Emulators and Roms: Right or Wrong

[Linksworld12]

have you ever had an illegal emulator on your pc?, and if you have, have people come up to you and said, "Oh you dirty piraite!". ive only have had one Emulator, a SNES one and the only reason i got it is so i could play "Earthbound", i live in europe so the game was never releashed here. Whats your opinion on Emulators?

 

[BlindMessiah94]

I am an avid collector of classic games. I only emulate the ones I can't get (like terranigma in NA). Eventually I buy everything I like. I love having a hard copy of a game, you just can't beat the real thing.

 

[fenrizz]

Emulators are ok.
If the game and/or system is over 10 years old I think it is perfectly ok to download emulators and roms.

Nintendo aren't losing money on you playing NES/SNES (or even N64) classics on your PC.
Nobody's getting hurt, and you might even get inspired to check out new releases from the developers.

I think developers should release all old games as abandonware. Why clutch to the copyright when you won't make money of it either way?
I can almost guarantee that the first developer to do this will gain a massive goodwill from the gaming community!

 

[Arkvoodle]

I am trying to emulate my PSP and I agree with the overall theory that it isn't technically wrong if I'm not taking revenue away from an existing available source of games.

 

[wooty]

I miss my old Mega Drive, so it gives me a nice reprive from endless FPS and wades of shit on modern gaming systems. So im in agreement.

Also gives me chance to play the games I couldnt afford when these consles were mainstream

 

[Scrythe]

Having my entire childhood in a flash drive? You bet your sweet ass I use emulators. Sometimes, you just have to get your Streets of Rage on.

 

[Pyotr Romanov]

I think I have a NES emulator stuffed somewhere deep down in my folders... Never used it much, though.

 

[zauxz]

Oh come on, nintendo doesnt LOSE money when you download ANY game. The whole "piracy is theft" thing is complete bullcrap.

I dont say that downloading games is fair, but then again is re-releasing old games in new boxes fair? Is charging 80$ for a 10 hour game fair?

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

have you ever had an illegal emulator on your pc?, and if you have, have people come up to you and said, "Oh you dirty piraite!". ive only have had one Emulator, a SNES one and the only reason i got it is so i could play "Earthbound", i live in europe so the game was never releashed here. Whats your opinion on Emulators?

Just a little point but Emulators are not illegal as long as you own/owned(eg it broke) console but even then I don't think they are as they allow you to use PS1, etc games on your PC.
Roms however, are as long as you have never owned the game ie not bought it.

OT: I don't think they are bad as most Emulators I have are for games like Megaman 1-6 that would I have to get another Nes and another copy of game off Ebay at outrageous prices for a game so old.
Or for consoles I have that don't work like my PS1.

 

[Rock 'n' Soul]

Wrong, but they feel so right.

 

[Kollega]

Emulators of 1st to 5th generations are perfectly fine. I mean, they do not sell those games and consoles anymore, right? No-one is going to profit off of those games anymore, so why not share them for free?

 

[Caimekaze]

Oh come on, nintendo doesnt LOOSE money when you download ANY game. The whole "piracy is theft" thing is complete bullcrap.

I dont say that downloading games is fair, but then again is re-releasing old games in new boxes fair? Is charging 80$ for a 10 hour game fair?

I think you mean lose.

I'm fairly sure that by denying them profit, they're losing money. Say, for example, Nintendo make a new game and nobody buys it, but a lot of people pirate it. Nintendo have just lost the production value of that game.

 

[Gunner 51]

Exactly, Kollega. You'd be hard pressed to find a Mega Drive / Genesis game down one's local Gamestation. I'm of the opinion that if the shops don't sell it and the console it was for is obsolete - there's no harm in pirating ROMs. (Seeing that the company stopped getting money for the game years ago and demand is so little in any case.)

 

[Ultracake]

I think its acceptable as long as your emulating games no longer on sale. Meaning that the companies that produced them wouldn't "lose" any profit due to the games time having already passed.

 

[Frankydee]

used to have an SNES/NES/GBC emulator on our old computer. Those who knew about it didn't really bother us about it.

 

[Alkestes]

Oh come on, nintendo doesnt LOOSE money when you download ANY game. The whole "piracy is theft" thing is complete bullcrap.

I dont say that downloading games is fair, but then again is re-releasing old games in new boxes fair? Is charging 80$ for a 10 hour game fair?

I think you mean lose.

I'm fairly sure that by denying them profit, they're losing money. Say, for example, Nintendo make a new game and nobody buys it, but a lot of people pirate it. Nintendo have just lost the production value of that game.

The way I see it, if I never planned on buying it in the first place, me downloading it wouldn't have any impact on their profit margin.

 

[Lukeje]

Nintendo aren't losing money on you playing NES/SNES (or even N64) classics on your PC.
Nobody's getting hurt, and you might even get inspired to check out new releases from the developers.

I mean, it's not like the Wii has been made fully backwards compatible with the previous generations of consoles and that they're selling the old games online for it or anything.

have you ever had an illegal emulator on your pc?, and if you have, have people come up to you and said, "Oh you dirty piraite!". ive only have had one Emulator, a SNES one and the only reason i got it is so i could play "Earthbound", i live in europe so the game was never releashed here. Whats your opinion on Emulators?

Just a little point but Emulators are not illegal as long as you own/owned(eg it broke) console but even then I don't think they are as they allow you to use PS1, etc games on your PC.
Roms however, are as long as you have never owned the game ie not bought it.

Technically for the Emulation to be legal you have to rip the BIOS files from the console yourself. Otherwise it's entirely legal unless, as you say, you are using ROMs.

 

[OmegaXIII]

I only have a GBA emulator for when i want to play pokemon crystal or mario world. Sometimes modern games just dont have the same fun factor as those

 

[zauxz]

Oh come on, nintendo doesnt LOOSE money when you download ANY game. The whole "piracy is theft" thing is complete bullcrap.

I dont say that downloading games is fair, but then again is re-releasing old games in new boxes fair? Is charging 80$ for a 10 hour game fair?

I think you mean lose.

I'm fairly sure that by denying them profit, they're losing money. Say, for example, Nintendo make a new game and nobody buys it, but a lot of people pirate it. Nintendo have just lost the production value of that game.

Yeah, and thats why i payed for lets say the new prince of persia, assasins creed, modern warfare, dragon age and other NEW games that are actually worth paying for.

But nintendo usually does this: look kids, we've made a new mario game! Its exactly the same like the old one, except that this time the bricks in the background will be yellow! wow!

 

[Beartrucci]

I have an Emulator on my laptop to play Ocarina of Time. There is nothing wrong with it seeing as I own a copy of the game but hate the N64 controller (I have an adapter so I can plug my PS2 controller into a USB port).