Let the fighting begin...programmable PCB's

armi0024

Well-known member

Donor 2012
Joined
Sep 22, 2008
Messages
2,224
Reaction score
205
Location
Minneapolis, Minnesota
I have not done it yet, but I am close to putting these back up on Ebay.

Since these forums seem to be the moral authority of the arcade world I thought I would own up that I am "thinking" about this....
Why?
1) I have several referrals from Steve and people writing me a few times a week asking for these
2) It seems stupid not to offer them when people will then buy the alternative...an Icade board, is that seriously a better solution than offering these?
3) The original is gone, maybe Steve is working on V2 but he hasn't released it yet
4) Yes, I will include this, I make money when I sell pcb's, so selling these will make me money

So these are my reasons to sell them, with the only reason right now not to being that this forum will erupt. What's done is done, and by not selling these the only thing that will happen is that Icade boards will be distributed more feverishly. If someone wants to talk to me about an alternative project, I'm all ears. I have contacted a few people about future ventures and hopefully will have some interesting items in the next year to few years. So have fun and let the games begin.
 
Personally, if you have approval from steven and he makes that public that's the only way you would not be doing a ratty thing. Kinda lame to now say what's wrong with doing it after you were partly responsible for why a legit version is no longer available. Kinda like robbing someone and then taking their crap to a pawn shop and getting away with it. Sometimes doing the right thing is more important than the almighty dollar.
 
I don't see why not. He has stopped supporting them. And it's not like he gives royalties to the original IP owners.

Don't think you'll not get some public condemnation, but you'll probably make a few dollars too. Sort of like the money these guys made from programming and re-coding someone elses unsupported IP.
 
I would say the Icade board is more responsible for the end of the arcadeshop board than the cloned one. And seriously, how many of the cloned board sold? maybe a total of 100? How many Icade boards sell, Jammaboards clears inventory like that out in a few months, consistently.

I offered to compensate Steve, I offered to license the software, I even offered to host it, work on it and try to get things up and moving.... however there is no response.

And I don't mean to pick a fight but prOk, do you have Williams permission to recreate their artwork? Or are you filling a void that was left empty? I mean, you are taking their hard work to the pawn shop and making some money off it right? or did you license it? Plus nothing on this board is actual IP owned by AS as far as I know, does anyone have information otherwise?

What makes this so different than all the other artwork reproductions and everything else that is done? I'm actually being serious here. Someone spent money recreating this board, it is no longer available from the original source. If there was money to make here they would still be making it, just like if there was substantial money to be made for arcade art the companies would still be controlling it. But they don't, and they don't give their overt approval, they just turn their attention to something that makes them more money and let the people behind pick up the mess they left behind... Ok that's my two cents.

That being said, I am happy to work something out with Steve and would like to do something to assume some support for this, as I do think it's a valuable resource, even if the support is not profitable but is just "the right thing to do"

Personally, if you have approval from steven and he makes that public that's the only way you would not be doing a ratty thing. Kinda lame to now say what's wrong with doing it after you were partly responsible for why a legit version is no longer available. Kinda like robbing someone and then taking their crap to a pawn shop and getting away with it. Sometimes doing the right thing is more important than the almighty dollar.
 
Based upon what Armi has said in the past, it sounds to me that he was unaware that these were boots, and as soon as someone pointed it out to him, he pulled the auctions, and had only sold 1 or 2, or am I revising history here? I wouldn't necessarily blame him, or any one thing on the killing of those multi's I know that the angry mob had their torches lit and were ready to go after any and every multiboard seller here, but to me it seems there was more to the story...

That being said, Armi- I don't know that I would equate Steve sending people your way is the same as Steve being OK with you selling these boards.
My advice to you is to ask Steve if he is 100% OK with you selling these boards, anything less than his 100% support (preferably public) I would pass. From the looks of it, you have plenty of other cool product available, it's always good to have more product, but would it be worth losing other sales from people who won't buy from you out of principle?
 
RedWolfJC, I will clarify, because I don't want to be called a liar on top of the other things. I did know they were boots, I did not know that the last round of their production, something like 20 boards, was going to put Steve under. Typically in a capitalistic system when you have unprotected IP, you expect to get copied at some point and have to compete on price, service, or something. I simply thought that this was a reasonable thing to do, people can have moral disagreements here, but half of the stuff I use every day at work was made by one US company and copied by another, the competition drives development, which is how people usually stay on top. In this case, it seems that people are saying that Steve should have stayed on top with old unprotected IP out of respect. I have an amazing amount of respect for Steve for what he has done, regardless of what people may say, but for some reason this board was handled in a very odd way.

However, that issue has sailed. My real question is....there are currently two classic arcade multi-boards, the icade and this bootleg, that service this classic arcade vertical game niche. If this board goes away, then the only thing left right now is the Icade. Is that the greater good? Money aside.

I will say this...If was done with residency and could afford to...I would personally fund this damn things, make a deal with Steve, whatever, and drive the price of these so low that the Icade board would just fade away, never to be heard from again. However, I am not in an attending yet, I'm a resident on a limited salary supporting a family of three in a very very expensive place to live. Some day I will have the resources to be that generous, now I do not.

I am trying to do the impossible hear, have an honest open discussion/debate about this. I did not mean to insult or fight with prOk, but I am honestly asking the question of how is this different.
 
Wasn't it the lack of producing consistent and promised updates and then his abrupt end to providing chintzy updates that doomed his boards? Was he providing blazing support and consistent updates before the bootleg board appeared? I mean, I recall Frizzle bitching about the lack of updates for years. Literally. So was the bootleg board merely seen as an "escape hatch" opportunity for Steve to skate on the support obligation? Perhaps I'm just being cynical.
 
Last edited:
I would say the Icade board is more responsible for the end of the arcadeshop board than the cloned one. And seriously, how many of the cloned board sold? maybe a total of 100?

100 units at almost $400 with accessories per board is $40,000 toward recouping the development cost of board. Not an insignificant amount of change if you ask me! Support for the board was very slow and inconsistent and I am sure the icade boards cut into his sales. But make no mistake about it, the appearance of bootleg version was the reason Arcadeshop stopped selling and supporting them completely.

There is no use fighting bootlegs. Steven is not stupid and he has thrown in the towel. So go ahead and sell the crap out of them. Maybe if you make enough money on them you can try to buy the programing and updating info from Steven and provide some better support in the future.
 
RedWolfJC, I will clarify, because I don't want to be called a liar on top of the other things. I did know they were boots, I did not know that the last round of their production, something like 20 boards, was going to put Steve under. Typically in a capitalistic system when you have unprotected IP, you expect to get copied at some point and have to compete on price, service, or something. I simply thought that this was a reasonable thing to do, people can have moral disagreements here, but half of the stuff I use every day at work was made by one US company and copied by another, the competition drives development, which is how people usually stay on top. In this case, it seems that people are saying that Steve should have stayed on top with old unprotected IP out of respect. I have an amazing amount of respect for Steve for what he has done, regardless of what people may say, but for some reason this board was handled in a very odd way.

However, that issue has sailed. My real question is....there are currently two classic arcade multi-boards, the icade and this bootleg, that service this classic arcade vertical game niche. If this board goes away, then the only thing left right now is the Icade. Is that the greater good? Money aside.

I will say this...If was done with residency and could afford to...I would personally fund this damn things, make a deal with Steve, whatever, and drive the price of these so low that the Icade board would just fade away, never to be heard from again. However, I am not in an attending yet, I'm a resident on a limited salary supporting a family of three in a very very expensive place to live. Some day I will have the resources to be that generous, now I do not.

I am trying to do the impossible hear, have an honest open discussion/debate about this. I did not mean to insult or fight with prOk, but I am honestly asking the question of how is this different.

Thanks for the clarification.
The difference is that Steve is perceived to be a member of this community (not KLOV specifically, though he has posted here,but the collectors community) and the Chinese Bootleggers are not. Does it make a difference, to some yes, to others, no.
To most of the people who would be against you selling the Arcadeshop boot, I think they would rather see both this boot and the iCade go away.

From your perspective, I would worry less about what the naysayers have to say about it, and look at it strictly from a business perspective. Will the profit you make from selling it outweigh the negativity that will arise from selling it. Is it going to hurt your bottom line, or push away potential customers. It sounds like you're doing this out of a love for the hobby, but ultimately you have to consider the business aspect first, otherwise you could end up in a situation similar to Dave@Ram Controls. At least having Steve say something about it, even if it's just, yeah I am not selling them anymore, if anyone is looking for one, call Armi0024 would make a huge difference.

Edit: one more note, pretty much everyone here knows now that you can get them (same thing with Nixs) I don't think there's much need to advertise it, if someone wants one, I'm sure they already know where to go. Steven is even sending people your way. Might sound a little shady, but why not just sell them as you go along, and just not advertise it? I know you're trying to take the moral high ground here, but I just think it's probably an unnecessary battle.

Wasn't it the lack of producing consistent and promised updates and then his abrupt end to providing chintzy updates that doomed his boards? Was he providing blazing support and consistent updates before the bootleg board appeared? I mean, I recall Frizzle bitching about the lack of updates for years. Literally. So was the bootleg board merely seen as an "escape hatch" opportunity for Steve to skate on the support obligation? Perhaps I'm just being cynical.
Not cynical at all, a lot of people are saying the same thing, in fact that's the whole "more to the story" I was referring to above. Add in the whole passing the buck to the other guy that was going on between Clay and Steve about the lack of updates, and things become even more uncertain. Whether or not it's true that the bootleg was an excuse for him to get out of supporting the board, well, only Steve (and probably Clay) know for sure.
Not that I blame him for wanting to get rid of it... Seems to me that most people have nothing but glowing reviews for ArcadeShop (I personally have done a couple deals with him, and they've been perfect.) The only time I have seen complaints about him is with this board.
 
Last edited:
Mr. Peepers, I have written and asked to support, host and even license the software...I'm trying, honestly I want to make some money, but I also don't think that this board should die...yet, there are other promising boards, but not yet!

And it's not insignificant numbers but the math is a little skewed.... if the boards were truly unsupportable in competition at a different price, then the actual costs must have been over 200 per board (Initial investment aside, that's money spent, well or not, that part was a done deal) So figure the value is much closer to 100 boards at 100-179 a board depending on cost. A few people would go for 260 but would not have gone for 379 and would have probably bought an Icade, so the number is much closer to between 10,000 and 17,000. Which is till not insignificant, but not 40,000.

Red, well stated, I have written again... I am trying to be honest about the issue, and I am waiting for the tidal wave of crap that will soon be here for sure lol....
 
Last edited:
i just wanted to point this out. While Armi took all the heat for selling the bootlegs of the AS board, i've seen at least 2 other people selling these on this forum, for at least a year before Armi started selling them at all.
From my perspective, if the bootleg version was the cause of AS to stop selling and supporting these, then equal or more blame should be put on the other guys that've been selling these. Armi's the only one who's offered to make an effort to support them in any way whatsoever.
Do a search if you want to know who it was. I've seen them for sure for sale here since april 09.
 
Ok my two cents...

Just speaking for myself as someone whom passed up their board for an Icade, I couldn't justify spending as much as $375 on something that had relatively few games for the price and was so seldom updated. Now granted it did have flexibility and more games than the 60-in-1 but not by all that much, not when I could get the other for a mere $100. If it just got updated maybe once every two months with maybe 2 or 3 new games, and perhaps bug fixes once a month, then I probably would have considered it worth it.

Bottom line, it was the lack of updates that killed it for me as it sort of hinted that they didn't take the board or its support very seriously, and it left me wondering if they'd just drop it altogether without warning, which apparently is what has happened. And I didn't even know there was a bootleg available and probably wouldn't have wanted it anyway because in my experience bootleg usually equals extreme unreliability and uncertain support, I'd rather spend the extra $ and not have to worry.

Ok, now my three cents of suggestions for future board makers...

- Support support support! Show people you're serious and not some fly-by-night manufacturer who's ultimately looking to just take the money and run! In fact the ultimate option would be to have it open source, then you would be sure to get all kinds of updates from all directions!

- Target Icade's board by supporting ALL their games, thus removing any advantage they might have aside from price.

- Make it so the board has expandible memory, thus having it be able to support all it's games at once and be able to be upgraded to support future increases in games

- Give it the option of shrinking/expanding games so both the horizontal and vertical games will run in the same orientation. Now granted most purists would rather die than pervert the games like that, but it would be a nice OPTION so one doesn't have to choose between running one set or the other. Or perhaps the compromise might be to have it support both sets at once but change nothing, so at least that will leave it so if someone wants to rig up a rotating monitor they won't have to reprogram the board each time.

- Make the board so it can be set for single games and will TOTALLY behave like the originals, in other words have the option to have no menu, just to boot to the selected game and go into attract mode just like in the arcade. This would be great for people whom have original dedicated cabs and would like to have it run like normal on occasion. (Someone has corrected me on Arcadeshop's board, apparently installing only one game did this)

- PRICE. Notice I saved that for last, because I think it would be worth the $375+ if all the prior suggestions were taken, but if not you have better be ready to sell them for a LOT less or Icade will always be the preferred board.

Thank you, you may all now start throwing sharp objects at me.
 
Last edited:
I don't see the attraction to multiboards in the first place. It's not that hard to swap out a jamma board, and jamma adapters (for the most part) are not very hard to make without even modifying the boards. If the arcadeshop boards were not licensed by every company of every game that was on that board, it is also a bootleg version. Saying one bootleg version is more morally acceptable than another is nothing but a fallacy.
 
I would say the Icade board is more responsible for the end of the arcadeshop board than the cloned one. And seriously, how many of the cloned board sold? maybe a total of 100? How many Icade boards sell, Jammaboards clears inventory like that out in a few months, consistently.

I offered to compensate Steve, I offered to license the software, I even offered to host it, work on it and try to get things up and moving.... however there is no response.

And I don't mean to pick a fight but prOk, do you have Williams permission to recreate their artwork? Or are you filling a void that was left empty? I mean, you are taking their hard work to the pawn shop and making some money off it right? or did you license it? Plus nothing on this board is actual IP owned by AS as far as I know, does anyone have information otherwise?

What makes this so different than all the other artwork reproductions and everything else that is done? I'm actually being serious here. Someone spent money recreating this board, it is no longer available from the original source. If there was money to make here they would still be making it, just like if there was substantial money to be made for arcade art the companies would still be controlling it. But they don't, and they don't give their overt approval, they just turn their attention to something that makes them more money and let the people behind pick up the mess they left behind... Ok that's my two cents.

That being said, I am happy to work something out with Steve and would like to do something to assume some support for this, as I do think it's a valuable resource, even if the support is not profitable but is just "the right thing to do"

It's already pretty clear to me what you intend to do, but do not ever try to pretend you're doing anything morally sound. Put it out as what it is, you want money and this is a way to get it and leave it at that. This behavior is why many bigger projects don't get done, because someone else will come along and steal it to make a buck and leave the guy that did the homework and took the time to make the investment hanging. How much money is involved is not relevant if you look at it strictly as a moral discussion. There's no dollar value that defines when taking someone elses hard work is OK or not. 10 cents or 10k, it's never the right thing to do.

Really though, you talk of 'supporting' the board but how do you intend to do that? Going to add new games? updating the software? You somehow going to do something Arcadeshop wasn't? They supported the board technically just fine, but if you put out the cash and time to design the board and then someone booted it what would you do? Would you keep developing it and watch people buy the hardware elsewhere or would you just kill it? Arcadeshop never advertised their multiboard as a 8billion in one for collectors, it was created for operators and it has every game an operator likely wants so they hit their true market just fine. Whether we as collectors like the price or not, you have to understand why it was priced where it is. Arcadeshop is a company, they have overhead and they operate on typical business markups. Those markups include perceived value to the person buying it (IE: An operator). This is far more prevalent in the pinball world where the value of an item goes up based upon how much return the end user will see from the benefits of using the item. Operators are the reason the board exists and when they all stop buying and go to bootlegs to save a buck, you don't need a finance degree to know what that means. You'd not be supporting anything as you have no source code to do so, all you can do is replace stuff. You use the fact that the board is no longer available from the original source as a reason to now sell it, but you don't seem to get WHY it's no longer available and WHY it wasn't supported well for a period of time.. hopefully you can understand WHY it's not the right thing to do no?

Don't compare reproduction artwork to this situation. The bootleg boards are taking a newly created and active product from an operating business and essentially stealing it. That's a far cry from reproducing art that nobody has created in 25 years and.. To be more accurate to this scenario, you would have to think for yourself why I don't do what thisoldgame.com does and vice versa. Because it would be morally wrong of me to copy or take Rich's work without his permission and sell it. And for what it's worth, Williams is ok with reproductions, always has been and it's in writing. They've never sent a C&D to arcadeshop, phoenix arcade, thisoldgame, arcaderenovations etc. They don't seem to be interested in dealing with it at all for whatever reason, as if the company has just moved on from those days and simply doesn't care. Not to mention, they have never sold artwork for their stencilled games in their history so it's very hard to be stealing revenues from them for a business they never had. Of course, should they ever change their position on the matter I would immediately stop producing stencils as it would be their right to do so.

As for IP owned by Arcadeshop, every inch of that board is IP owned by arcadeshop. The layouts, the circuit designs, the software running, the menusys.. all of it was paid for by arcadeshop and therefore is the IP of arcadeshop. They didn't just find some board and sell it, they had it designed from the ground up.

Not trying to be mean regarding my position on the subject either, but it pains me to see the work others do to keep things alive in the hobby getting aped by others just looking to turn a buck. We probably will never see another repro part for cinematronics monitors or color vector monitors because of the same type of thing happening to the folks that put out similar time, money and creativity only to see their product being sold out from under them. I know many people see 'competition' as the best thing in the world, but in a hobby like this competition in the end usually leads to the creative forces having no choice but to leave the business while the people that got in through the back door not footing any of the development costs undercut them leading us to no competition at all AND no new products. I would say to sell all the korean stuff you can, work on a new board that's better than the arcadeshop board and just let that one go.

At some point we all need to say that's far enough, I don't want the money that bad.
 
Ok my two cents...

Just speaking for myself as someone whom passed up their board for an Icade, I couldn't justify spending as much as $375 on something that had relatively few games for the price and was so seldom updated. Now granted it did have flexibility and more games than the 60-in-1 but not by all that much, not when I could get the other for a mere $100. If it just got updated maybe once every two months with maybe 2 or 3 new games, and perhaps bug fixes once a month, then I probably would have considered it worth it.

Bottom line, it was the lack of updates that killed it for me as it sort of hinted that they didn't take the board or its support very seriously, and it left me wondering if they'd just drop it altogether without warning, which apparently is what has happened. And I didn't even know there was a bootleg available and probably wouldn't have wanted it anyway because in my experience bootleg usually equals extreme unreliability and uncertain support, I'd rather spend the extra $ and not have to worry.

Ok, now my three cents of suggestions for future board makers...

- Support support support! Show people you're serious and not some fly-by-night manufacturer who's ultimately looking to just take the money and run! In fact the ultimate option would be to have it open source, then you would be sure to get all kinds of updates from all directions!

- Target Icade's board by supporting ALL their games, thus removing any advantage they might have aside from price.

- Make it so the board has expandible memory, thus having it be able to support all it's games at once and be able to be upgraded to support future increases in games

- Give it the option of shrinking/expanding games so both the horizontal and vertical games will run in the same orientation. Now granted most purists would rather die than pervert the games like that, but it would be a nice OPTION so one doesn't have to choose between running one set or the other. Or perhaps the compromise might be to have it support both sets at once but change nothing, so at least that will leave it so if someone wants to rig up a rotating monitor they won't have to reprogram the board each time.

- Make the board so it can be set for single games and will TOTALLY behave like the originals, in other words have the option to have no menu, just to boot to the selected game and go into attract mode just like in the arcade. This would be great for people whom have original dedicated cabs and would like to have it run like normal on occasion.

- PRICE. Notice I saved that for last, because I think it would be worth the $375+ if all the prior suggestions were taken, but if not you have better be ready to sell them for a LOT less or Icade will also be the preferred board.

Thank you, you may all now start throwing sharp objects at me.
TornadoBoy, you took the thoughts right out of my head! I was going to post and mention those very same reasons for me not personally buying an AS PCB.

Scott C.
 
I own a company that has been in business for over 18 years, and we manufacture high performance products for the automotive industry. We have to deal with other companies outright copying our I.P. on a regular basis. In fact, several years back we went after a number of compaines that were violating TWO of our patents in federal court. It ended up costing a small fortune, and in the end, the lawyers ended up on top. This suit made a "statement", which HAS to some extent reduced the copycats. However, these other people are getting REALLY good at taking our hard work and making "variations" of our products to stay out of court.

It is all very frustrating, and I can fully understand why Steve would abandon the product. My guess is that he was probably relying on someone else to do all of the software updates and support for new games, and the ability to provide NEW updates became a real issue as more and more customers complained about the lack of support. The bootleg board was probably the LAST straw, as he SURELY knows that in this "new" economy that we are operating in, people will step over thier own mother's stomach to save $.50, let alone 100+ dollars.

I'm sure that many people on here think that $300 or more for a programmable board is "highway robbery" and that he was just "asking" for someone to copy his product. I suspect that the source of these bootlegs is probably the same company that was making the original products for ArcadeShop. The cost savings to produce electroncs overseas is just TOO attractive. Once an overseas manufacturer is comfortable with selling a product to someone other than the one who originally contracted them to make the item, then it will eventually get sold through some middleman who has NO INVESTMENT whatsoever in the product and has absolutely NO PROBLEM selling the item for 10% over cost. There is a psychological element to this. The internet resellers believe that if they sell something for any amount less than the others, then they will get ALL of the available sales. Because they feel deep down that the ONLY thing that matters to buyers on the internet is the price and the price ALONE.

The FIRST time that I had heard of this item being available, it was being sold by "NIXS". I didn't even notice ARMI selling the item until some people were talking about it being for sale on Ebay MUCH later on. It sounds to me like ARMI is looking for feedback (and hopefully acceptance) for making these boards available. Personally, I would rather have someone kick me in the nuts than to be forced to choose the 60-in-1's over the ArcadeShop board -even if it WERE a bootleg version of the board. I have owned both of them and there is simply no comparison. It would really suck for the 60-in-1 to continue to be the "standard", but then again, the ArcadeShop board is so accurate (in my opinion) that it IS an acceptable substitute for an original board. In fact, you could load just ONE game on to the board and run it in a dedicated cabinet and I seriously doubt that hardly anyone on here would be able to tell the difference. That is, unless you are running one of those horizontal games that had been re-formatted to play on a vertical monitor.
 
TornadoBoy, you took the thoughts right out of my head! I was going to post and mention those very same reasons for me not personally buying an AS PCB.

Scott C.

Glad I could be of service! :)

Don't get me wrong LeeB99, I not saying I blame Arcadeshop for anything or that the price wasn't reasonable when compared to production/development costs, but from the angle of a potential buying those are the reasons that made it not viable for me. And if I did buy it I would have had happened to me exactly what I feared, which is ending up with an extremely expensive and now completely unsupported product, heck his site doesn't even have a link for downloading the last release of the software anymore.

It's all a pity because I really wanted one of those boards, but again I couldn't justify it for the reasons already stated.
 
Last edited:
I don't see the attraction to multiboards in the first place. It's not that hard to swap out a jamma board, and jamma adapters (for the most part) are not very hard to make without even modifying the boards. If the arcadeshop boards were not licensed by every company of every game that was on that board, it is also a bootleg version. Saying one bootleg version is more morally acceptable than another is nothing but a fallacy.


The attraction is that you do not have to buy 16 or 48 or 60 or 108 ect. jamma boards to have that amount of games.
 
Back
Top Bottom