Pleasuredome, one of the longest-lasting ROM and emulation sites in the world, has suddenly shut down after more than 15 years online. The torrent site first appeared in 2004 as the home of the MameFTP Group, but over the weekend it suddenly went offline, leaving thousands of users in the dark. Sources close to the site say there is "no drama" and that quitting "while ahead" was the best option.
Sometime in 2004, a new site appeared in hopes of better serving fans of the burgeoning video emulation scene. Acting as a source and index for lossless compressed ROM and CHD files (for the MAME emulator), Pleasuredome made emulation resources more accessible, with the support of a growing community.
From the beginning, Pleasuredome was heralded as the home of the MameFTPGroup, a reference to the most popular emulator of the day and to FTP, the preferred format for file transfers. Pleasuredome listed many FTP resources on its platform from all over the world, from the United States and Canada to Europe and Australia. The chart below shows how poor these servers were in bandwidth.
To ease the pressure on these servers, Pleasuredome users were initially encouraged to head out into the real world for content on physical media to get started.
Complete sets, which could take several weeks to download from the site, can be obtained from so-called 'burners', volunteers who were willing to sacrifice their time and electricity to burn their collections of binary ROM files to CD-ROM. This service was free for people who requested it.
More than 15 years ago, the Internet was clearly a different place when it came to bandwidth, and copyright issues related to ROMs were also almost unheard of. However, even in its early days, Pleasuredome warned users that since it did not know its users, it could not assess any user's legal rights to use downloaded ROMs. However, the site felt it could assure people that (unlike today) copyright owners didn't care about emulation.
"[T]The original copyright owners don't usually worry too much about free distribution of these ROMs because they have long ceased to generate revenue, burners have supplied ROM games to software houses and arcade manufacturers in the past. " noted a May 2004 statement.
"For privacy reasons, we will not disclose these companies, but it goes without saying that at least two of them are playing a significant role in the software industry now, and one of them is an arcade manufacturer."
BitTorrent became useful
In an effort to reduce considerable bandwidth costs that could not be downloaded to the 'fiery' community, at some point Pleasuredome implemented a BitTorrent tracker, and later preferred the Gazelle platform. This meant that content could be shared among site members using their bandwidth, rather than servers with a centralized bill. When considering a complete Mameset with all the CHDs that can weigh hundreds of gigabytes, the savings would have been enormous.
Pleasuredome implemented strict rules for sharing and anyone who did not play ball was banned from the site. At some point, however, the site itself had to change the way it operated by excluding some content as well. The tracker had a policy of offering only game ROMs that weren't officially available for purchase, so when gaming giants, including Nintendo, started filing lawsuits against ROM portals, Pleasuredome began banning their games on the site. site.
Pleasuredome shuts down
After more than 15 years online (and plus a limited period before that under a different domain), Pleasuredome threw in the towel this weekend. At some point on Sunday, the site went down before displaying a brief "Game Over" shutdown message on Pleasuredome.org.uk, the torrent site's old domain. No warning was given and no explanation was offered for the closure.
However, the site provided a link to a Reddit post that also contains a chatbox. Someone claiming to be on the site's moderation team provided a bit more information on the site, stating that "all good things must come to an end."
โWe decided PD had reached the end, it's that simple, no drama, no hassle. Just finishing the tracker, it was fine while it lasted. He is dead forever, โthe poster warned.
โThe emulation will continueโฆ your hobby will continue. PD has been transformed, but the scene is still as active and alive as ever. "
When a site goes down, the conversation automatically switches to whether there could be some kind of resurrection. Read between the lines that it is not completely ruled out, but with regard to Pleasuredome at least, the end has been reached.
โThere is no possibility that the site will return to its previous form. We hit a hot streak and decided it was the best time to finish. Stop smoking while we are ahead, "read a statement.
โThere is no significant legal way to transfer the site. PS it was a great site and the time is right for it to come to a significant end. Trust me, we will miss the community too, but it was the right time for all good things to come to an end. "
But while the site has now escaped to join thousands of others in the file-sharing graveyard, the team has provided a link. To this page, which might be useful to some.
