I definitely think it's okay. I think the game developers would be happy that their games are accessable to so many new people. I know that I wouldn't be able to play most of the older games that I play were emulation not available to me.
Poll: A Rant About Emulation!
- Thread starter Swishdude
- Start date
Well it's all OFF-TOPIC:Tara Callie said:Okay, follow up question. What exactly is Steam?likalaruku said:BECAUSE!Tara Callie said:
A friend of mine did a video on why he doesn't like it, but if someone could fill me in, because I see a lot of people shower it with praise.
Steam is Valve's old DRM for Counter Strike that became a huge online store with cheap prices worldwide, insane 75% Off sales, free weekends for trying multiplayer games (MW3, Forge), anti-cheat, easy access to updates and mods and awesome other deals like the Bioshock Infinite pre-order gave you a copy of Bioshock and XCom: Enemy Unknown for free, or buying a 4-pack of Magicka for a discounted price to play coop with your friend (best thing you can do).
You can also find many great indie games in there, and vote for which new indie games should get an approval for the platform.
And no you don't have to be online to play offline and single player games, unless the developer of said game makes it so, which has nothing to do with Steam.
Just head to the web version of the store and check the Tomb Raider and Heroes Of Might And Magic VI prices right now, plus everything else:
http://store.steampowered.com/
Emulation allows you to play games that are exclusive for platforms that you were never going to get anyway, or platforms that aren't being made anymore (and I don't see why someone should take a risk buying a used one from eBay).
Usually, by the time an emulator comes out, the console already made its profit and is on its way out anyway, so it hardly damages the profits generated by the console makers if at all.
So, yes, I think emulation is ok. And I think you may want to turn your attention to consumer rights in gaming, rather than the rights of console makers.
Usually, by the time an emulator comes out, the console already made its profit and is on its way out anyway, so it hardly damages the profits generated by the console makers if at all.
So, yes, I think emulation is ok. And I think you may want to turn your attention to consumer rights in gaming, rather than the rights of console makers.
The most common way to get emulations of games is via downloading from a torrent. My issues begin and end there, as it seems like piracy to me if one's downloading the game for free even if it's 15-years-old and out of print. It's a massive grey area that I don't really want to tread.Windcaler said:
Taking the game that you own and extracting the code from there yourself is another thing entirely however, and I don't have a problem with that at all.
Captcha: "it will pass"
Steam has an offline mode, so you actually don't need to be always-online in order to play your games.Swishdude said:
Really, most people completely forget that Steam is technically DRM software, it's unobtrusive (at no point will it stop your game to do some kind of DRM-checking bullshit) and has lots of benefits, like auto-patching for games, a game library, friends list. Oh, and cheap cheap sales, 75% off is very common, and on good games too.
My personal guidelines that I usually follow are as long as:
1 You own the version of the game that you are emulating.
and
2 You own the hardware that you are emulating.
then there is no problem.
Exceptions I make are when the games in question were never released in my region to begin with or if that version of the game is no longer available to buy at a reasonable price.
On point 1 I know there are various re-releases of certain games (Sonic 1, for example, is available on various digital download services) but I still believe that as long as the original version is owned then the original version you can emulate. No upgrading to the perceived fancier version with extra bits just because it's "basically the same game". Those extras are for those who own that version.
On 2 If your hardware (Inc game cartridges, discs) is broken: tough titties. Repair that shit or pony up for a replacement.
Again, just my personal rules.
1
You own the version of the game that you are emulating.and
2
You own the hardware that you are emulating.then there is no problem.
Exceptions I make are when the games in question were never released in my region to begin with or if that version of the game is no longer available to buy at a reasonable price.
On point 1
I know there are various re-releases of certain games (Sonic 1, for example, is available on various digital download services) but I still believe that as long as the original version is owned then the original version you can emulate. No upgrading to the perceived fancier version with extra bits just because it's "basically the same game". Those extras are for those who own that version.On 2
If your hardware (Inc game cartridges, discs) is broken: tough titties. Repair that shit or pony up for a replacement.Again, just my personal rules.
I'm all for emulation.
A while back I found Driver 2, popped it in my PS2 and started playing it for the first time in about 10 years. Unfortunately it's an absolute slideshow on its native hardware to the point where it's almost unplayable in parts.
Decided to rip the disks onto my PC and run it on an emulator instead, it's a metric shit-ton more fun when it plays at a solid, high frame rate (and also at 1080p with AA and nifty little shader plugins that make it look prettier).
So if you already own the hardware and software, emulation is 100% fine.
A while back I found Driver 2, popped it in my PS2 and started playing it for the first time in about 10 years. Unfortunately it's an absolute slideshow on its native hardware to the point where it's almost unplayable in parts.
Decided to rip the disks onto my PC and run it on an emulator instead, it's a metric shit-ton more fun when it plays at a solid, high frame rate (and also at 1080p with AA and nifty little shader plugins that make it look prettier).
So if you already own the hardware and software, emulation is 100% fine.
Really, the only people who would have anything against emulation would be that anal type of people with the obsessive-compulsive law abiding, who would basically claim that all unauthorised downloading means taking away someone's property, because the law calls that "intellectual property", therefore infringing on it must always be theft.
The link was already removed when i got here, so i dont know the main argument the OP was making.
Emulation is good. technologyp rogressed forward. however that does not mean old software should be abandoned. however the new hardware simply cant support the old hardware becuase if it did it was at a standstill. this is where emulation comes in and saves the day, it allows new hardware, old software combination. and it does not matter if its a commodore program runing on win7.
Emulation is good. technologyp rogressed forward. however that does not mean old software should be abandoned. however the new hardware simply cant support the old hardware becuase if it did it was at a standstill. this is where emulation comes in and saves the day, it allows new hardware, old software combination. and it does not matter if its a commodore program runing on win7.
You can get old CRT monitors very cheap. it may not be the perfect thing but it does the work just fine. just conenct it to that monitor instead of TV.Craig Rigby said:
In many games you still need an account verification (which means being online at at least one point since computer was turned on) for the game to start. once there it does not do some always online DRM or anything, but you need the initial verification check. Most steam games are actually cracked by emulating such check, tricking the game to think its authorized. but those are dirty cracks. clean cracks (the good and famous groups) removes the games need to check for that, but thatsh arder to program so its usually coming out later (read: 5 hours after release or so).FireAza said:
Sorry, you're first post sounded like you imply that since you only don't do it because you've morals, that we other mortal beings have none.V da Mighty Taco said:
I can't understand that sayin' you sounded passive-aggressive is a blatant insult.
I don't need to have a counter argument, because i do not want to persuade you to anything. I just wanted to know why you think the company you bought it cares HOW you play your game.
To me it's not diffrent to modding. Or rigging a diffrent controller to your console. Or play on a beamer instead of a TV.
If i own the game, i play the way i want it and no company has any rights to tell me otherwise.
The other part is: Emulating stuff i lost when i moved or someone threw away accidentially and games which just do not exist (get sold) anymore.
I know not all of it is piracy, but some of what people have been talking about emulating would involve some form of piracy, and I know not everyone on this site can claim to have never committed an act of piracy. I don't condemn it, because I don't equate it exactly with stealing, just free loading, but I've known this site to condemn it, that's why I'm calling it out on it.Windcaler said:
What's the point though? Low res textures, fixed draw distance, usually no Anti-Aliasing, potential slow downs, and sometimes weird graphical issues. I find it best just to play games in their native resolution, windowed mode. That and it allows me to have something playing in VLC or youtube next to it.FFP2 said:
However, who's going to pay $70 for an old game? The law may say it's illegal, however, let's look at it this way.SecondPrize said:
You want game X. X isn't being sold new any more. The Pub/Dev don't get any money if you buy it second-hand. If you buy it second hand the console is going to break eventually. It's unlikely you'll be able to repair or replace it as the consoles get rarer every day as more of them break. Eventually there will be none left.
You might as well just go digital.
I like PC because I can keep my games pretty much forever. At least, the ones without DRM. Oh wait! Cracks! I have some really old games that don't work any more on a modern PC. I play them by emulating MS-DOS. Aren't computers fun?
Could you try and explain this one to me? I can't follow the train of thought here.teqrevisited said:2
then there is no problem.
--> If your hardware (Inc game cartridges, discs) is broken: tough titties. Repair that shit or pony up for a replacement.
If you own the console or the disc/cartridge/holochip/whatever, you've paid for it. Having a digital copy for personal use is perfectly legal. The hardware may be bust, but you still own it, so (as far as I'm aware) it's still fine to have a digital copy.
As I have no access to a TV right now, emulation is the only way I get to play my PS2 games, so yes, it's completely fine by me.
I do have to wonder about its validity despite its legality.
So Summary/TL;DR
Emulation itself is not a problem. In fact many IN the industry like it. To them it allows them to make even more money off of work already done without having to offer any substantial effort. In that respect it becomes a double edge sword because the more they try to milk this market through their own expansion is directly proportional to the increase of those who are going to resist through illegal means. So the best solution to the problem is for those content providers to reverse their SOP of disrespecting and abusing their customers and instead give them a vastly superior product that gives every opportunity to encourage gamers to do the right thing and not have to "risk" all the pratfalls that dealing with the seedy dark alleyways of illegal activity open up.
Side note: On Emulator pricing structures, If they truly want to make money from Emulation and want to remain fair to customers that pricing structure is absolutely ridiculous. They could pry many "EMUers" away from illegal roms simply by accepting people will use their own emulator software, Or even develop their own (Like Sony making an PS/PS2 Emulator for PC, Linux, Android, IOS respectively) and then sell the "Roms/ISOs" in non proprietary format, so as to nullify the need/desire to move to traditional Emulators that do NOT use proprietary file formats. Then instead of pricing based on per game which unless it is one of the true gems of a generation and can merit a price of more than 1$ by itself, Price games in "Blocks" based by publisher. For example, I would never pay 5$ for another version of Final Fantasy 8, But I "Might" be convinced to pay 10-20$ to have every "final fantasy" game on PSX, Or every "Square/Enix" game. The pricing is going to have to come WAAAAY down to ever hope to compete will free.
For one, if you are emulating games, look at what you can hypothetically emulate right now. The most effective emulators out there right now can do, Gamecube/Wii (Dolphin) PS2(PCSX2), Xbox (cxbx/Dxbx) or handhelds. For the most part that represents systems that even their successors are pushing 10 years (Dolphin IS Weird) and these consoles have gained a degree of complexity that just simply adding more horsepower is not going to open up viable emulation states.
Then you have to wonder, out of these who EMU games, how many in some way or another DID in fact put forth money toward the product when it was still in its "marketable" stage? Even a rented copy of a game still represents a game sold. It is simply utilized in a semi communal structure. But the money was still provided. Same is true of "loaned" copies from friends and games bought used. Those manufacturers Did in fact receive funds for such sales under first sale doctrine expectations applied to every product. Then typically look at the types of games that Emulators Emulate. More often than not it really is not to go back and play something they never played before, but to play something they did in fact play and loved but for what ever reason no longer have the ability to access the original source they utilized to experience it during its marketable phase that created the love for it.
Now on the one hand up until fairly recently, the picture was actually much clearer. The EMU market was for the most part a niche element. (At least that is what the console manufacturers keep telling us when we expect backwards compat emulation anyway) and does not nor has ever represented a large berth of the market. With the largest amount of what is being emulated as noted these are games 10+ years behind the curve on average. Again up until online connectivity became mainstream it was not any big threat to profitability as most of what was being emulated was not in print, never available in region or if both, typically sold as used, which would not have benefited corporate interest anyway. While it might be indeed a niche demographic, the fact that Nintendo viewed it as so much of a threat they put into place a means of benefiting from that demographic into their console (Wii Virtual console) and sites like GOG.com who specialize in "old" games illustrate how viable this "niche" actually is and up until recently it was a niche that was largely ignored and squandered.
On the other hand, with the way that the industry has turned in the last decade, predominantly thanks to online connectivity which has basically enabled most of these negatives, It becomes increasingly harder and harder to rationalize the rights of publishers in the EMU question. They have developed such an absolute disdain for their customers that it would be hard to say their actions have not proactively PUSHED people to emulation and piracy. While this did exist as an untapped market, you have to wonder how much of the increase of the size of this market is directly proportional to players who do not wish to deal with always on, Real money trading, Online passes, shoehorned multiplayer just for the sake of subversive DRM, content lockouts, content scale back, Preallocated DLC content percentage, etc etc etc.
Then we also have to look at how these players in the industry have in turn worked to "meet" this markets demand. GOG thus far has been exactly how it SHOULD be in every case, if only limited. However look at the likes of Sony who have turned the heinous and illegal (in a commerce sense) action of reneging into an absolute form of abstract art. Then when they and others who are of the "Profit first/Consumers only if we have to" ideology when they DO give access to that old content, it is typically held hostage, requiring extensive hoops, and roadblocks specifically designed to hinder your ability to utilize the original source format in favor of new "monitorable" formats. Then out of a library of over 2000 titles on the PSX for example, only 200+ are even available for download. Even then they have absolutely no respect for appropriate value most of the time. For example a random example a PS2 (that supposedly is impossible for the PS3 to properly emulate and thats why backwards compatibility has not been restored) Midnight club 3 Dub. You can get a copy of this for pocket change at various locations. Even gamestop or amazon will sell it for 4$ but we all know that between flea markets, yard sales, swaps, game stands, pawn shops it is realistic to find something like this being sold for even less, likely even less than 1$. However Sony's incarnation to sell this online through their store comes in at an MSRP of 10 USD. Even older titles for like PSX gen start off at 4$ and the market dictates the same >1$ model. When these people treat their products and their customers in this manner it is hard to be surprised that despite the increase of accessibility of legitimate emulation that illegal emulation is still very much in play.
One other factor to consider is physical hardware. No not the original source consoles, but how with the advent of smartphones this has vastly increased the demographic for such emulation. Your Iphones and Samsung/LG/HTC etc type of devices have not the slightest bit of trouble in performing these tasks and yet there are even more dedicated Emulation devices such as the Dingo A320, Wiz/Caanoo, Dozens from JXD, Yinlips, even more mainstream companies are trying to expand into this "smartphone/tablet with true built in game controls" arena such as Archos and even Nvidia. This will only help further the demand for such things, BUT true devices with such capability like the PSP, Vita, DS, Etc might offer some options, but are incredibly locked out/boxed/restricted so they cannot even compete on this level. And while there is an ever increasing demand, even when they DO allow it, again they fail to understand market value or even consumer utilization. To the largest bulk of EMUlators out there now they predominantly keep vast gaming libraries stored on their phone/tablet/similar device. Do you think they are actually playing through entire swaths of games like they would on a console? No. They use them much in the same way typical "app" games are used. In forced idle times in order to kill a few minutes. But yet again, while the app stores will offer a game that would have 80% function, similar level content and more often than not be anywhere from free, freemium, f2p, or nominal amounts typically WELL below 5$ and closer to 1, we still see the charges as mentioned above for their content too often starting out at 10$ for decade or two old content.
Then you have to wonder, out of these who EMU games, how many in some way or another DID in fact put forth money toward the product when it was still in its "marketable" stage? Even a rented copy of a game still represents a game sold. It is simply utilized in a semi communal structure. But the money was still provided. Same is true of "loaned" copies from friends and games bought used. Those manufacturers Did in fact receive funds for such sales under first sale doctrine expectations applied to every product. Then typically look at the types of games that Emulators Emulate. More often than not it really is not to go back and play something they never played before, but to play something they did in fact play and loved but for what ever reason no longer have the ability to access the original source they utilized to experience it during its marketable phase that created the love for it.
Now on the one hand up until fairly recently, the picture was actually much clearer. The EMU market was for the most part a niche element. (At least that is what the console manufacturers keep telling us when we expect backwards compat emulation anyway) and does not nor has ever represented a large berth of the market. With the largest amount of what is being emulated as noted these are games 10+ years behind the curve on average. Again up until online connectivity became mainstream it was not any big threat to profitability as most of what was being emulated was not in print, never available in region or if both, typically sold as used, which would not have benefited corporate interest anyway. While it might be indeed a niche demographic, the fact that Nintendo viewed it as so much of a threat they put into place a means of benefiting from that demographic into their console (Wii Virtual console) and sites like GOG.com who specialize in "old" games illustrate how viable this "niche" actually is and up until recently it was a niche that was largely ignored and squandered.
On the other hand, with the way that the industry has turned in the last decade, predominantly thanks to online connectivity which has basically enabled most of these negatives, It becomes increasingly harder and harder to rationalize the rights of publishers in the EMU question. They have developed such an absolute disdain for their customers that it would be hard to say their actions have not proactively PUSHED people to emulation and piracy. While this did exist as an untapped market, you have to wonder how much of the increase of the size of this market is directly proportional to players who do not wish to deal with always on, Real money trading, Online passes, shoehorned multiplayer just for the sake of subversive DRM, content lockouts, content scale back, Preallocated DLC content percentage, etc etc etc.
Then we also have to look at how these players in the industry have in turn worked to "meet" this markets demand. GOG thus far has been exactly how it SHOULD be in every case, if only limited. However look at the likes of Sony who have turned the heinous and illegal (in a commerce sense) action of reneging into an absolute form of abstract art. Then when they and others who are of the "Profit first/Consumers only if we have to" ideology when they DO give access to that old content, it is typically held hostage, requiring extensive hoops, and roadblocks specifically designed to hinder your ability to utilize the original source format in favor of new "monitorable" formats. Then out of a library of over 2000 titles on the PSX for example, only 200+ are even available for download. Even then they have absolutely no respect for appropriate value most of the time. For example a random example a PS2 (that supposedly is impossible for the PS3 to properly emulate and thats why backwards compatibility has not been restored) Midnight club 3 Dub. You can get a copy of this for pocket change at various locations. Even gamestop or amazon will sell it for 4$ but we all know that between flea markets, yard sales, swaps, game stands, pawn shops it is realistic to find something like this being sold for even less, likely even less than 1$. However Sony's incarnation to sell this online through their store comes in at an MSRP of 10 USD. Even older titles for like PSX gen start off at 4$ and the market dictates the same >1$ model. When these people treat their products and their customers in this manner it is hard to be surprised that despite the increase of accessibility of legitimate emulation that illegal emulation is still very much in play.
One other factor to consider is physical hardware. No not the original source consoles, but how with the advent of smartphones this has vastly increased the demographic for such emulation. Your Iphones and Samsung/LG/HTC etc type of devices have not the slightest bit of trouble in performing these tasks and yet there are even more dedicated Emulation devices such as the Dingo A320, Wiz/Caanoo, Dozens from JXD, Yinlips, even more mainstream companies are trying to expand into this "smartphone/tablet with true built in game controls" arena such as Archos and even Nvidia. This will only help further the demand for such things, BUT true devices with such capability like the PSP, Vita, DS, Etc might offer some options, but are incredibly locked out/boxed/restricted so they cannot even compete on this level. And while there is an ever increasing demand, even when they DO allow it, again they fail to understand market value or even consumer utilization. To the largest bulk of EMUlators out there now they predominantly keep vast gaming libraries stored on their phone/tablet/similar device. Do you think they are actually playing through entire swaths of games like they would on a console? No. They use them much in the same way typical "app" games are used. In forced idle times in order to kill a few minutes. But yet again, while the app stores will offer a game that would have 80% function, similar level content and more often than not be anywhere from free, freemium, f2p, or nominal amounts typically WELL below 5$ and closer to 1, we still see the charges as mentioned above for their content too often starting out at 10$ for decade or two old content.
So Summary/TL;DR
Emulation itself is not a problem. In fact many IN the industry like it. To them it allows them to make even more money off of work already done without having to offer any substantial effort. In that respect it becomes a double edge sword because the more they try to milk this market through their own expansion is directly proportional to the increase of those who are going to resist through illegal means. So the best solution to the problem is for those content providers to reverse their SOP of disrespecting and abusing their customers and instead give them a vastly superior product that gives every opportunity to encourage gamers to do the right thing and not have to "risk" all the pratfalls that dealing with the seedy dark alleyways of illegal activity open up.
Side note: On Emulator pricing structures, If they truly want to make money from Emulation and want to remain fair to customers that pricing structure is absolutely ridiculous. They could pry many "EMUers" away from illegal roms simply by accepting people will use their own emulator software, Or even develop their own (Like Sony making an PS/PS2 Emulator for PC, Linux, Android, IOS respectively) and then sell the "Roms/ISOs" in non proprietary format, so as to nullify the need/desire to move to traditional Emulators that do NOT use proprietary file formats. Then instead of pricing based on per game which unless it is one of the true gems of a generation and can merit a price of more than 1$ by itself, Price games in "Blocks" based by publisher. For example, I would never pay 5$ for another version of Final Fantasy 8, But I "Might" be convinced to pay 10-20$ to have every "final fantasy" game on PSX, Or every "Square/Enix" game. The pricing is going to have to come WAAAAY down to ever hope to compete will free.
Why should you devalue copies that collectors in the secondhand market own because you don't want to pay the going rate. Yeah, things break and get destroyed over time. This is why collectibles attain such high prices. If everyone just goes online and snags a rom, you're diminishing the value of these collectibles.Techno Squidgy said:
Oh no. I'm making games cheaper. I am so evil. Please stop me now.SecondPrize said:
If you want to collect hardware and physical copies, go nuts. I don't. I want to play games. I'd be happy to pay for these games, but I'm not going to pay MORE than I would for a new game. If there were a nice convenient service where I could buy old games cheap and play them I'd be more than happy to do so.
How hard could it possibly be to release an official emulator, sell it cheap and then sell ROMs for old games cheap online?