THE TRUTH BEHIND MAME.DK'S CLOSING

THE TRUTH BEHIND MAME.DK'S CLOSING The Truth Behind Mame.dk's Closing

FastCounter by bCentral

Mame.dk closed because efront didn't pay them. The below alleged logs reveal that eFront's CEOs (working closely with Tim Eckel) never wanted to pay them a dime from the start. They only wanted $$$ for themselves.
These are alleged ICQ logs of conversations between Tim Eckel and eFront's CEOs. Tim Eckel is iBLAMEj00 in the logs.

*I* believe them to be 100% true, although they *could have* been made up by anyone. I think eFront and Tim Eckel's agenda is very clear after reading these logs. Upset that mame.dk is down? iBLAMEefront.

According to the ICQ license agreement, privacy is not guarenteed and it essentially a public forum. The logs allegedly originated from a former disgruntled eFront employee.

These logs were posted by Gridle from this Retrogames message board post. You can download them below and read them in their entirety. Highlights have been posted here (emphasis added).

Full Tim Eckel log
Full Bryant log
ICQ License Agreement
Message board - Post your thoughts!

From eckel1.html

[iBLAMEj00  18/12/20 7:36 am]  Kick mame.dk out next.  Those assholes resist

                                  everything and still haven't added the web

                                  guide.

[sam        18/12/20 7:38 am]  just asked nate what he thinks of them

[sam        18/12/20 7:41 am]  and their clickthru rates suck too

[iBLAMEj00  18/12/20 7:42 am]  Well, their rates suck and they won't do

                                  anything.

[iBLAMEj00  18/12/20 7:43 am]  They have been "testing" the web guide for

                                  like a month now.

[sam        18/12/20 7:43 am]  well we're switching the whole fuck over

                                  tomorrow using webguide impressins.. so they

                                  better get their ass in line.. cuz it'll be $0

                                  :)

[iBLAMEj00  13/01/20 11:56 am] mame.dk, toku, etc.

[sam        13/01/20 11:56 am] impossible :)

[iBLAMEj00  13/01/20 11:57 am] I think they own the domains.

[sam        13/01/20 11:57 am] not legally

[sam        13/01/20 11:57 am] nope

[sam        13/01/20 11:57 am] we wont make a payment until its transferred

                                  in our name.. good idea

[sam        13/01/20 11:57 am] efront owns all domain names :)

[iBLAMEj00  13/01/20 11:57 am] Not leagally, but would be a hard sell if

                                  there wasn't a payment =)

[iBLAMEj00  13/01/20 11:57 am] Yea, we should do that.

[iBLAMEj00  13/01/20 11:58 am] I've been telling you, Nate, Matt that for

                                  months =)

[sam        13/01/20 11:58 am] yeah i know.. im not a techie .. i tell them

                                  too..

[iBLAMEj00  13/01/20 11:59 am] I know leagally, but I bet it would be really

                                  difficult to get mame.dk back if they pulled

                                  the domain (just for one example that I'm

                                  aware of).

[iBLAMEj00  13/01/20 11:59 am] Other sites are on their own servers and I'm

                                  sure that others still are in control of their

                                  domain.

[sam        13/01/20 11:59 am] well i dont care.. its just a dumb rom site..

                                  we already have aah for that .. :)

[iBLAMEj00  13/01/20 12:00 pm] Heh

[sam        13/01/20 12:00 pm] we can acquire so easily right now for 50 cent

                                  cpm

[sam        13/01/20 12:00 pm] its not even funny

[iBLAMEj00  13/01/20 12:00 pm] Yea, you're right, screw 'em.

[iBLAMEj00  24/02/20 12:47 pm] I've already said that you could kill all

                                  emulation sites.  Like if you killed mame.dk I

                                  would get 100% of their traffic.

[sam        24/02/20 12:47 pm] well when i said kill, i mean get rid of it

                                  from our network

[sam        24/02/20 12:47 pm] like kick'em out

[iBLAMEj00  24/02/20 12:47 pm] And we could do that will all MP3 sites, but I

                                  think you already combined them.

[sam        24/02/20 12:47 pm] i dont really want to shut it down cuz

[sam        24/02/20 12:48 pm] we dont want to make too many enemies

[iBLAMEj00  24/02/20 12:48 pm] Heh

[sam        24/02/20 12:48 pm] and thats part of the 49.0009% evil stuff

[iBLAMEj00  24/02/20 12:48 pm] And I think in the case of mame.dk, they still

                        control the domain, and they host it for free,

                               so they could easily start over =)

[sam        24/02/20 12:48 pm] but you can still get mame.dk traffic if we

                                  got rid of it?

[iBLAMEj00  24/02/20 12:49 pm] Oh yea, the only reason they have more traffic

                                  is because they have a tech support staff.

[iBLAMEj00  24/02/20 1:00 pm]  Get me 5Mbps on a server in tiwain and we

                                  could get rid of mame.dk

[iBLAMEj00  24/02/20 1:01 pm]  Or another country with no copyright laws.

[sam        24/02/20 1:01 pm]  really.. how would u get all their users

[sam        24/02/20 1:01 pm]  celebs.efront.. probably since the cais move

[iBLAMEj00  24/02/20 1:02 pm]  Well, everyone that knows mame.dk knows my

                                  site.

[iBLAMEj00  24/02/20 1:02 pm]  The reason they go to mame.dk is because they

                                  have downloads working, while mine have been

                                  broken for almost a month (and really crippled

                                  while at cais).

[iBLAMEj00  24/02/20 1:03 pm]  I have about 5 times the content they have,

                                  all I need is some server support.

[iBLAMEj00  24/02/20 1:03 pm]  If you notice, mame.dk's traffic has gone up

                                  as I have had problem after problem.

[iBLAMEj00  24/02/20 1:04 pm]  With a server in Tiwain, bandwidth, and a

                                  little tech support, they would flock.

From bryant.html

sam     02/02/2001 12:50 pm:
update?

sam     02/02/2001 12:50 pm:
any offers for me to look at?

bryant     02/02/2001 1:11 pm:
mame.dk is willing to come down from what we
surrently owe them per month which is 31.5k
down to 23.5k and both lower and cap any
further scales.

sam     02/02/2001 1:11 pm:
23k??????

sam     02/02/2001 1:11 pm:
we've never paid them that

sam     02/02/2001 1:11 pm:
they are on crack

sam     02/02/2001 1:11 pm:
they are earning ZERO right now

bryant     02/02/2001 1:11 pm:
According to their contract we currently owe
them 31.5k a month.

sam     02/02/2001 1:11 pm:
no webguide.. and we told everyone we're
counting webguide impressions as of december
15

sam     02/02/2001 1:22 pm:
of course those are non-payable pageviews
since he doesnt have webguide, but that was
for january.. moving forward, anyway we can
cap mame.dk to 10k?

sam     02/02/2001 1:22 pm:
of course, his ctr% suck

bryant     02/02/2001 1:23 pm:
They claim that doesn't cover the hosting.
Then again, they say they're under an NDA on
what they pay for hosting and can't tell us.

bryant     02/02/2001 1:23 pm:
We can get them to 10k or even less if we host
them.

bryant     02/02/2001 1:23 pm:
But that's more than we want.

sam     02/02/2001 1:23 pm:
they OWN their own isp haha

sam     02/02/2001 1:23 pm:
so its free

sam     02/02/2001 1:24 pm:
we can host them.. but they cant putillegal
roms as downloads on our servers:)

sam     02/02/2001 1:24 pm:
its better for us to put the html on our
servers.. so we have control

sam     02/02/2001 1:24 pm:
so make a deal.. 10k tops.. we host it.. of
course, we're not goign to allow rom downloads
on our servers.. so they have to link off

sam     02/02/2001 1:24 pm:
and we got our 10k

sam     02/02/2001 1:24 pm:
hows that sound.. is that too sneaky :)

bryant     02/02/2001 1:25 pm:
Might work, certainly no harm in trying.

bryant     14/02/2001 9:14 am:
mame.dk is getting restless btw. We prepared
to let them go? Or how do you want to handle
that? We're looking for around $4k a month,
they're looking for around $24k/mo. They're
hosting their own site. They claim they can't
live with $4k. etc. etc.

bryant     14/02/2001 9:15 am:
I've let them stew a bit and now they seem a
little more anxious. How do you want to play
it?

bryant     14/02/2001 9:16 am:
I haven't turned aggressive on them yet but
that was my next play. Just wanted to touch
base to see where they stand on your
importance perception.

sam     14/02/2001 9:16 am:
how many daily uniques do they have

bryant     14/02/2001 9:16 am:
Having Jo pull that, one sec.

sam     14/02/2001 9:16 am:
not important really..but it is a big site..
24k is way too much for that though

sam     14/02/2001 9:16 am:
we've never paid them 24k

sam     14/02/2001 9:17 am:
all our past payments to them have been less
than 10k

sam     14/02/2001 9:17 am:
traffic increase doesnt mean we can monetirze
it..

bryant     14/02/2001 9:18 am:
60983 unique viewers yesterday.

sam     14/02/2001 9:18 am:
60*30= say 2 mil .. times even 2.5 = 5k....
hmmm

sam     14/02/2001 9:18 am:
tell them to test the market out ?

sam     14/02/2001 9:18 am:
brian is using that ploy

sam     14/02/2001 9:19 am:
tell them the market is zero out there.. tell
them to test it out for a few days

bryant     14/02/2001 9:19 am:
It's hard to think about coming up on an
emulation site. If they don't want to play in
the real world we might think about some of
the less friendly options.

bryant     14/02/2001 9:19 am:
Yeah, I've used that here and there too. Let
me see what they have to say tomorrow and
we'll play it from there.

sam     14/02/2001 9:19 am:
yeah.. the uniques are nice..but we cant
really pay more than 5k.. we're prepared to
let them walk, yes.

bryant     14/02/2001 9:20 am:
How much are you comfortable paying if they
control their banner inventory?

sam     14/02/2001 9:21 am:
boy thats tough.. since we're not hosting
either.. i really dont know where their
tfaffic is coming fro

sam     14/02/2001 9:21 am:
we cant monetize the non-usa traffic in direct
marketing yet

bryant     14/02/2001 9:21 am:
Yeah, it's an odd one.

sam     14/02/2001 9:21 am:
us companies dont want foreign addresses or
names for d.m.

bryant     14/02/2001 9:21 am:
OK, that actually makes it easier. Lemme see
how they respond tomorrow.

sam     14/02/2001 9:21 am:
im not sure if thats an option here