuff.
I understand that. But now imagine the extra hassle that is being put on the maintenance of those entries, just for the sake of merging. It would be WAY simpler to manage the Aftermarket/HB DAT and its subDATs (P/Clone and others) if it was its own entry, and keep the old DAT for the Licensed/Unreleased with a fixed number of games, with no (or rather, really low) chance of having mismatched DATs between Standard and PClone.
Yeah, I agree.
Hiccup
Datter
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Re: Poll: Should No-Intro split unlicensed ROMs into separate DATs from licensed ROMs?

Post by Hiccup »

Sounds good to me.
Fugus
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Joined: 11 Oct 2022 17:50

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

Post by Fugus »

I know I am not a direct part of the group and I am sorry if I read that incorrectly but I don't think Unlicensed games should be split off with the Aftermarket games.

Homebrew should be split off with the Aftermarket games as neither of them were actually released or intended to be released on the system during its lifetime or on the officially licensed retro consoles or services.

Unlicensed on the other hand should still be included with the official games as they were actually released or intended to be released on the console during its lifetime or were released on the officially licensed retro consoles or services.

Many of us had unlicensed games on our old systems, none of us had a homebrew or aftermarket game that we bought from Toy's R Us or the Virtual Console services ever.
Fugus
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Re: Poll: Should No-Intro split unlicensed ROMs into separate DATs from licensed ROMs?

Post by Fugus »

rarenight wrote: 19 Sep 2023 02:13In this scenario I proposed, Unlicensed games released within the console's lifespan would remain in the parent DAT. It's only the combination of "(Aftermarket)" and "(Unl)" together that would get split, which means games with only the (Unl) tag would remain where they are. Sorry for the misunderstanding!
Ah, understood, my apologizes.

Agreed and 100% support you on this.

Would be nice to have the official/unlicensed dat remain relatively stable except changes in naming conventions or they create new games on the switch virtual console or something like that.

And then another dat full of homebrew/aftermarket that gets updated very frequently with stuff you know is brand new or updated and not discovered old works.

Thank you for your work and your time.
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xuom2
High Council
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Re: Poll: Should No-Intro split unlicensed ROMs into separate DATs from licensed ROMs?

Post by xuom2 »

also sounds good to me.
omonim2007
Datter
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Joined: 20 Jul 2016 12:20

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

Post by omonim2007 »

Hey guys, this discussion is as old as our world ))
This question has already been raised so many times, but we have never come to the point of deciding to split the sets.

Please don't throw stones at me, but I will give you the most important argument why we CAN'T separate dats - because of the Parent-Clone system.

If we had raised this topic many years ago, we would have come to a consensus and divided the dats, but now it is absolutely impossible to do this, since over the past 10-15 years a lot of unlicensed software has been released...

I'm currently working on an Atari Jaguar dat, but what is said below is typical for any dat. There are many games that were never officially published and were announced to the public in the form of prototypes, demos, etc. And many years later, these games were announced in physical or digital form by companies like Songbird Productions, B&C Computervisions and many others (however, many of these games were especially published for the NES, SNES, Game Boy and Sega Mega Drive - thousands and thousands of games). I’m not even mentioning here all those games that were released officially or unofficially in digital form by companies/projects like Steam, Pipepacker, all kinds of versions for Wii, Wii U, 3DS and so on.

Having gone through the length and breadth of retro sets over the past few years, I can confidently say that there is NO UNIVERSAL RULE for how to divide sets in the manner discussed here. We will not be able to split the dats, as these changes will be destructive and the Parent-Clone relationship will be broken FOREVER.

P.S. The best solution for everyone who does not like a large number of unnecessary (only for them) games is to cut off such games at the level of downloading dat files. Now such an opportunity exists; everything can be very flexibly configured to suit your needs.
Fugus
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Joined: 11 Oct 2022 17:50

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

Post by Fugus »

Sorry to necro this, but just noticed something.

I saw "8-BIT ADV STEINS;GATE (USA)" for the NES was removed from the default Dat with it's entry changed from "archive_licensed" to "archive_aftermarket"

I was under the assumption that virtual console type games that were still officially released would still be considered licensed rather than aftermarket, correct me if I am wrong.
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nnssxx
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Re: Poll: Should No-Intro split unlicensed ROMs into separate DATs from licensed ROMs?

Post by nnssxx »

Fugus wrote: 03 Jan 2024 01:46 Sorry to necro this, but just noticed something.

I saw "8-BIT ADV STEINS;GATE (USA)" for the NES was removed from the default Dat with it's entry changed from "archive_licensed" to "archive_aftermarket"

I was under the assumption that virtual console type games that were still officially released would still be considered licensed rather than aftermarket, correct me if I am wrong.
Hi, this game was created specifically as an extra of the "Steins;Gate Elite" Switch release in 2019 and not a re-release of a legacy NES/Famicom game, so it is definitely aftermarket.
Fugus
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Re: Poll: Should No-Intro split unlicensed ROMs into separate DATs from licensed ROMs?

Post by Fugus »

nnssxx wrote: 03 Jan 2024 18:12 Hi, this game was created specifically as an extra of the "Steins;Gate Elite" Switch release in 2019 and not a re-release of a legacy NES/Famicom game, so it is definitely aftermarket.
Ah, understood. Didn't play it myself or anything, just noticed it and was curious.

And was making sure it was either something else or accidental to avoid stuff like the Trials of Mana games and such being included.
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dreimer
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Re: Poll: Should No-Intro split unlicensed ROMs into separate DATs from licensed ROMs?

Post by dreimer »

And I still am for keeping things as they are. So tbh I am quite happy about the "no resolution" fact.
Fugus
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Re: Poll: Should No-Intro split unlicensed ROMs into separate DATs from licensed ROMs?

Post by Fugus »

@rarenight

Agreed, much prefer them separate. It would also make the parent/child dats MUCH easier to deal with instead of situations where you can have the normal dat showing everything but when you try and reorganize using the p/c it shows missing or extra stuff because they aren't entirely in sync anymore because of them.
herocopter
Posts: 24
Joined: 08 Apr 2019 16:57

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

Post by herocopter »

Another example of free to paid:
https://hh.gbdev.io/game/a-clockmakers-tale
https://robert-doman.itch.io/a-clockmakers-tale
(and many of his other titles)


itch.io platform knows this happens a lot. Devs offer free for a "trial" period (advertising) and then payware afterward.


Even Sierra did it to everyone:
- Betrayal at Krondor (1.00) = paid
- Betrayal at Krondor (1.01) = free
- Betrayal at Krondor (1.02) = paid
- Betrayal at Krondor (GOG) = paid

I thought there was another Sierra game they offered for free until the legal department freaked out and took it away from everyone. Lode Runner??


EDIT: Not being a datter .. is there a small sandbox system that can be used for testing? I was just wondering how much permanent "damage" would be done if a switchover was made, and what would become more difficult / hurdles for the "maintenance" datters who volunteer a lot of their time every week.


EDIT2: If I understand this correctly .. datters spend lots of time researching with the current system
- Public + private
(this is probably a pain and creates too many arguments, bit toggle fights in the records)

- Licensed + unlicensed
(thinking in terms of unfinished demos and betas that eventually get rescued and sold retail later)

- ??


If the dats were split, then the Parent / Clone databases will need constant fixing up.
- But would this take less time to maintain than the previous 2 time wasters?
- Would there be less argument fights between datters over flags?
- How much time would be needed to repair the existing P/C that gets wiped? How many people have the "academic" knowledge to pull this off?


I'd have to think that the no-intro staff will forever face a never-ending backlog of future things to do, like court dockets. But which poison will take less time in the mathematical long game?
jumphil
Posts: 16
Joined: 03 Feb 2023 22:43

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

Post by jumphil »

I've been thinking about this. Ultimately, for most people I don't think it makes much of a difference if you do the split or not. Right now, aftermarkets can already be filtered, and we already have kind of a public/private split anyway. So I say, go with what the active datters of aftermarket games would prefer. This is who this affects the most. From what Rarenight says it sounds like it would make his work a lot easier.

Also another thing to consider, for some systems the paid homebrew that was in the dats before the "private aftermarket rule change" hasn't been retroactively made private yet as far as I'm aware. Making the whole aftermarket dats private would completely solve that too. One possible downside is, that unlike most other dats, aftermarket dats might stay private forever since they will keep getting new games.
Last edited by jumphil on 06 Jan 2024 03:56, edited 1 time in total.
herocopter
Posts: 24
Joined: 08 Apr 2019 16:57

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

Post by herocopter »

jumphil wrote: 06 Jan 2024 03:31 One possible downside is, that unlike most other dats, aftermarket dats might stay private forever since they will keep getting new games.
Idea: Create a script to auto-kick out private dat entries based on date. To the public realm.


If someone web archives the bot link every week, it gives enough details without revealing too much. Those privates aren't that secret to begin with.
https://datomatic.no-intro.org/index.php?page=crawlers

A split would make obtaining the massive heaps of freeware aftermarket titles harder though, unless some of the datters maintain a special file area for trusted preservation librarians to grab from at a fixed interval. Or visibility rules are enforced for active paid only.


Maybe a boolean for free vs buy-it-now could help filter the pesky titles for the legal hawks. If developers change their mind about the free vs paid status of their titles, it should be their responsibility to notify no-intro, tosec, redump, archive of this change. They're already legally required to hound people to protect their own trademarks, copyrights and such.

I know one developer who took a very proactive approach, after changing her mind about one particular game. To be fair though, she landed a contract with Limited Run and decided to market on Steam also. Protecting the IP like a warrior was required out of some legal necessity.


EDIT: My official stance = I'll support whatever gives the datters the best chance to stay on the no-intro team (and not retire early).
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