Pirating/Emulating what are your thoughts
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A lot of people these days use emulators of old video game consoles such as the SNES and Megadrive and some use the argument that as the games aren't widely available anymore and the the company isn't making money from them anymore that it is ok to steal them
I disagree with that notion, most consoles now provide classics at a fee, such as the sonic or mario games being available on console stores today, it's clear that companies still want to make money from old games that emulation prevents them from making that money
The only time i would say emulation is ok is if you actually own a psychical copy (or the way things are now a digital copy) that you have bought and paid for
I disagree with that notion, most consoles now provide classics at a fee, such as the sonic or mario games being available on console stores today, it's clear that companies still want to make money from old games that emulation prevents them from making that money
The only time i would say emulation is ok is if you actually own a psychical copy (or the way things are now a digital copy) that you have bought and paid for
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Mark
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Thomas
I mean, if I wanted to play an old Megadrive game that I used to own or enjoy (such as the one where you played as sort of skeleton/cyborg type things, I've forgotten the name!), then I would have to emulate, or purchase second hand. Really I don't see much of a difference between both since the publisher and dev receives zero money from either way. Which then leads onto the whole second hand market issue, and I'm not talking about the pre-owned section in GAME. If a guy was selling a Megadrive with shit loads of games I used to enjoy when I was a kid then really it's not much different from emulating. Sure, at one point Sega etc. will have received some money for it, but then at one point games will surely have been purchased to enable the emulators to make the ROMs?
Legally it might be black and white, but morally it's prehaps more of a grey area.
When I say legally I mean from a retailer rather than second hand on ebay. Like Pinsarla said I don't think there is much difference.
its that like saying there is a moral difference between stealing from a rich young healthy person and an old poor sick person
its a crime either way surely
I agree... How much money are nintendo gonna loss by someone playing some crappy nes / snes game from 20yrs ago via an emulator??? ... only afew nintendo headbangers will pay 4/5 quid for a virtual-console ROM so it can't be much LOL... everyone else ain't so stupid. ... I bet there more concerned with people pirating Wii / 3DS / WiU titles. :rolleyes:
Its one thing pirating a game that is relatively modern and can be sold at a profit
Its another thing entirely playing a game that has no value except nostalgia.
Pirating, equally, it happens and was certainly rife in the playground when I was a kid growing up, swapping tapes became Amiga/ST discs until everyone got into cartridge gaming and then it dried up.
Many creators acknowledge pirating as an advanced form of demoing games, it's mainly the money men who complain about it. Funnily enough, the most folk I know who pirate are from the games dev demographic. Go figure.
No its not like saying that at all.
Its more like the difference with robbing someone that alive or dead with no descendents.
For instance, I use the DOS emulator DOSBox on my PC for the games that no longer work on Windows 7. It's very useful for getting old games to work, and I use it with games I already own. Some of the old games you can buy from Steam use DOSBox as well, so emulation and piracy aren't the same thing.
Arguments against both go out of the window when you get a game dev who helps with technical issues on a torrent site.
Wen I asked about it people thought i was crazy. But someone has made me a windows 98 machine from two old ones he had laying around. I'm excited to pick it up on saturday!
there is a place for emulators if the physical hardware is hard to come by...but I don't agree with copying games for current generation gaming.
I would rather own the physical unit over an emulator but sometimes that is not possible because they are either too expensive or hard to come by. I think after 20 years games should be free for everyone to play. Let everyone who was going to play the game buy it and when it is no longer profitable let people enjoy them for nothing.
Copying games makes people lose their jobs, Encourages crime and makes pandas cry! They love an original pandas do !
My opinion is each to his own. If it doesn't directly affect my life then I don't care what someone does. I do see a pretty huge distinction between emulating old games to current gen ones, and since I've done both in the past I know for fact they are not the same thing from a moral standpoint.
There are some legitimate retro games available on modern machines but mostly only the classics as you state, that's ok if all you want to play is Mario and Sonic but In the case of something like Amiga, PC Engine, Master System or arcade games then your only choice is the real thing or to emulate. In fact I'd go so far to say over 95% of retro games from the 80's and 90's are not available to the public to buy in any legitimate, downloadable form.
Even then, regardless if companies have them for sale, why should I buy the same copy of Sonic or Streets of Rage 20 times for different formats? You could argue that point. Especially when a lot of the times emulation they use is NOT up to scratch and as a consequence are overpriced.
You only need to look at Nintendo's VC for proof, of course being overpriced is a subjective thing but when the conversions are 50hz/bordered (as is the case with both Wii ad Wii U) then I think they absolutely are, so I choose to emulate.