Your stance on emulation

I think emulation is the only option we have up until now to preserve as many games as possible. I think a collector should try to dump their game but they don't have to share it. They can keep it and continously put it on different media to preserve it. Back then companies really never thought about puting their creations on media that is reliable for decades to come. Of course, back then, to have something like that done would cost a lot of money.

Publishers have the rights to the game so they can do what they want with it. If they want to preserve the game but can't afford to do it then they won't. A lot of the preservation that has been going on has been started by the consumers, not the companies that created the games. Consumers had to find ways in preserving the game and they can only do it via emulation which breaks laws but what can you do?

Now, however, you have companies like Nintendo, Sony, MS, and Sega now taking the initiative in making sure the games will live on forever in any means possible. Some companies are doing it via emulation (which is ok for them since they own the property), some by preserving the hardware plus the media (more expensive). Those companies are realizing that videogames are considered art very much so like movies are preserved and remastered every so often to keep its original condition intact. A decent portion of the money Hollywood makes goes into preserving the work it has created not for the sake of preserving 'art' but because it still has potential in making money again later in the future. For example, sales of the original King Kong movie shot up around the time the King Kong remake was released. The original film was almost lost in time but look at how successful that film is.

The same goes for videogames. MS, Nintendo, Sony are rereleasing old titles via services like Xbox Live, and similar services because those games still generate revenue. Again, not every company can do this. There are many games out there that a lot of us love but the companies that created them either no longer exist or don't have the money neccesary to preserve that game. That is when the consumer comes in and does what they can to preserve it, even if it means breaking some copyright laws. What Sony, Nintendo, and MS are doing now with the old games is a way to combat the rampant ROMZ/Warezing that has been going on in the past 10+ years.

One of my goals in life is to try and create an organization, non-profit, to preserve as many games as possible, of any kind from everywhere and display it in a museum. Of course, there are many obstacles in the way. But this is so that regardless of how big a company is, or how popular the game it, it will be remembered because its part of history and plays a role in the evolution of videogames and interactive entertainment. This interactive museum will be legitimately run and abid by all applicable laws.

 

sure there is. I got a wildcard at home I use from time to time. it has helped me finding lots of gems I've put on my "to buy" list. :thumbsup:

 

I was anti-emulation, and have never bought or made a pirated game, or DVD, or CD, but then I got a GamePark GP32 about four or five years ago, and I've got to say I'm a bit of a fan now. And for me it's not about preservation, or mine or anyone elses rights, it's simply about convienience. Getting on the train with 150-odd SNES, Megadrive, PC Engine and arcade classics on the one machine, without swapping carts, is a fantastic thing. While I've chosen not to do this same thing with my PSP, I think that my PS3 will likely become host to a whole lot more ROMs.

I'm excited about these "Virtual Console" style services, as I think they will be a means of legitimising what I have been doing "illegally" for years, but the prices for ROMs have to be set realistically.

 

You know what's the good about emulation? Its about reverse Engineering. And that's a great hobby.
If not the best overall. Truly.

Its like : "hey i would really like to know how (*consoleorgamename*) works..." And in just a few seconds a new world opens its doors to you. Beware, once you step inside you just wont be able to stop anymore. Its way too amazing, and the most challenging adventure youve ever seen. If, in a twenty years time the NASA would sell the Space Shuttle and i would have the money to buy it, boy i would be on it! Just to reverse engineer it back to the roots.

Emulation is the past's life. Do you think Sony and the Big N got its "revamping" ideas out of nowhere? I presume they copied it from the guys behind nesticle, ZSnes, and so on. Its a passion, and as long as it remains such its ok to me. Once you take the second step by hacking games like Zelda pursue it as "unreleased" (which actually fits the description, since its an unreleased game i must admit this one damnit!) for $x0000 bucks...boy you are ill in your head.

It's not illegal to like / love / do emulation, as far as you dont use it for commercial profits...its an expresion of human creativity, and as such a piece of art on its own. And it should remain like this.

 

Personaly I am a fan of Public Domain. I think all games should become PD after 10 years. Yet when they are PD, they can not be resold unless from the parent company (ie Nintendo's VC or Compilation Disc). I personaly would love to see every game I work on comercialy apart of public domain after 10 years. Sure alot of my early work sucked but it still would give someone the chance to try out what i've done (legaly).

In my opinion, when we usualy buy compilation disc, most of the cost is to pay for development of the emulator and the extra content more then it's paying for the rom it self (the only exception to this is nintendo's VC since there is no extra content and the price is way too high).

I guess alot of the reason I feel this way is because of arcades. I still really love classic arcade games (even more so then classic console games). Yet if I want to play say Frogger (ingoring the xbla ver), my options are cell ports, buying the pcb and a jamma harness, or finding it on some compilation disc out there for another system. To me that's depressing (while I normaly op for buying the pcb, some arcade games are becoming hard to find or the amount of space needed to store classic games is insane, god bless arcade devs for going to cart form in the 90s.)

 

It's an amazing feeling to see a program you wrote running on an old console/arcade system.

It is very addicting, I've done the same thing for many arcade, console, and computer systems. I don't plan to stop any time soon.

 

10 years is probably too short, considering the normal life of a console system today is 5 years. But, the time for a work of art to go into the Public Doman needs to be re-evaluated for digital artwork.

In 75 years, most NES systems will not work, so there is no way to enjoy the work of art.

 

Emulation is a good thing. If it is for the right reason. For example on canceled games or older games that just can not run right on todays systems. Take for example Robotech for the NES. It was an unpublished game but the programmer made a emulated version availble for download. It is a game no one but a few of us could have ever played. The first time I saw it was through emulation. This made me very interested in owning one of the dev cartridges which I later bought for a good cost. you may ask does it bother me that there is a emulated version out there the answer is no. On unpublished or unreleased games the value, I believe, is having it on the original media. Just the rom can be fun because at least you can enjoy were the game was when it was canceled also on some games unless you have a very old PC or underclock you machine dramatically some old pc games run just to fast and having some of those redone for an emulator just makes sense.

Emulators also make playing some games simpler in time constraints. For example I have a very large Atari 2600 collection but at time When I get home I already have my xbox up and , yes I am just to tired to hook up the 2600 so instead I run roms from the xbox. Does this make it wrong? I do not believe so.. because every rom on the box I own the original 2600 game. While the emulated ones are not always exact to the original they are very close and make it allot easier to have fun after putting in a long work day and a long commute home.

I know the subject of emulation can start one heck of a firey debate but I truely believe if it is used right it makes allot of sense.

 

Neither cd's or rom-chips can stand for eternity.
Widespread data can

Emulation is awesome for preservation of games.

 

I love emulation. It's very nice knowing that it's possible to play something like 99% of the retro games out there on any current hardware thanks to emulation. But also emulation itself is very interesting. If you're like me and are interested in writing your own, or again like me and interested in writing homebrew games for classic systems, emulation is awesome.

Obviously it could be considered a warez engine, but I see retrogaming emulation as more of a nice hobby and preservation. I don't agree however with people who simply use emulation as their bitch for warez, and have no interest in it other than free games, and esspecially those who seem to forget that the emulators they are using they didn't pay for and they have no right to demand anything. There's just a clear difference to me between someone that downloads some NES emulator and some classic games they love, and someone that downloads EVERYTHING they can get their hands on and complains about shit.

 

I am in favor of emulation for any game or hardware system which is no longer being produced by the manufacturer. This includes cases where the game itself may be available in a ported form. (such as Mario or Zelda "ports" on GBA)
I am especially in favor of rare and obscure games and hardware being emulated and have no love for those "collectors" (especially in japan) who will pay big money for a PCB they probobly wouldnt have otherwise bought just to prevent it being dumped and emulated.

I am not in favor of emulating games and hardware that are still available from the manufacturer.

 

I'm pro emulation, though it has it's downsides form me. I'm all for preservation, and there's plenty I could say about older games, but I've also never been entirely satisfied with emulators and the like.

 

I'm only pro-emulation in the sence that It allows me to play games that I never will through normal means or without a huge investment to import and mod systems.

I can't stand people that sell discs of nintendo and sega games that you can play on your PC at computer shows. I've tried calling them on it a few times that it was infact illegal and they could go to jail and they tried playing the "obsolite system" thing as justification.

 

Don't hate, emulate

:katamari2

 

I like to see how games run on the emus. For example, N64 games look a ton better on the PC emus or on Xbox than on a real N64. The games often run faster too.

 

Also looks a lot better than on the Wii.

 

Yup, all 1 of them.

 

Nothing is impossible.

I think dumping rare games and prototypes is an obligation that anyone who buys a prototype should have. It's like buying an ancient fragment of the bible and keeping it to yourself rather than getting someone to decode it and publish what it says.

 

emulation is ok, but its not a replacement for real console gaming, imo

 

I think emulation of SNES/Genesis/NES etc has come to a point where it is better than the actual hardware. On a nice TFT/Plasma TV with a PC connected with DVI or VGA, proper emulator settings and a controller, games play just as good if not better than on the original hardware (imho).