Who we are

Jamie's MAME ROM CD Burning Service is a not-for-profit hobbyist service. The prices charged are approximately the cost of materials purchased off the shelf at the local office store, plus postage. There is no charge billed for time or equipment wear.

My pricing

My pricing falls within the guidelines of the Free Mame Roms and Tombstones/Lazarus groups. (Go check out the price of a 10-pack of name brand DVDs at your local office supply store sometime. You know, the ones that aren't on sale.) I use name brand discs, apply disc labels that have been printed with a color laser printer, put them in good quality sleeves, and ship in a bubble mailer. Others do provide sets cheaper, but those are typically generics, have the disc info handwritten with a marker, and tossed into an envelope. If that's all you want, then by all means get them that way.

Every now and then, someone writes to me and accuses me of trying to rip off people by charging $X per disc, delivered. They say that since they can get them at Joe's Computer Bargains for 25 cents each. I must be making a fortune.

First of all, I don't live anywhere near a Joe's Computer Bargains store. Second, I've tried those cheap DVDs, and they simply don't work well. While CD-R technology has been around a while, and even the bargain basement brands work reasonably well, recordable DVD isn't that mature. There is a lot of crap out there. I bought some "bargain" DVD-Rs at $15 for a spindle of 50. 3 out of 4 of them don't verify, and I'm out the half hour for each attempt. Some deal.

I only use name brand discs. I've recently been using DVD-Rs by Imation, but have used DVDs from Philips, Sony, Memorex, and others. However, there are times when nothing decent is on sale, and I have to pay $50 plus tax (8.25% here) for a spindle of 25 discs.

I freely admit to shopping the sales and rebates. One person pointed out that "Office ****" had a 25 pack of Imations for $9.99 after rebates, and I should price accordingly. Let me point out that virtually *all* mail-in rebates are "limit one per household or address", and a 25 pack doesn't go all that far when there are 7 discs going out per request. Most of my DVDs are not eligible for mail-in rebates because of that limitation.

So yes, I may "make" a few dollars here and there. Averaged out, it may be somewhere between a dime and a quarter per set. Given that I spend more than an hour burning, packaging, and mailing each set, I'm not getting rich very fast. If I was doing this for profit, I'd have to charge at least $50 per set.

Timeliness of service

I try to get sets out within a few days. Really, I do. But there are times when work (and life in general) just gets in the way of that.

Also, keep in mind that someone else makes my labels for me. This alone quite often delays sets a day or two.

And please, when making a request the day after a new set comes out, keep in mind that I don't already have the ROMs sitting and waiting. Yes, being in the Tombstones network does get me access to FTP sites ahead of others, but there are 50+ other burners trying to get access to those same sites. On a normal size update, I usually have the ROMs within a few days. Throw in a couple of new CHDs, and we're looking at two weeks.

Then, once I get all the ROMs, I have to make sure they are all good (re-downloading as needed). I assemble them into CD sets, then burn a validation set. I take this validation set to another computer, and copy the ROMs to it. I then validate the set by making sure that the set from disc is complete.

I do the same with the update set. I have to install the previous version's ROMs, the update set, and then run the validation.

As you see, it takes time. Several hours now, given the size of the ROMset. I have to find those hours among working full time, doing laundry, cleaning, shopping, and all those other things that need to be done.

My point is, if you make a request right after a huge release comes out, please don't complain to Paypal a week later that you haven't received your discs. Especially if the web site says that "sets will ship as soon as I have them available".

Tips, gratuities, and other gifts

First off, let me say that I am human, and I love it when someone sends a little extra above what I ask for. However, I do not actively solicit tips. Requests are processed in the order received, regardless of any tips enclosed.

One guy got a bit "bent out of shape" when I didn't "automatically" bump his request to the head of the line because he sent me an extra $4. (He rounded up to the nearest $5.) This was right after MAME 0.61 was released, and I was filling requests as fast as I could. He shut up pretty quickly when I told him that if I went by the size of the tip, his request would have been delayed by another week.

"Priority Service"

Let me just say that I do not offer any form of priority service. Some have been confused by my wanting $5 extra for Priority Mail. That just gets it from my local post office to your house a bit faster. It doesn't get it to the post office any faster. (And for those of you in California, you really shouldn't bother with Priority Mail. It's no faster than standard First Class for you "locals". Plus, it makes me stand in line at the post office.)

And yes, I do know that Priority Mail postage is less than the $5 that I charge. I do that for a reason; so people won't use it. Why? It is a significant hassle for me to do special packaging.

If you really have a need to get your ROMs in the shortest possible time, it's up to you to convince me that I should burn yours ahead of those requested before you. (And I'm curious to find out why...)