Retroblast notes that StarROMs, the pioneering company who brought legal arcade ROMs to the general public, has shut down their site. If you head there now, all you get is the following message:

I can't help but be a bit saddened by the news. StarROMs seemed like a quality step towards the gaming community reimbursing creators for their hard work and companies for their investments, as opposed to arcade emulation fans constantly pirating the ROMs stating 'if there were a way to compensate them, I would!' I'm unsure whether StarROMs was able to actually expand their reach beyond offering Atari arcade games, so perhaps it was the selection that doomed them, or maybe the general purchasing experience wasn't ideal (personally I'm not a big fan of having to convert my cash to 'credits' before I can purchase anything, even if it's knowingly 'old-school'). Or perhaps Atari just decided that they wanted to sell ROMs themselves, leaving StarROMs with no software catalog.

Whatever the reason, it's sad news. However, seeing similar services such as the Xbox Live Arcade and, even to some extent, Steam, succeed gives me hope that perhaps the idea of actually pay for play isn't some far fetched pie-in-the-sky idea.