Do you think Emulation preserves videogame history?

[Ganelon]

Preserving games is not an excuse for playing emulated games. If you're pirating, you're pirating; that's it. Accept it and move on. Availability is not an excuse; you can find pretty much anything in the last 25 years if you're willing to pay for it. Price is not an excuse either; the publisher doesn't owe you the right to play a game. Emulating games is simply your choice for playing games illegally.

Now, economically, playing any game beyond that age (certainly NOT a game released in the past 10 years) or a game whose license holders have retreated from gaming very likely wouldn't harm anyone. But if you're looking for moral justification, you're on your own. It's simply your longing to play a certain game mixed with the desire to justify what you're doing that makes you want to cop out an excuse. Don't do that to yourself; either accept you're just a pirate like so many others (albeit maybe one that's not cutting into anybody's profits) or else go buy the real real games.

If you only emulate FFVI or Chrono Trigger, you're spending your money elsewhere and are thus denying Square Enix the opportunity costs of buying the recent (and upcoming) handheld ports. Just consider how much more sales these ports would have generated if emulation didn't exist and all people knew from these games was their legacy as premier RPGs. Anybody who thinks emulation has helped the sales of these games must be crazy; everyone would want to play the supposed best RPGs on the SNES but maybe not if they've already beaten the emulated version 4 times. And we all know of our favorite arcade publishers' bouts with piracy.

Basically, I don't care how much you emulate. But please, no excuses and no trying to cop out a moral standing ground. 11 years ago, I played my first emulator. I was young, poor, and just didn't care I was pirating. So I was just your average emulating pirate. But even then, I knew I planned to start buying once I had the money.

Nowadays, I rarely illegally emulate to test some older (pre-32-bit) games out, and have bought or plan on buying all of the games I enjoy. Besides that, I only play emulated versions of games I already own and even then only because a game has been translated or offers additional netcode.

I know I'm still not at all guilt-free in the eyes of the law when I test out the older games to make a decision on whether to purchase them but I honestly don't care. I know I'm not costing any present-day companies anything so I've resolved that issue in my mind. Is preservation ever a factor? Maybe when a certain game or platform is starting to become endangered due to some component degradation. So far, I don't know of that ever happening for a game released in the last quarter century.

[Necronom]

If you only emulate FFVI or Chrono Trigger, you're spending your money elsewhere and are thus denying Square Enix the opportunity costs of buying the recent (and upcoming) handheld ports. Just consider how much more sales these ports would have generated if emulation didn't exist and all people knew from these games was their legacy as premier RPGs. Anybody who thinks emulation has helped the sales of these games must be crazy; everyone would want to play the supposed best RPGs on the SNES but maybe not if they've already beaten the emulated version 4 times.

First of all, many people simply wouldn't know anything about those games since their first contact with the game was the emulated version. Second, comparing handheld ports to PC emulation is pretty much apples and oranges. Last but not least, I'm sorry to dissapoint you but many people use emulation to play games they wouldn't have bought otherwise and there goes your claim that sales would be better if people couldn't emulate...
Stop talking about morals and accept the fact:
emulation (mainly Mame and 16 bit consoles) kickstarted the current "retro trend" that BRINGS IN money on VC and XBLA. The industry should be grateful.

[Daedalus]

if something is unavailable to you, whether that be by price, location, terms & conditions, that doesn't give you a "right" to steal it? expand that principle to other products...

Great piece of propaganda here, trying to equate theft with copying IP. Stealing deprives an owner of something, and copying an IP doesn't deprive the owner of anything. Read back to my "society's benefit" purpose of copyright law. I will stress again - legality does not dictate morality.

I agree with the point about copyright law not being a dictate from heaven, but sometimes giving advantage to the few is the only way to properly reward their efforts. Authors, for example, mostly struggle or hold down a second job. Reducing the length of the copyright protection too far could hurt them in their careers, and removing it entirely - well, that brings to mind the "brutish, nasty, and short" description of the lives of those who live without rules, and according only to natural law.

Copyright law definitely needs to exist. But it could be shortened by a great deal. US Copyright duration is the creator's life plus 70 years. That's a longass time.

Now, normal patent protection only lasts for only 14 years. Drug patents have an even shorter patent length. I'm going to wager that the these have pretty huge development costs, yet they recoup them relatively quickly. The video game industry is in even better position to recoup their money, as very rarely are new games even sold for that period of time. I think that a protection length of a decade would be more than enough to ensure video game creators receive just compensation for their work while still benefiting society and discouraging creators from just repackaging old work.

I had to double-check patent lengths, and while I was looking it up I found an interesting abstract on a paper covering patent laws.

This paper models the effect of patent length on the rate-of-innovation and consumer welfare. The authors find that the patent length that maximizes the rate-of-innovation exceeds that which maximizes consumer welfare. They show a countervailing effect of patent length upon the 'size' and 'frequency' of innovation. Longer patents increase the size, but decrease the frequency of innovation. The patent lengths that maximize the rate-of-innovation and welfare represent balance points between size and frequency. The divergence of the welfare maximizing and rate-of-innovation maximizing patent lengths has important policy implications that the authors briefly explore.

The person who is actualy doing this is really not that focused. last time i heard he had not even started on the dump. and this is what.. a year? two years we have been waiting for this to start?

I can't speak for this particular guy, but modern arcade piracy is pretty tricky. The basic hardware is rough, since you have all kinds of different PCBs instead of a unified system setup (as in consoles). Many modern games have sophisticated anti-piracy systems that are difficulty to bypass. In some cases, the protective coating on the ICs needs to be burned away with acid to physically examine in inside of the chips. In this case you need at the least money for the treatment process and a Ketsui board that you want to junk.

The arcade scene is huge, and ROM dumpers have few resources. If they are talking their time on a game, it's rarely out of laziness.



I have one question for all you anti-piracy people. Obviously, piracy is not theft because it does not deprive the original owner of their property. However, you claim that it's still wrong because it deprives the IP holder of deserved revenue. Now, I get occasional new releases if it's something I really want, but for the vast majority of games I just wait a while and buy them used. Is this unethical? I could buy a bootleg too, and the only difference is a pirate would get my money instead of Gamestop. Either way you look at it, the IP holder isn't getting their revenue.

[jpj]

Ganelon = correct

...y'know, i don't get it. the website my mate got all his DS romz from got shut down by nintendo. don't they see how beneficial sites like these are to sales...? put down the joint necronom.

[jpj]

I have one question for all you anti-piracy people. Obviously, piracy is not theft because it does not deprive the original owner of their property. However, you claim that it's still wrong because it deprives the IP holder of deserved revenue. Now, I get occasional new releases if it's something I really want, but for the vast majority of games I just wait a while and buy them used. Is this unethical? I could buy a bootleg too, and the only difference is a pirate would get my money instead of Gamestop. Either way you look at it, the IP holder isn't getting their revenue.

no, it's just illegal. it's wrong because it is against the law

here in the EU we have what are called Fair Trading Laws. so it's a silly question as one is legal, and one isn't.

[Daedalus]

no, it's just illegal. it's wrong because it is against the law

That's just ignorant. The laws are written by imperfect people - How can you argue that it's immoral to break rules that were imposed by people who didn't fully understand the issues or were not fully acting in the interest of the state?

By your logic, in the US abolitionism and interracial marriage would have been immoral. Gay marriage would be immoral. Armpit sex in the state of Michigan would be immoral. This is the height of stupidity!

[jpj]

okay, i cannot be trolled into some lame argument today. i never said anything is moral or immoral. this really stinks of adolescent petulance

[Ganelon]

Eh, i'll bite the fisher.

First of all, many people simply wouldn't know anything about those games since their first contact with the game was the emulated version. Second, comparing handheld ports to PC emulation is pretty much apples and oranges. Last but not least, I'm sorry to dissapoint you but many people use emulation to play games they wouldn't have bought otherwise and there goes your claim that sales would be better if people couldn't emulate...
Stop talking about morals and accept the fact:
emulation (mainly Mame and 16 bit consoles) kickstarted the current "retro trend" that BRINGS IN money on VC and XBLA. The industry should be grateful.

Near-identical handheld ports of console games aren't equivalent to near-identical PC emulations of those same console games...? Err, I'm not sure what the point here is.

And I guess Super Mario All Stars wasn't a top seller because the originals were legendary. Rather, it was because people played the emulated versions and liked them that much. Err, wait, but emulation wasn't even around back then...

And what exactly is the current retro trend? Consoles started having retro collections since the very beginning of the 32-bit era, namely when Midway and Namco started unveiling their old arcade hits (again, before emulation started). I attribute VC's success to casual fans from that era replaying their favorites after 10+ years and new gamers nowadays testing out some old popular hits.

I don't know where you get the idea that emulation spurred sales. If that were true, all the folks pirating old SNK games ought to have been in a rush to try the new stuff out, no? I'll accept this "fact" when you can provide proof; as is, I trust the game companies, who live by selling games, far more than I'd trust this random claim. Next, will you try to convince me that downloading illegal movies has boosted movie sales?

And yeah, jpj. I think some people have a hard time reading carefully. Last I saw, we're just talking about laws and didn't take a moral stance. If buying used items is illegal (as it is for, say, makeup), then yeah, you would be doing something illegal. You can decide what's morally right on your own.

[The Coop]

I have one question for all you anti-piracy people. Obviously, piracy is not theft because it does not deprive the original owner of their property. However, you claim that it's still wrong because it deprives the IP holder of deserved revenue. Now, I get occasional new releases if it's something I really want, but for the vast majority of games I just wait a while and buy them used. Is this unethical? I could buy a bootleg too, and the only difference is a pirate would get my money instead of Gamestop. Either way you look at it, the IP holder isn't getting their revenue.

I've been reading that places like Gamestop, Game Crazy and them are actually coming under fire from the industry. Gamestop alone makes roughly one billion dollars a year in used game sales, and the folks making those games want a piece of that. Otherwise, I believe Gamestop have some kind agreement or loophole that allows them to sell the used games (possibly in the same manner that you or I can sell a game to a friend after we're done playing it). The game industry isn't that thrilled with it at the moment, but it's not against the law (yet).

However, despite the fact that buying a used copy of PS2's Jeep Thrills or the DS's Bangai-O Spirits at Gamestop, and pirating the games from a torrent site, has the same outcome, it isn't quite the same. Gamestop carries new copies of those games, and the profit from those sales go to the publishers/creators, and will until the store can longer get new copies in. So despite taking every dime of profit from used game sales, they are indeed helping the publishers/creators make a profit... something torrent sites hosting the full game don't do.

Perhaps in a few years, there'll be a new agreement where Company X gets 10% of each used sale of their games, and this discussion will go right out the window. But for now, while I can see why you're comparing the two, I don't feel one is the same as the other. One helps game companies make money off of their new games (then helps themselves afterwards), while the other just hands that new stuff out for free with no chance of profit for those companies at all (unless you buy into the "I'll play it, and then buy it if I like it"/"I wasn't gonna buy it anyway, so they loose nothing" arguments, which I personally don't).


I'm sure others (many?) won't agree with me, but that's one of the big differences I see. No ethics involved, just a distinct difference when it comes to profit potential, and legality. Oh, and please keep in mind, I'm only talking about new/newish games.




Now if you want to talk ethics, let's chat about Gamestop and their various business tactics

[Ganelon]

Oh yeah, I definitely have moral issues with GameStop... Arguably one of the worst retail business establishments in the US (still not even a member of the Better Business Bureau) and a huge shame they've wormed their way towards corrupting EB and Babbage's over that time.

[Phil12]

It's really a hard subject to agree on, but I respect emulation to a point as well. Keeping games alive is really a great thing and we all know that emulating does not stop on the PC. Many hand held systems are able to emulate older consoles. I get to take all of my old Snes and Genesis games with me on my PSP and that is a great feeling. It humbles me, and I have such respect for the classics because I can play them everyday. (I'd take a game of Galaga over Halo 3 any day) I don't believe in frivolous downloading of games you never owned. That's just stupid and wrong.

One thing I have noticed is how well MAME does really emulate arcade games well. The same resolution and speed brings me back to the arcade days. It is really the only true emulation experience I felt good with (I was playing Galaga as well) Everything else like Snes and Gen ones feel fake or some thing's missing. I really don't think anyone has anything to worry about as far as money stealing pirating goes because MAME really can't run any high end games anyway.

[jpj]

like i say, i just wish it was genuinely more about preserving the hardware and actual PCBs themselves. melting sound chips on toaplan boards with acid...? and where are the phoenix'd cps3 boards...? to be honest, mame is more built around continental europeans that bum their PCs so hard, everything is just about getting something to run on a home computer, and gamers indulging in their own selfish pleasures to the point where breaking copyright law is less important than playing a videogame, and then spending all day trying to rationalise it

ahem

[Dave_K.]

Yeah! We haven't had this argument in awhile. I love how we all celebrate at the end with Tacos!


I can't bother writing all the arguments over again, but think its a double edge sword, where emulation certainly helps preserve some great games which would have been lost due to degenerating hardware, while at the same time creating a generation of kids who think its their god given right to play all games for free.

[Necronom]

@jpj

"...y'know, i don't get it. the website my mate got all his DS romz from got shut down by nintendo. don't they see how beneficial sites like these are to sales...? Laughing put down the joint necronom."

I'm not talking about current games but OLD games(90s and 80s). Nintendo is also actively shutting down sites that host old games they're not selling for years though. Btw, I wouldn't feel too sorry for good ol Ninty, especially when it comes to the moneyprinting machine they call DS.
...now where the fuck is my lighter?

@Ganelon

"Near-identical handheld ports of console games aren't equivalent to near-identical PC emulations of those same console games...? Err, I'm not sure what the point here is."

Because if somebody wants a decent Castlevania on the go he'll probably not put a PC in his pocket. If the portability isn't that important to the players, the game is probably on the wrong platform.

"And I guess Super Mario All Stars wasn't a top seller because the originals were legendary. Rather, it was because people played the emulated versions and liked them that much. Err, wait, but emulation wasn't even around back then..."

A lot of the younger kids never had a snes. Same goes for lots of people in Eastern Europe for example. Their first contact with 16 bit Nintendo games were either bootlegs or emu roms. I know many people who would never have bought a gba or ds if they hadn't spent so much time with the emulated snes classics.

"And what exactly is the current retro trend? Consoles started having retro collections since the very beginning of the 32-bit era, namely when Midway and Namco started unveiling their old arcade hits (again, before emulation started). I attribute VC's success to casual fans from that era replaying their favorites after 10+ years and new gamers nowadays testing out some old popular hits."

Yes, compilations have been around for a long time BUT it was emulation that proved to the industry that there are thousands of people out there (re)playing the old stuff. Retro compilations never really sold much but online distribution of old arcade games went through the roof. A game like TMNT on xbla would never have happened if it wasn't for the popularity of Mame and other emus.

"I don't know where you get the idea that emulation spurred sales. If that were true, all the folks pirating old SNK games ought to have been in a rush to try the new stuff out, no? I'll accept this "fact" when you can provide proof; as is, I trust the game companies, who live by selling games, far more than I'd trust this random claim."

I know personally a lot of kids who love the metal slug games and WILL get MS7 for the DS. All of them fell in love with the series on the PC via emu, none of them had access to an arcade machine or the money to buy a neo geo. Proof enough?

[The Coop]

Oh yeah, I definitely have moral issues with GameStop... Arguably one of the worst retail business establishments in the US (still not even a member of the Better Business Bureau) and a huge shame they've wormed their way towards corrupting EB and Babbage's over that time.

Yeah, things have definitely gone downhill with EB since the merging. Shame too, as I used to find all sorts of treasures there back in the day. Now I can't even find the new releases I want thanks to their new views on budget titles.

[Ganelon]

But the collections have been selling well. Midway thought they were good enough to release 3. Capcom felt good enough to release all its packs, including Mega Man and Street Fighter ones.

And in case you think this is all a recent occurrence, recall that a couple of the Namco Museum collections on the PS received Greatest Hits status. Not bad for a bunch of 10+ year old games at the time.

Honestly, companies are and have always been willing to get revenue from any source. Banking on past hits started way before emulation. Maybe emulation played a minor factor, but I saw no change.

And your incident with Metal Slug 7 is heartwarming but unfortunately not substantial enough. No doubt some are affected (esp. in these cases where a brand new game is released that follows the style of an emulated game) but I've seen plenty of incidences where people just downloaded games for years and never bought them or anything else. But that's entirely circumstantial; I can't trust what I see. The belief of gaming companies outweigh my opinions.

[Dale]

And in case you think this is all a recent occurrence, recall that a couple of the Namco Museum collections on the PS received Greatest Hits status. Not bad for a bunch of 10+ year old games at the time.

These were picked up mostly by adults who lived through the early eighties and never became computer savvy enough to enjoy emulation or decided get into the 3-D generation.Emulation never really hit with the demographic who only played games during the eighties as a social thing. Now did they have kid's who own playstations,yes. Did they own a playstation because it was easily affordable and a good option for a very casual player,yes. Listen to any non-current gamer talk about how they still remember Pac-man and Galaga but can't remember the names of any other none super big title from the time period. Did they play Pac-man, yes. Did they play Juno First,Yes. Did they remember Juno First,no. Did they still hear about Pac-man throughout pop-culture references till the late nineties, yes.

As far as SNK pirating goes people were introduced to it through emulation all over the world. Not as largely in the US due to console affordability(Hence Capcom dominance in the US). People who did try SNK through emulation A:Didn't care for their stuff B:Liked their stuff but never purchased their stuff C:Tried their stuff,liked it,bought it. Hardly anyone bought their stuff without trying it through emulation or the arcades, so without emulation no one would of even known what they were about to then even consider buying from them. Thats all you really need to know about that. This same principle can be applied to piracy scenarios all over video game history(Mostly more recently though).

People are way easier to figure then you seem to believe.

[jpj]

without emulation no one would of even known what they were about to then even consider buying from them.

not true

[Dale]

without emulation no one would of even known what they were about to then even consider buying from them.

not true

I'm talking about a majority, and a smart majority at that. What better is an avenue for knowing if you like something is their then trying for free under an easily navigated distribution system. That's truly knowing.

And thanks for looking for one incorrect sentence in my post because of a grammar flaw and singling it out. Please right a response to the rest of my post.

[Necronom]

without emulation no one would of even known what they were about to then even consider buying from them.

not true

Imo it's pretty much a fact that SNK's popularity outside of the hard core circle of the neo geo owners received a significant boost by the emulation of the Metal Slug and KOF series. Sure, emulation also helped to produce bootlegs and not all emu gamers switched over to the PS2 ports and sequels. Still, the huge amount of people all over the world who wouldn't know about MS or KOF without emus shouldn't be underestimated. SNK would do good to use this popularity to its advantage while it lasts.
All in all, the cultural (preservation) and financial (boost in popularity of certain franchises) benefits of emulation to gamers and the industry are far bigger than the damage caused.

[jpj]

emulation and bootlegging are one the main contributing factors that killed the old SNK.

[Daedalus]

no, it's just illegal. it's wrong because it is against the law

So you didn't mean immoral? Dictionary.com brings the first definition of "wrong" as:

1. not in accordance with what is morally right or good: a wrong deed.

So I guess what I'm saying is, you said that it's immoral because it's against the law. If English is your second language, I can understand your confusion, but don't act like I'm at fault for not being able to read your broken English.

okay, i cannot be trolled into some lame argument today. i never said anything is moral or immoral. this really stinks of adolescent petulance

Ah yes, it's always classy to bow out of a disagreement with a final insult. I don't care if you like to get harsh, but it's kind of hypocritical to call me a troll when you try to bait me like that.



To the rest of you, I have another question. How would you feel if copyright protection was still enforced, but its length of protection was reduced?

And how long should a company be able to exercise copy protection over a particular title?

[FatCobra]

I know most of the users here use MAME, so you're violating copyright laws. In other words, I think most of us here are gulity.

All I gotta say is this: Software (roms, programs) can last forever because it's a digital medium and can be copied. Hardware such as carts and CDs, eventually wear out. One good scratch on a CD and it's toast. Carts last longer, but the PCB inside could eventually break or the connectors will wear out.

[ED-057]

Do you think Emulation preserves videogame history?

The answer is undoubtedly yes and I don't see how any of this piracy blah blah copyright blah stuff is relevant to the question. Oh well.

Summary of this thread so far:

Do you think reading preserves literary history?

Books are for lazy people who would better off going to watch a play!!1!

Do you think refrigeration preserves food?

The ice delivery service is going out of business

Do you think requiring the use of official city garbage bags distributes the cost of garbage collection more fairly

I hate city garbage bags because they're more expensive than GLAD(R) brand garbage bags.

Do you think sexual intercourse preserves the human species

If God wanted there to be more humans he would release a new compilation

Do you think seeding torrents enables distribution of the data to continue?

I nevr u/l 'cuz it makes my internets run slow

[Ganelon]

I think 30 years is a decent time frame for me. Even so, I think the current copyright times are just fine.

Fact: SNK did its worst after emulation started, enough to bankrupt it.
Fact: SNK blames piracy for its demise. Did the evil organization WAREZ from NeoGeo Battle Coliseum suggest nothing to you?
Fact: Some people had to have been introduced to SNK through emulation.
Opinion: SNK sold even more games from emulation generating new fans rather than sold less games from emulation satisfying gamers enough not to buy the actual game.

I can't argue with unsubstantiated opinion. Don't you all remember the 90s arcades filled with big red NeoGeo cabs that people used to play? This was back before bootlegs cut off the direct sales and emulation indirectly cut off sales by damaging arcade revenue as well as home sales. I think most of SNK's current fans are still people who went through that period of NeoGeo dominance while you seem to believe that SNK has absorbed a whole new generation of fans due to emulation.

Ultimately, we can believe what we want but I don't see how either opinion supersedes SNK's facts. You're basically saying SNK employees are wrong in their negative view on emulation even though you hold no vested interest in SNK's holdings. I really don't know how to respond if you actually believe what you're saying...

[Daedalus]

SNK had a lot of reasons for its troubles, but piracy was not one of them. They wanted to keep making the same games on the same hardware and still expected to rake in money.

[Dale]

Do you think anyone in Mexico had big red neo geo cabs everywhere?(not counting bootlegs) Piracy introduced them to SNk and made them so beloved by every 2-D fighter community outside of wealthier nations. Do you think any Brazilian wouldn't scarce up the money to buy the newer PS2 releases after playing all their games for decades for free and loving every second of it for years?

Edit:For a thread that started about piracy a debate about SNK business structure is pretty tame. I respect your opinion and I mean no offense I just strongly and respectfully disagree.

[The Coop]

Do you think Emulation preserves videogame history?

The answer is undoubtedly yes and I don't see how any of this piracy blah blah copyright blah stuff is relevant to the question. Oh well.

Probably because the very idea of dumping the games to preserve them, is also part of the piracy "blah", ED. Both piracy and preservation right now generally starts with the same thing... regular folks dumping games. As such, when one is discussed, the other is bound to show up sooner rather than later.

It's a bit like talking about bad movies. MST3K being brought up is almost a given

[JoshF]

SNK died because the games were a thousand dollars.

Low print runs put the market in the hands of price gouging collectors (flip that AES).

Never made a sequel to Cyber-Lip or Mutation Nation.

But, go on, piracy guh guh guh vote republican.

[Necronom]

Don't you all remember the 90s arcades filled with big red NeoGeo cabs that people used to play? This was back before bootlegs cut off the direct sales and emulation indirectly cut off sales by damaging arcade revenue as well as home sales. I think most of SNK's current fans are still people who went through that period of NeoGeo dominance while you seem to believe that SNK has absorbed a whole new generation of fans due to emulation.

No, I don't remember any red Neo Geo cabs but what I do remember are Eastern European arcades full of bootlegs...BEFORE proper emulation was achieved! Sure, bootlegs damaged SNK's business but there were many territories where original cabs were simply a rarity from the very beginning. SNK never really served those markets because the prices they were asking were simply not realistic to the local arcade operators.
Today, many KOF players who play on the PS2 started out on the emulated stuff or bootleg cabs.
And as Daedalus wrote, the main reason for the demise of old SNK was the fact that they simply "missed the train" in a technological sense.
When the time came to come up with new hardware and new games they were still doing the same old stuff on the same old hardware.