Is it legal to own a ROM of a game from a compilation?

[crux]

when buying physical thing you give the author a reward for his hard work.

Not only the author, but the publisher for publishing the novel and the bookstore for making it available for purchase. As nice as it would be to cut out the middleman, the middleman typically exists for a reason and they deserve to be compensated for their service. Perhaps the compensation isn't always on equal grounds, but that doesn't mean piracy is the proper form of protest. Moreover, the initial 1000 books (in your hypothetical example) were bought by people directly supporting the author. Why shouldn't those 1000 books maintain value accordingly?

Note that my one exception to my idea that items should maintain value is when items inflate in value due to factors like collecting, which people simply wishing to enjoy the work for its entertainment value shouldn't have to compete with (which is why things like reprints exist, in the case of books). Some games, like Magical Chase that I mentioned earlier, see insane inflation even just for the HuCard. Only collectors should have to put up with that.

those who got the Nintendo games would not buy it for its real price or half the price. So Nintendo did not lose any sales or potential buyers.

That's an incredible assertion. It's true that any sales lost are only potential sales; people are far more willing to try things for free than if they have to pay for them. To claim that they didn't lose any sales, however, is a fantastic claim. Many people pirate to save money. That doesn't mean they wouldn't have money to spend if piracy weren't an option. The only truth of the matter is we don't know just how much it affects the industry. (Some people may pirate in order to try out games before purchasing, for instance, which could lead to increased sales from otherwise sceptical buyers. On the other hand, things like the Virtual Console are showing that piracy may have unexpected consequences.)

And I'll repeat: Piracy is a poor means of protest. If you'd like to protest the price of games, ignore them. Wait until they lower in price. Buy from the cheaper retailers. Don't buy or play them at all. Whatever. Just don't expect publishers to see your piracy as a black and white protest of pricing when so many other variables exist.

[RCBH928]

piracy is not a protest , it is simple business.
I won't buy your apple for $10. for $1 I will buy your apple.
Nothing more nothing less.

I go to my friend's place and I see a stack of ps2 games there. I swear to you, out of the piles and piles of games there was maybe around 1 or 2 that he would have bought the original one. All the rest was bought just cause they were cheap enough.

There are a small margin of lost sales due to piracy but never as much as they mention. I also have to say one of the most things that get pirated are videogames and movies yet earnings are sky high . This only makes conclude that those who are willing to buy do, those who aren't willing to pay , simply pirate.
It is like free publicity

[elvis]

piracy is stealing because you are not rewarding those who put in the effort and risked their own money to bring this game, so they deserve the reward.

By that definition, buying a second hand game is also "stealing".

Not exactly, while it may sound similar.

Imagine it is a book.
If the author published a 1000 books and sold them all. Then that is all the author published and he got paid for it. When I let you read my copy or buy it there is a limit of 1000 books, and only 1000 books at a time can be read which the author got paid for it.

piracy is like buying one book, then replicating it 100, 000 times and distributing it while the author did not get anything for it. His hard time put in research/thinking of this book and he didn't get anything for those extra 100,000 copies.

when buying physical thing you give the author a reward for his hard work. If you buy an ideas(books, novels) or a replicated digital thing like a game , you are jut replicating and the author does not get anything. He put a lot of effort into studying this art and time of his life to create this thing, not just cause you can recreate it it means its for free.

That's still not theft. It's still copyright infringement.

And nobody's countering the point about second hand purchases yet either. That one always seems to stuff things up.

I bet most don't realise that when the PS3 was first conceived, Sony planned to put a write-once layer on all game discs that would tie any physical game to a single games console, never to be sold or re-used again elsewhere. Test-group feedback at the time was obviously poor, and Sony scrapped the idea.

Sony and Nintendo both despise second-hand sellers. So much so that notable second-hand shops in Japan have had much pressure both direct from these big companies and second-hand (pardon the pun) from legislation passed in Japan that makes second-hand sales of electronic items extremely difficult (and no surprises for guessing who funded the campaigns of the politicians who pushed these laws).

I personally think the whole modern games market is flawed from top to toe. Limited runs of physical media, pushed through single publishers who in turn pushed through preferred retailers and local distributors only, and all of it region encoded. It's utterly crap. The anti-piracy mobs yell and scream about "lost potential sales". I'll tell you what stops me buying/playing a game: region protection, and stupidly high shelf prices in my country.

There are dozens of games out there I want to own, but thus far have avoided playing them all together due to local prices being ludicrously high and other titles just not being available at all in PAL territories. I used to go to considerable effort to "pirate" these things (and again the question is raised: is it "theft" if there was no way for me to actually buy the thing?). But these days I don't even bother. Now not only am I not paying for these games, but I'm not playing them. The developers are not getting my attention nor my mind share, and I'm not going on to continue buying their franchises because I never got into the original titles. There's your "lost potential", and not due to piracy, but due to archaic distribution systems that revolve entirely around restrictions, rather than getting games to gamers who are eager and willing to pay money.

And on the rare occasion that I do buy games, I buy old second hand games. Yes sir, there's nothing like paying $10 for a second hand PS2 game and playing it for the first time. Where's the money rewarding the hard work for the developer there? Where are the $10 (or even $20) copies of these same games on store shelves? Nowhere to be seen, it seems. Oh well, another "lost potential sale", and again not due to piracy.

[jfrost]

(and again the question is raised: is it "theft" if there was no way for me to actually buy the thing?).

That's what I say to the anti-piracy folks every now and then. I don't even exist for gaming companies. No gaming console is available for purchase in this country, outside importing. Now, great, I can import, but for ludicrously high prices and no support whatsoever. A pírated game where I live is zero lost sales for any company because games are nowhere to be seen.

People often say "There aren't games on the shelves 'cause companies don't find it profitable to bring them over, seeing that they can be pirated easily." Well, so be it, don't make the games available then. I'm not begging. But do not come to me crying when I don't buy your official products. which are nowhere to be found.

[noiseredux]

that part I can certainly understand. If there's no other way to legally purchase the game. I'm guessing that's why Nintendo invented the VC.

[gtmtnbiker]

And on the rare occasion that I do buy games, I buy old second hand games. Yes sir, there's nothing like paying $10 for a second hand PS2 game and playing it for the first time. Where's the money rewarding the hard work for the developer there? Where are the $10 (or even $20) copies of these same games on store shelves? Nowhere to be seen, it seems. Oh well, another "lost potential sale", and again not due to piracy.

I don't know why people bring up "buying used games don't reward developers/companies for their work" argument. This could apply to anything that is sold again such as cars, furnitures, clothes, toys, tools, etc. Why is a game developer more deserving of more money for items resold than a furniture or tool maker?

[noiseredux]

And on the rare occasion that I do buy games, I buy old second hand games. Yes sir, there's nothing like paying $10 for a second hand PS2 game and playing it for the first time. Where's the money rewarding the hard work for the developer there? Where are the $10 (or even $20) copies of these same games on store shelves? Nowhere to be seen, it seems. Oh well, another "lost potential sale", and again not due to piracy.

I don't know why people bring up "buying used games don't reward developers/companies for their work" argument. This could apply to anything that is sold again such as cars, furnitures, clothes, toys, tools, etc. Why is a game developer more deserving of more money for items resold than a furniture or tool maker?

Plus it's still adding to the economy in some way, shape or form.

[RCBH928]

I guess selling second hand doesn't count. I think maybe the author made a sale for one user at price X and he got it done. The second hand buyer is not a potential sale to the author. Because he is not going to buy it at price "X" he will buy it at price ">X" which the author is not willing to sell. He simply won't sell at that price, fine he doesn't want to make that business.

Another thing I guess the author gets his share in second hand selling. Look at it this way, who will buy a game like Bikini Samurai Squad at $60? But people will buy something like Mass Effect at that price. I think a lot of it because they know in the future it has a resale value like $30 maybe. Samurai Squad will be like $5 in 6 months, so I think this increases sales of the author at high price($60) given his product is at value at resale price.

[elvis]

Another thing I guess the author gets his share in second hand selling. Look at it this way, who will buy a game like Bikini Samurai Squad at $60? But people will buy something like Mass Effect at that price. I think a lot of it because they know in the future it has a resale value like $30 maybe. Samurai Squad will be like $5 in 6 months, so I think this increases sales of the author at high price($60) given his product is at value at resale price.

Wouldn't it be more sensible to do a second run at a later date?

Consider how much money Treasure would make with a second run of Radiant Silvergun on Saturn (let's ignore the technical/disc-media challenges for now, and stay in hypothetical land). Considering that game sells in excess of $200 on eBay, there are second hand hoarders making more money out of that than Treasure ever did.

I think Sony got it right with the "Platinum" games on the Playstation family (although it needs to extend past their top 1% of titles). And Kotaku recently released Capcom's stats for best selling games: Street Fighter was way at the top. Why? Because it's been released and re-released on damned near every platform time and time again over the last 17 years. Almost every console in the last 10 years has had a Street Fighter game or collection available for it.

I don't understand this concept of artificial market starvation. Why are game developers/publishers purposefully not releasing their games after the first run, and then bitching that they didn't hit target sales? And if the answer is that publishing games that don't get sold on store shelves is too costly, why don't they make the second run not on store shelves? And that doesn't necessarily mean digital distribution either. Again, Capcom have a store front on their website that sells their physical console games to the public at RRP. Where's the online storefront for every other developer out there?

I don't condone copyright infringement at all (despite having partaken in it from time to time, simply because I can't find the games locally that I want). But I am getting sick and tired of "piracy" being blamed for a poor sales model. It sounds to me like developers and publishers need to put more effort into getting their stuff out there.

Insomnia.ac cover a lot of this (more focussed on PC games than consoles)
http://insomnia.ac/commentary/pc_game_piracy/

While I don't agree with all of it, there are some very sensible points made. It's time for the games biz to bitch less and work harder at the business/sales side of things. Having "mad coding skillz" is only half the picture.

[elvis]

On the subject of game devs not liking second hand sales:
http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/07/1 ... s?from=rss

Gamestop seem to be making a bit of cash out of it, much to the bane of some.