"Porting" Games to Mobile

[pixelmischief]

Remember back in the Dreamcast and PS2 days, a lot of retro "ports" were released. The best of the 2600, Sega Genesis, and others made it to the newest consoles. Those of us who know about these kinds of things knew that it was just an emulator without an interface running that one ROM. But ignorance is bliss, and to those who didn't know, it was just a port of their classic favorite to their new system.

 

Today, the platform to be on is mobile; Android and IOS. These platform already enjoy a number of emulators for various systems. Emulation, however, remains a geek's tool. I know that when I try to talk to friends and family about emulation their eyes glaze over and they try not to drool on themselves. Not to mention how uncomfortable the mobile "store" services are with emulation in general; believing them to be copyright infringement engines.

 

I wonder if we could put together an emulation package for mobile that would be seamless to the user; something where the software is compiled into the package. Instead of "run this emulator and select your game", it would just be "run this game". The modern mobile user requires this kind of modularity and abstraction, and the gatekeepers at the distribution level would get their blessed checksum. A single game with a nicely designed tile for the launch pad - "touch it and off we go" - could be well received. No configuration, no long, unwieldy list of game images. No concerns about software piracy. Users wouldn't know and no one would care that that the underlying emulation engine and BIOS file might exist multiple times on their phone. There are plenty of application frameworks that do the same thing already. Compared to modern offerings, the size would be negligible anyway.

 

The packaging and publishing of such products could be handled by an expert service of our community, probably someone who is intimately involved with the development of the emulation part of the equation. The first one might be a little tough to get through the channels. But, if the effort was centralized behind a single entity, a once-formed relationship could ease the way. Once the framework got past, it would likely be smooth sailing.

 

I believe this could spark a lot of new development on the platform. If we could get word out to old school developers who remain dormant because they can't justify making the time in their lives to develop on a commercially dead platform, we may be able to vastly increase the size and activity of the community.

 

Thoughts and reactions?

[snicklin]

It could probably be done relatively simply by not compiling the game in, but just supplying the game with the emulator and then using a set of command line parameters to call the game. (which are configured with the icon that you click in Android/iOS)

 

Imagine a shortcut in Windows which is configured to use myGame.ini which is pre-configured to run pacman.xex or something like that.

 

There would need to be a little bit of work done to hide the emulator from view. In the sense that, if you went to exit the game, you'd want it to exit and not go into some emulator menu.

 

You'd still hit copyright issues.... I don't think you'll ever get it past Apple.

[Tickled_Pink]

It's already been/being done. If you followed the Philip Price thread a year or two ago, you'd have heard of his unhappiness with one company releasing Alternate Reality on mobile without his permission and refusing to remove it when he asked them to. Back in the day, this company (Elite Systems) was famous for ports of Paperboy and a game called Kokotoni Wilf on the Spectrum. They hit the headlines last year or the year before for not paying royalties to developers who had agreed to them re-releasing their games on mobile. Elite use emulators and I'm fairly sure they're running the emulators seamlessly in the background so that you just select the game you want from the Android/iOS main screen.

[pixelmischief]

It could probably be done relatively simply by not compiling the game in, but just supplying the game with the emulator and then using a set of command line parameters to call the game. (which are configured with the icon that you click in Android/iOS)

Of course this can already be done. It is already being done. But this model will never get past the store curators.

 

You'd still hit copyright issues.... I don't think you'll ever get it past Apple.

You would still hit copyright issues if you were using an emulator that loaded the game as a separate resource. But, if you bundle the emulator and the game into a single package, you could secure it with a checksum and get it into the store. You would have to republish the emulator with every release, but the load there is light.

[pixelmischief]

It's already been/being done. If you followed the Philip Price thread a year or two ago, you'd have heard of his unhappiness with one company releasing Alternate Reality on mobile without his permission and refusing to remove it when he asked them to. Back in the day, this company (Elite Systems) was famous for ports of Paperboy and a game called Kokotoni Wilf on the Spectrum. They hit the headlines last year or the year before for not paying royalties to developers who had agreed to them re-releasing their games on mobile. Elite use emulators and I'm fairly sure they're running the emulators seamlessly in the background so that you just select the game you want from the Android/iOS main screen.

Look, copyright infringement is always a danger when it comes to re-releasing old assets on new platforms. What I am talking about doing is giving developers on the Atari platform a path to publication on modern, mobile platforms in a way that the store curators will accept. Bundling the emulator and game asset as a single binary object with due diligence protections against cracking the thing open and replacing the disk/cart image could make that a reality. This, quite literally, is what checksums are for.

Edited March 6, 2015 by pixelmischief

[Mr SQL]

Great thread topic!

I had a discussion along these lines with Atari in 2012 over Breakanoid, a VCS game I entered into their Pong Developer Challenge for the iPhone.

 

Technically I had complied with the contest rules that specified any game engine could be used to create the mobile app, they were just expecting sparkles or bubbles (packaged game engines) and not a light footprint emulator.

 

We talked about both of the options you discussed - either wrapping the game transparently in the emu or making it available as a ROM pack for an existing emu. Atari had some concerns and neither option panned out, but I did get a nice lithograph signed by Bushnell and a retro dev kit

[pixelmischief]

With digital publication platforms so well-established and this point, and the "burn" of early copyright infringement cases not so fresh on regulators' minds, I think the time is right for this. The technical components of such a solution are extremely accessible. A little bit of organization and some minor adjustments to an existing emulator code-base and we could quickly have offerings on Android, IOS, and Steam. Even the most conservative estimates on potential revenue would have to be orders of magnitude higher than anything we've seen within the closed community. Organizations like ABBUC and AtariAge could legitimize the publication; give it a face. Developers are giving away high-quality titles like Yoomp! and Assembloids on a regular basis. Why not establish a simple pipeline to publication?

Edited March 6, 2015 by pixelmischief

[jacobus]

I asked Phaeron a few months ago about adding this feature to Altirra to allow distribution to the PC world in general.

[gozar]

I've been thinking about this for a couple of months. For Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux, you could probably compile a special version of Atari800 that disables the menus and stuff and uses the defaults you want to run your 8-bit app. You still need an OS ROM, maybe contact Avery about licensing his ROM from Altirra. It would be nice to compile a generic version that uses an ini for configuration, so an A8 developer could just add their program to the folder and launch their program just like it was a native app.

 

If Atari800 was ported to Chrome's Native Client, then launching an Atari program could be as simple as visiting a web page in Chrome and be usable on ChromeOS devices.

 

For iOS it gets tricky. Unless you can get all of the developers of Atari800 to re-license a version of atari800 that is non-GPL, then you wouldn't be able to use it as a base for iOS software. At one time there was a C64 emulator in the App Store with included games (you couldn't add any C64 software to it), so it is possible.

[pixelmischief]

It would be nice to compile a generic version that uses an ini for configuration, so an A8 developer could just add their program to the folder and launch their program just like it was a native app.

 

Just remember, the ONLY way this works is if the published game is a SINGLE BINARY ASSET. No image loading, no INI file, nothing. I this way, it would be like any other software that has art and music with resources statically compiled into the binary. The emulator becomes an execution framework for properly formatted assets.

[pixelmischief]

For software that requires saving to disk, you would manage diffs and load them automatically when the app starts up, just like anything that keeps save data.

[snicklin]

I believe that even as a single binary asset, with a different checksum to the software only, you'd still hit copyright issues.

 

Though you might have different code because the framework is bundled in, it could still be argued in court that you've copied the original game as the graphics are the same, the sound is the same and the gameplay is the same.

 

Nevertheless, I like your idea and would love to see something like this tried out by someone (but not me!).

[FifthPlayer]

I believe that even as a single binary asset, with a different checksum to the software only, you'd still hit copyright issues.

 

I believe what pixelmischief is suggesting is to make the emulator a platform so that a developer can create an original Atari 8-bit title, and deliver it as an app for a modern mobile platform. Effectively, the emulator becomes an "Atari runtime" that is linked with the game executable.

 

In such a scenario, the developer would own the rights to their own creation.

 

I suppose there could be issues around things like the Atari OS ROMs, but even in that scenario there are alternatives such as AltirraOS. OS Compatibilty becomes less of an issue if the developer targets AltirraOS rather than the original Atari OS.

[snicklin]

 

I believe what pixelmischief is suggesting is to make the emulator a platform so that a developer can create an original Atari 8-bit title, and deliver it as an app for a modern mobile platform. Effectively, the emulator becomes an "Atari runtime" that is linked with the game executable.

 

Ahh, I understand now, *light bulb moment* ! Sorry for delay there!

 

Well I guess that as long as they are brand new or freeware / pd titles then you won't have an issue.

 

Thanks for the clarification.

[akator]

I love this idea. It would be incredible to write something for the Atari, then seamlessly wrap my original software into an invisible emulator package that would run on modern platforms.

 

I think this sort of thing should also be available for other classic systems. My crap coding skills extend beyond Atari to the Apple II and VIC-20. I can imagine the worldwide excitement of everyone using iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac the first time they run my personalized versions of "hello world"

[Kr0tki]

Licencing will be a problem. As gozar pointed out, the leading emulators and, AFAIK, AltirraOS too, are licenced under GNU GPL, which is a no go on the App Store.

 

For any other platform, when bundling a game with a GPL emulator, the GPL licence would require the source code of that game to be published under GPL as well, and some of our developers might not agree to comply with that.

Edited March 7, 2015 by Kr0tki

[snicklin]

Hopefully a nice resolution can be found.

Edited March 7, 2015 by snicklin

[phaeron]

AltirraOS is currently released as GPLv2, but I will probably be relicensing all of the Altirra core ROMs to a more liberal license soon. (The source doesn't even fit on an Atari!) Altirra BASIC is already under an all-permissive license.

[Tickled_Pink]

Licencing will be a problem. As gozar pointed out, the leading emulators and, AFAIK, AltirraOS too, are licenced under GNU GPL, which is a no go on the App Store.

 

For any other platform, when bundling a game with a GPL emulator, the GPL licence would require the source code of that game to be published under GPL as well, and some of our developers might not agree to comply with that.

 

There's nothing stopping an emulator developer from modifying their emulators and license to suit such an application as is being suggested - and perhaps even make a bit of money on the side. It's all well and good asking someone to develop a platform that others are going to make money out of. Any emulator developer willing to spend their time developing a new mobile version for this purpose should get some benefit out of it.

[pixelmischief]

There's nothing stopping an emulator developer from modifying their emulators and license to suit such an application as is being suggested - and perhaps even make a bit of money on the side. It's all well and good asking someone to develop a platform that others are going to make money out of. Any emulator developer willing to spend their time developing a new mobile version for this purpose should get some benefit out of it.

Exactamundo. Everyone wins. Remember, these guys are already doing this for FREE for love of the platform and the community. As long as everyone can play fair (read: abide by a licensing agreement that requires them to share proceeds in an equitable fashion), there is no reason that we can't help them make a little coin. It becomes and easy way for them to market, us to consume, and the entire community attract would-be or had-been developers who would otherwise snub the platform in favor of something more (or at all) profitable.

Edited March 7, 2015 by pixelmischief

[gozar]

Licencing will be a problem. As gozar pointed out, the leading emulators and, AFAIK, AltirraOS too, are licenced under GNU GPL, which is a no go on the App Store.

 

For any other platform, when bundling a game with a GPL emulator, the GPL licence would require the source code of that game to be published under GPL as well, and some of our developers might not agree to comply with that.

This would be interesting, but I don't think the GPL would apply to the Atari assets. The Atari assets (like the OS ROM and an .XEX) would be like documents being opened by the GPL app, which would require the documents to also be GPLed. But I'm viewing this as OS X App bundles, where the application is actually a folder with the program and all it's supporting files.

 

Maybe an A8 runtime written from scratch with a BSD licence attached?

[gozar]

I think the first step would be modifying Atari800 to work with Chrome's Native Client. Some has already do it with Dosbox: http://www.naclbox.com

 

That opens up the A8 to Windows, Linux, OS X, and Chrome OS.

[snicklin]

If this was to be done, who would be the target market?

 

How could a game with 1980s graphics and sound be marketed to young mobile users?

 

Or should our (as varied as it is) age range be targeted? Any ideas?

[pixelmischief]

If this was to be done, who would be the target market? How could a game with 1980s graphics and sound be marketed to young mobile users?

 

I truly believe that the full range of demographics is at play, so to speak. The "casual game" market is absolutely booming. Games like "Happy Birds" are making millionaires. This is evidence that great gameplay is all that is required for a title to be wildly successful. Atari 8-Bit graphics at their best are easily beautiful enough to allow the user to immerse themselves in a quality gameplay experience. There are challenges, but the developers I see publishing new titles on the Atari are up to that challenge.

[Nebulon]

If this was to be done, who would be the target market?

 

How could a game with 1980s graphics and sound be marketed to young mobile users?

 

Or should our (as varied as it is) age range be targeted? Any ideas?

 

8-bit is already becoming trendy.

 

Take a look at the comments by ElementalChaos (Age = 16):

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/233631-aa-8-bit-user-age-demographics/page-4

 

This timing is right.

 

And judging from my 75-year-old parent's recent positive reactions to 8-bit games, it looks like some that never took any interest in video games are finding the 8-bit variety to be worth trying in their later years.