When the folks on AtariAge have hacked at your friend's website and are showing pre-release stuff that displays a company mindset that wants to be the paid-secure-digital-distribution outlet for DRM-protected homebrew games ... then my first reaction is WTF???
You got some links? This sound hilarious.
I was wrong, it's not a "hack" of their website, just a scouring through Google's cache of their website. Sorry! :oops:
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/261689-retroblox/First page, from user xiaNaix. He posts a bunch of stuff over a few pages.
Sounds like that would be a pretty kickass deal for homebrewers, IMO. Seems like it would help to expand their product visibility. Profit motive isn't inherently evil.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with making a bit of profit ... it helps to keep a company alive.
But, is the profit on a few homebrew sales going to be enough to keep someone's DRM servers up-and-running for the next 30 years?
How do you go from a console idea that absolutely fetishizes original cartridges and CDs, that people can display and trade and take around to their friend's house ... to a digital-download that's locked to a particular machine, with an unknown hardware lifespan because of all of that plugging-and-unplugging of those emulation-modules (or whatever they're called)?
I've got the impression that the folks that are buying homebrew for old consoles actually *want* it delivered on a real cart/CD to add to their collection.
Perhaps it's a brilliant idea, and I'm just missing the point.
But the whole idea suddenly raises the question of "what are these guys wanting to do?", and are they trying to use KickStarter to fund a "company", like the RetroVGS guys wanted to do?
If so, just where is their paywall going to be, and what compelling reason can they give for folks to buy into it?
And how can they convince folks that their business model is stronger than Ouya's?
I guess that we'll find out more over the coming weeks when they release more information.