Unlike most vintage console or computer games, arcade games can be both difficult to find and expensive to buy, so many arcade fans use emulators to create their own homebrewed arcade systems. The Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) has become the most popular emulator for gamers who want to play classic arcade games in their home, and now the team behind MAME has decided to make the emulator completely open source.
“There was intention to do this for years,” MAME engineer Miodrag Milanovic told Gamasutra. “Our aim is to help legal license owners in distributing their games based on MAME platform, and to make MAME become a learning tool for developers working on development boards.”